title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: In the "Stir of Dawn" DLC, the Penitent One can optionally meet Jibrael on a New Game+ playthrough, a giant, hunchbacked man with a bugle contorted around his arms. Finding Jibrael in different locations will allow him to play his bugle, releasing the crystal sarcophagi of the Amanecidas, four women created by the Miracle from the immense passion of Laudes, a devotee of the Twisted One. For revering the Twisted One more than the Miracle, the High Wills punished Laudes by sealing her and the Amanecidas away as undead warriors to be awakened only with the Saeta played through Jibrael's bugle. After defeating the Amanecidas, Jibrael can awaken Laudes, who battles the Penitent One with the combined abilities of the Amanecidas. After defeating Laudes, she dies peacefully and Jibrael, implied to have loved Laudes in life, is similarly able to find peace and pass on.


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: In the "Strife and Ruin" DLC, a crossover event with "", the Penitent One encounters Miriam, the game's protagonist, trapped in Cvstodia on the Miracle's whim. Unable to return to her realm, the Penitent One has the option to aid her by finding crystal shards scattered throughout Cvstodia in order to repair the portal that will send her back. Reclaiming each shard requires the completion of challenging obstacle courses, each subsequent one more difficult than the last. After collecting the shards, Miriam is able to return home, but not before granting the Penitent One a powerful prayer that will summon her to attack alongside him.


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: Creative director Enrique Cabeza has cited the religious art and iconography of Seville, Spain, as a major influence on "Blasphemous"' story and design. Cabeza has also pointed to Spanish and Non-Spanish painters such as Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Juan Luna, Francisco Goya, Jusepe de Ribera, Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán, particularly noting significant inspiration from Goya's "A Procession of Flagellants".


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: On August 4, 2020, a free expansion for "Blasphemous" titled "The Stir of Dawn" was released for all platforms. The update added New Game+ content and a full Spanish dub.


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: According to developer Enrique Colinet, the creators of "Blasphemous" had always wanted to have the game's voices recorded in Spanish, but limited budget allowed for dubbing in only one language. The team opted for English voice acting, aiming towards a wider market. Following the game's commercial success, the developers produced a Spanish dub which featured several renowned Spanish voice actors.


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: On February 18, 2021, another free expansion for "Blasphemous" called "Strife and Ruin" was released for all platforms. The update added a Boss Rush mode, render mode selection, and challenge rooms.


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: The update also features a crossover with another indie Metroidvania, "", where the main character Miriam needs the help of the Penitent One to complete the Challenge Rooms in order for her to return to her world. The developers also added a new Demake Area that features an 8-bit style to the game that makes it feel more like a classic platformer from the NES era of games.


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: "Wounds of Eventide" was released on December 9, 2021 as free DLC. The update mainly added new bosses and new quest, that leads to True Ending of the game.


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: "Blasphemous" received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic. it received praise for its visual style, combat, boss battles and interconnected world while criticism was reserved towards its level design, difficulty and pacing.


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: The game won the awards for "Best Spanish Development" and "Indie Game of the Year" at the 2019 Titanium Awards, where it was also nominated for "Best Art".


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: On March 2, 2021, The Game Kitchen and Team 17 announced that "Blasphemous" had reached 1 million players over all platforms.


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: On June 29, 2021, The Game Kitchen and Team 17 released a "Blasphemous Deluxe Edition" for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch.


title: Blasphemous (video game)

text: The Deluxe Edition features a physical copy of "Blasphemous", stickers, a poster of Cvstodia, a digital comic book, a digital 195-page artbook, a 32-track digital soundtrack, and two bonus skins for the Penitent One.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: Choctaw Stadium, formerly Globe Life Park, is an American multi-purpose stadium in Arlington, Texas, between Dallas and Fort Worth. Originally built as a baseball stadium, it was home to the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball and the Texas Rangers Baseball Hall of Fame from 1994 through 2019, when the team vacated the stadium for Globe Life Field. It was constructed as a replacement for nearby Arlington Stadium and opened in April 1994 as The Ballpark in Arlington.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: In 2020, it was retrofitted for use as a football and soccer facility. The stadium is the home of the Arlington Renegades of the XFL as well as North Texas SC of MLS Next Pro, who are FC Dallas's reserve team and Six Flags Entertainment Corporation which relocated its world headquarters from a converted data center in Grand Prairie to the upper floor of the Centerfield Office Building. The Dallas Jackals of Major League Rugby began play at the stadium in 2022.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: In April 1989, Rangers owner Eddie Chiles sold the team to an investment group headed by George W. Bush. The aging Arlington Stadium was outdated and did not have amenities that helped make other baseball franchises more profitable. As a result, the team could not compete with other big-city teams for good players. In an effort to fund the project through public money instead of private financing, the Rangers threatened to leave Arlington. The city of Arlington spent $150,000 on an advertising campaign to persuade voters to approve the funding through a referendum by printing brochures, placing telemarketing calls, and planning a "Hands Around Arlington Day." On January 19, 1991, over 65% of voters approved the deal, allowing the city government to cover 71% of the costs ($135 million out of $191 million) of building the new ballpark. The deal called for the city to raise the sales tax by half a cent to go toward construction. Both houses of the Texas Legislature unanimously approved the public purpose of the ballpark, and Texas Governor Ann Richards signed it all into law.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: As part of the deal, the city created a separate corporation, the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority (ASFDA), to manage construction. Using authority granted to it by the city, the ASFDA seized several tracts of land around the stadium site using eminent domain for parking and future development.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: Construction on the stadium, which was dubbed The Ballpark in Arlington, began on April 2, 1992, a short distance away from Arlington Stadium, the stadium it would replace, and the new Ballpark in Arlington opened on April 1, 1994, in an exhibition contest between the Rangers and the New York Mets. The first official game was on April 11 against the Milwaukee Brewers.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: Ameriquest bought the naming rights to the ballpark on May 7, 2004, and renamed it Ameriquest Field in Arlington. The Rangers severed their relationship with Ameriquest on March 19, 2007, and announced the park would be renamed Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: The largest crowd to watch a Rangers baseball game was on October 30, 2010, when 52,419 fans watched Game 3 of the 2010 World Series against the San Francisco Giants.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: Globe Life and Accident Insurance Company, a subsidiary of McKinney-based Globe Life, bought the naming rights for the facility on February 5, 2014, naming it Globe Life Park in Arlington.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: On May 20, 2016, the Rangers announced that they intend to move from Globe Life Park to the new Globe Life Field, beginning with the 2020 season. The new air conditioned stadium was slated to feature a retractable roof, which many argued could increase stadium revenue from those who would otherwise not want to sit in the heat during games as the season progresses throughout the hot Texas summer, in particular those that occur in the afternoon. Voting for the new ballpark began on November 8 (the same day as the 2016 presidential election) for residents in the city limits of Arlington. The ballpark was passed with a 60% favorable vote. The stadium opened in the 2020 season.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: The new stadium was built south of Globe Life Park, on the site of a surface parking lot between Randol Mill Road and Cowboys Way. Space between the new stadium and Globe Life Park was constructed into an entertainment complex called Texas Live!, developed by The Cordish Companies, which, when finished, is slated to include sports bars, restaurants, and a 300-room hotel to be developed in three phases. The first phase, dubbed "Rangers Republic", is a two-level venue with multiple restaurants and providing interactive games and authentic memorabilia; the second phase is the Live! Arena, a multi-level venue providing restaurants, a performance stage for concerts, and an outdoor beer garden; Arlington Backyard, the third venue to anchor the entertainment district calls for a large, covered venue that could host concerts, charitable functions, and community events.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: Unlike Arlington Stadium, Choctaw Stadium was not demolished. Originally, city officials announced that they would redevelop the structure as part of the Texas Live! complex. The redevelopment would have retained the ballpark's outfield office complex and facade, and most of the concourse would have been re-purposed. Potential uses included redeveloping the concourse for condos and retail, as well as turning the current field into an amphitheater. On December 5, 2018, city officials announced that the stadium would become the home of the Dallas Renegades of the new XFL, beginning with the league's debut in 2020. North Texas SC, a USL League 1 team also announced they would play at the renovated stadium. Many of the park's lower sections, mostly on the third base side, were removed to make room for the rectangular field which sits horizontally when viewed from behind the home plate. New seats were then added to where the ballpark's outfield once lay.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: On September 29, 2019, after the Rangers' last home game against the New York Yankees, home plate was removed and transferred to the new park. The renovation project of the stadium from a baseball facility into a football and soccer facility began in October. In December 2019, Six Flags Entertainment Corp. announced the company would move its corporate headquarters the following year to the Centerfield Office Building formerly occupied by the Rangers.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: The stadium was designed by the Driehaus Prize winner and New Classical architect David M. Schwarz of Washington, D.C. The Rangers chose to build a retro-style ballpark (Retro-classic, or Retro-modern), incorporating many features of baseball's Jewel Box parks. A roofed home run porch in right field is reminiscent of Tiger Stadium, while the white steel frieze that surrounds the upper deck was copied from the pre-1973 Yankee Stadium. The out-of-town scoreboard (removed in 2009 and replaced with a state-of-the-art video board) was built into the left-field wall—a nod to Fenway Park. The numerous nooks and crannies in the outfield fence are a reminder of Ebbets Field. The arched windows are a reminder of Comiskey Park.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: However, it has a few distinct features of its own. Several traditional Texas-style stone carvings are visible throughout. A four-story office building encloses center field with a white steel multilevel facade similar to the facade on the roof.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: As the stadium was built on one of the former Arlington Stadium parking lots, the irregular dimensions of the outfield were planned independently, rather than being forced by neighboring structures. The home plate, foul poles (replaced prior to the 2016 season), and bleachers were originally at Arlington Stadium. The Home Plate was inserted into place by Richard Greene (then Mayor of Arlington), Elzie Odom (Head of Arlington Home Run Committee and later Mayor of Arlington), and George W. Bush (former part Rangers owner, later Texas Governor and President of the United States).


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: The stadium's -long facades are made of brick and Texas Sunset Red granite. Bas-relief friezes depict significant scenes from the history of both Texas and baseball. The calculus of seating arrangements represented a new economic model for the sport: a critical mass of high-dollar seats close to the infield boost ticket revenue. The stadium has three basic seating tiers: lower, club and upper deck. Two levels of luxury suites occupy spaces behind sliding glass doors above and below the club tier.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: The stadium has a large number of obstructed-view seats. In some cases, the view is cut off by an overhang or underhang, and others are directly in front of support poles. Also, the design of the upper deck left it one of the highest in baseball. The view from the grandstand reserved sections in left is particularly obstructed.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: Prior to the 2012 season, the visitor bullpen was reconfigured to be parallel to the field after the previous visitor bullpen configuration had an excessive amount of heat during hot weather games. To allow construction, a few rows of bleacher sections were removed.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: "Greene's Hill" is a sloped section of turf located beyond the former center field fence. The Hill served as a batter's eye, providing a contrasting background behind the pitchers which enabled hitters to more easily see the baseball after the pitcher's release. It was originally designed as a picnic area for fans but the Rangers never initiated that policy. It was named after former Arlington mayor Richard Greene in November 1997. For a couple of years in the 2000s, the Rangers had the "T" from the Texas Rangers logo mowed into the grass. In 2010, the Rangers started a tradition where they had four girls run around on it with giant Texas state flags when the Rangers scored, similar to what many football teams do when their teams score. Unlike most batter's eyes, fans were allowed to run onto the hill to catch a home run.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: During the stadium's existence as a baseball park, it was one of baseball's most notoriously hitter-friendly parks, due to the high temperatures, relatively short fences, and the design of the stadium which allowed the area's high winds to swirl and lift balls that wouldn't normally make it out. In truth, the park would have given up even more home runs if not for the office building in center and the field being below street level.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: With a combination of the park's design and the many good hitters who played for the Rangers during the team's tenure in the park, the Rangers recorded fairly high home run totals. In 1996, the Rangers hit 221 home runs. They eclipsed 200 again in 1998 (201), 1999 (230), 2001 (241), 2002 (230), 2003 (239), 2004 (227), and 2005 (260, four short of the all-time record of 264 by the 1997 Seattle Mariners). Many of the Rangers' already-skilled hitters took advantage of this, some even racking up multiple 30+ Home run seasons, such as Ian Kinsler, Adrián Beltré, and Josh Hamilton. The longest home run recorded was 505 feet to right field by Rangers RF Nomar Mazara on June 21, 2019.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: Despite being hailed as a wonderful venue in its infant years, articles in "The Dallas Morning News" began to suggest that the ballpark would have been better served by having a dome or retractable roof – much like Minute Maid Park, the home of the Houston Astros – due to the often oppressive heat that settles over Texas in summer during baseball season, with temperatures on the field being in excess of 110°. Many argue that the intense heat was a liability in attracting players, particularly starting pitchers.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: When the Arlington ballpark was built in the early 1990s, the only Major League Baseball stadium with a retractable roof was Toronto's SkyDome (now known as the Rogers Centre), which opened in 1989. (Also, Montreal's Olympic Stadium was still in use as a ballpark at the time; in 1987, a retractable roof was installed which never worked correctly and was rarely if ever retracted.) The other modern retractable-roof ballparks like Chase Field, T-Mobile Park, Minute Maid Park, LoanDepot Park and American Family Field were built several years later.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: On December 3, 2010, the Rangers announced that extensive renovations to the stadium would be made and ready for the 2011 season. These renovations included:


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: It was announced on December 5, 2018, that the stadium's lower stands would undergo extensive renovations once the Renegades moved into the stadium in 2020. The conversion to Choctaw Stadium from Globe Life Park was designed by SBL Architecture, Inc. When renovations for the football layout began, the Texas Rangers sold 6,000 souvenir seats in pairs. A broadcast booth and two booths for football coaches were built in the renovated lower suites and two new auxiliary locker rooms were built on the service level. The Rangers' clubhouse became the Renegades' locker room and coaches offices. Lockers were added to the visiting locker room to accommodate Renegades opponents.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: On April 11, 1994, the first game at the ballpark, Hollye Minter, who was posing for a picture while intoxicated, fell 35 feet over a railing in right field, fracturing several bones and causing the team to raise the height of the railings.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: On July 6, 2010, firefighter Tyler Morris, leaning over the rail to catch a Nelson Cruz foul ball, fell 30 feet onto the section below him, causing a head injury and a severely sprained ankle to himself and minor injuries to fans he landed on. The game was stopped for 15 minutes while paramedics treated him.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: On July 7, 2011, firefighter Shannon Stone, from Brownwood, Texas, was attending the Rangers game against the Oakland Athletics with his six-year-old son, Cooper, when outfielder Josh Hamilton threw him a ball, as he had asked. Reaching for it, he flipped over the railing and fell 20 feet, head-first, onto the concrete behind the out-of-town scoreboard in left field. He was conscious and talking as paramedics tended to him, but he died en route to the hospital. The cause of death was identified as blunt force trauma. This was the fourth fall in the stadium's 17 years of history. A moment of silence was held for him prior to the next day's game, both the Rangers and Athletics wore black ribbons on their uniforms, and the flags at the stadium were flown at half-staff in memory of him. The Rangers Foundation set up a memorial fund for Stone's family.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: A tarp was placed over the opening through which Stone fell. Rangers team president Nolan Ryan said the height of the railings exceeds the requirement of the building codes but said the team would do "whatever it takes" to ensure the safety of the fans; on July 20, 2011, the Rangers announced they would raise all railings in the front of seating sections to 42 inches. On August 10, 2011, the team announced it would erect a statue memorializing Stone. Cooper helped unveil the statue on April 5, 2012. It depicts him and his father wearing baseball caps. They are holding hands and looking at each other as if they were talking. The inscription on the statue reads "In memory of Shannon Stone and dedicated to all fans who love the game".


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: On September 30, 2011, Cooper threw out the ceremonial first pitch to honor his father before Game 1 of the 2011 ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: The Ballpark In Arlington was the site of one perfect game. Kenny Rogers retired all 27 batters on July 28, 1994, against the California Angels.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: The ballpark hosted the 1995 MLB All-Star Game. The first MLB regular-season interleague game was played there on June 12, 1997, when the Rangers played the San Francisco Giants. There were four interleague games on the schedule that night, but the other three were played on the West Coast, so the Giants–Rangers matchup started earlier than the others.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: On September 18, 1999, Jim Morris made his major league debut there at age 35, ten years after he had retired from baseball following four arm surgeries. Morris became the oldest player to debut in the big leagues since Minnie Mendoza in 1970.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: The first postseason game won by the Rangers there would come in game 2 of the 2010 ALCS, by a score of 7–2 over the Yankees on October 16, 2010. Six days later, the Rangers clinched their first ever American League pennant there after a 6–1 victory over the New York Yankees in game 6 of the ALCS, getting the third out in the ninth from former Ranger Alex Rodriguez.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: Two world series have been played in The Ballpark In Arlington. The Rangers hosted games 3, 4 and 5 of the 2010 World Series; the San Francisco Giants won the final two games to win the series in five. Games 3, 4 and 5 of the 2011 World Series were also played there, with the Rangers winning 2 of 3 home games, but losing games 6 and 7 to the Cardinals in St. Louis. This was one of three sporting championships to take place in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in the same year, along with Super Bowl XLV and the 2011 NBA Finals.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: It hosted the 2002 and the 2004 Big 12 baseball tournament. Since 2013, the UT Arlington baseball team annually hosts one game in the stadium every March.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: Scenes from Walt Disney Pictures' "The Rookie" were shot there. Filming included actor Dennis Quaid (as Jim Morris) running onto the playing field from the visitors' bullpen during the seventh-inning stretch of an actual game in progress.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: Prior to the XFL's shutdown after five weeks in 2020, the Dallas Renegades had played three games in the stadium. They lost all three beginning with a 15–9 defeat in the season opener against the St. Louis BattleHawks. After the Houston Roughnecks defeated the Renegades 27–20 in Week 4, their last game at Globe Life Park was a 30–12 loss to the New York Guardians. The Dallas Renegades will continue play in the stadium starting with the 2023 season.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: In 2021, the stadium became home of the annual Arlington Showdown featuring the Texas Southern Tigers versus the Southern University Jaguars.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: The stadium hosts University Interscholastic League (UIL) and Arlington Independent School District (AISD) high school football games.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: The International Champions Cup soccer match featuring Atletico de Madrid of Spain vs. Chivas de Guadalajara of Mexico was played on July 23, 2019. It was the first time that a soccer match involving professional clubs was played at Choctaw Stadium. North Texas SC of USL League One moved from its previous home in Frisco to Choctaw Stadium beginning in 2020.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: It was the venue for the Dallas/Fort Worth MDA Muscle Walk event that took place on September 20, 2014. This was previously held at AT&T Stadium (formerly Cowboys Stadium) from 2010 to 2013.


title: Choctaw Stadium

text: On June 17, 2019, a tornado with estimated strength of EF-1 touched down in Arlington near Choctaw Stadium. Officials said the storm damaged windscreens in left field and caused damage to a small portion of the left field roof. Further, the Chick-fil-A signage on the foul pole in left field was damaged.


title: Smelting

text: Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a chemical reducing agent to decompose the ore, driving off other elements as gases or slag and leaving the metal base behind. The reducing agent is commonly a fossil fuel source of carbon, such as coke—or, in earlier times, charcoal. The oxygen in the ore binds to carbon at high temperatures due to the lower potential energy of the bonds in carbon dioxide (). Smelting most prominently takes place in a blast furnace to produce pig iron, which is converted into steel.


title: Smelting

text: The carbon source acts as a chemical reactant to remove oxygen from the ore, yielding the purified metal element as a product. The carbon source is oxidized in two stages. First, the carbon (C) combusts with oxygen (O) in the air to produce carbon monoxide (CO). Second, the carbon monoxide reacts with the ore (e.g. FeO) and removes one of its oxygen atoms, releasing carbon dioxide (). After successive interactions with carbon monoxide, all of the oxygen in the ore will be removed, leaving the raw metal element (e.g. Fe). As most ores are impure, it is often necessary to use a flux, such as limestone (or dolomite), to remove the accompanying rock gangue as slag. This calcination reaction also frequently emits carbon dioxide.


title: Smelting

text: Plants for the electrolytic reduction of aluminium are also generally referred to as aluminium smelters.


title: Smelting

text: Smelting involves more than just melting the metal out of its ore. Most ores are the chemical compound of the metal and other elements, such as oxygen (as an oxide), sulfur (as a sulfide), or carbon and oxygen together (as a carbonate). To extract the metal, workers must make these compounds undergo a chemical reaction. Smelting therefore consists of using suitable reducing substances that combine with those oxidizing elements to free the metal.


title: Smelting

text: In the case of sulfides and carbonates, a process called "roasting" removes the unwanted carbon or sulfur, leaving an oxide, which can be directly reduced. Roasting is usually carried out in an oxidizing environment. A few practical examples:


title: Smelting

text: Reduction is the final, high-temperature step in smelting, in which the oxide becomes the elemental metal. A reducing environment (often provided by carbon monoxide, made by incomplete combustion in an air-starved furnace) pulls the final oxygen atoms from the raw metal. The required temperature varies over a very large range, both in absolute terms and in terms of the melting point of the base metal. Examples:


title: Smelting

text: Flux and slag can provide a secondary service after the reduction step is complete: they provide a molten cover on the purified metal, preventing contact with oxygen while still hot enough to readily oxidize. This prevents impurities from forming in the metal.


title: Smelting

text: Metal workers use fluxes in smelting for several purposes, chief among them catalyzing the desired reactions and chemically binding to unwanted impurities or reaction products. Calcium oxide, in the form of lime, was often used for this purpose, since it could react with the carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide produced during roasting and smelting to keep them out of the working environment.


title: Smelting

text: Of the seven metals known in antiquity, only gold occurs regularly in native form in the natural environment. The others – copper, lead, silver, tin, iron and mercury – occur primarily as minerals, though copper is occasionally found in its native state in commercially significant quantities. These minerals are primarily carbonates, sulfides, or oxides of the metal, mixed with other components such as silica and alumina. Roasting the carbonate and sulfide minerals in air converts them to oxides. The oxides, in turn, are smelted into the metal. Carbon monoxide was (and is) the reducing agent of choice for smelting. It is easily produced during the heating process, and as a gas comes into intimate contact with the ore.


title: Smelting

text: In the Old World, humans learned to smelt metals in prehistoric times, more than 8000 years ago. The discovery and use of the "useful" metals – copper and bronze at first, then iron a few millennia later – had an enormous impact on human society. The impact was so pervasive that scholars traditionally divide ancient history into Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.


title: Smelting

text: In the Americas, pre-Inca civilizations of the central Andes in Peru had mastered the smelting of copper and silver at least six centuries before the first Europeans arrived in the 16th century, while never mastering the smelting of metals such as iron for use with weapon-craft.


title: Smelting

text: In the Old World, the first metals smelted were tin and lead. The earliest known cast lead beads were found in the Çatalhöyük site in Anatolia (Turkey), and dated from about 6500 BC, but the metal may have been known earlier.


title: Smelting

text: Since the discovery happened several millennia before the invention of writing, there is no written record about how it was made. However, tin and lead can be smelted by placing the ores in a wood fire, leaving the possibility that the discovery may have occurred by accident.


title: Smelting

text: Lead is a common metal, but its discovery had relatively little impact in the ancient world. It is too soft to use for structural elements or weapons, though its high density relative to other metals makes it ideal for sling projectiles. However, since it was easy to cast and shape, workers in the classical world of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome used it extensively to pipe and store water. They also used it as a mortar in stone buildings.


title: Smelting

text: Tin was much less common than lead and is only marginally harder, and had even less impact by itself.


title: Smelting

text: After tin and lead, the next metal smelted appears to have been copper. How the discovery came about is debated. Campfires are about 200 °C short of the temperature needed, so some propose that the first smelting of copper may have occurred in pottery kilns. The development of copper smelting in the Andes, which is believed to have occurred independently of the Old World, may have occurred in the same way. The earliest current evidence of copper smelting, dating from between 5500 BC and 5000 BC, has been found in Pločnik and Belovode, Serbia. A mace head found in Can Hasan, Turkey and dated to 5000 BC, once thought to be the oldest evidence, now appears to be hammered native copper.


title: Smelting

text: Combining copper with tin and/or arsenic in the right proportions produces bronze, an alloy that is significantly harder than copper. The first copper/arsenic bronzes date from 4200 BC from Asia Minor. The Inca bronze alloys were also of this type. Arsenic is often an impurity in copper ores, so the discovery could have been made by accident. Eventually arsenic-bearing minerals were intentionally added during smelting.


title: Smelting

text: How smiths learned to produce copper/tin bronzes is unknown. The first such bronzes may have been a lucky accident from tin-contaminated copper ores. However, by 2000 BC, people were mining tin on purpose to produce bronze—which is amazing given that tin is a semi-rare metal, and even a rich cassiterite ore only has 5% tin. Also, it takes special skills (or special instruments) to find it and locate richer lodes. However early peoples learned about tin, they understood how to use it to make bronze by 2000 BC.


title: Smelting

text: The discovery of copper and bronze manufacture had a significant impact on the history of the Old World. Metals were hard enough to make weapons that were heavier, stronger, and more resistant to impact damage than wood, bone, or stone equivalents. For several millennia, bronze was the material of choice for weapons such as swords, daggers, battle axes, and spear and arrow points, as well as protective gear such as shields, helmets, greaves (metal shin guards), and other body armor. Bronze also supplanted stone, wood, and organic materials in tools and household utensils—such as chisels, saws, adzes, nails, blade shears, knives, sewing needles and pins, jugs, cooking pots and cauldrons, mirrors, and horse harnesses. Tin and copper also contributed to the establishment of trade networks that spanned large areas of Europe and Asia, and had a major effect on the distribution of wealth among individuals and nations.


title: Smelting

text: The earliest evidence for iron-making is a small number of iron fragments with the appropriate amounts of carbon admixture found in the Proto-Hittite layers at Kaman-Kalehöyük and dated to 2200–2000 BCE. Souckova-Siegolová (2001) shows that iron implements were made in Central Anatolia in very limited quantities around 1800 BCE and were in general use by elites, though not by commoners, during the New Hittite Empire (∼1400–1200 BCE).


title: Smelting

text: Archaeologists have found indications of iron working in Ancient Egypt, somewhere between the Third Intermediate Period and 23rd Dynasty (ca. 1100–750 BCE). Significantly though, they have found no evidence for iron ore smelting in any (pre-modern) period. In addition, very early instances of carbon steel were in production around 2000 years ago (around the first century CE.) in northwest Tanzania, based on complex preheating principles. These discoveries are significant for the history of metallurgy.


title: Smelting

text: Most early processes in Europe and Africa involved smelting iron ore in a bloomery, where the temperature is kept low enough so that the iron does not melt. This produces a spongy mass of iron called a bloom, which then must be consolidated with a hammer to produce wrought iron. The earliest evidence to date for the bloomery smelting of iron is found at Tell Hammeh, Jordan (), and dates to 930 BCE (C14 dating).


title: Smelting

text: From the medieval period, an indirect process began to replace direct reduction in bloomeries. This used a blast furnace to make pig iron, which then had to undergo a further process to make forgeable bar iron. Processes for the second stage include fining in a finery forge and, from the Industrial Revolution, puddling. Both processes are now obsolete, and wrought iron is now rarely made. Instead, mild steel is produced from a bessemer converter or by other means including smelting reduction processes such as the Corex Process.


title: Smelting

text: The ores of base metals are often sulfides. In recent centuries, reverberatory furnaces have been used to keep the charge being smelted separate from the fuel. Traditionally, they were used for the first step of smelting: forming two liquids, one an oxide slag containing most of the impurities, and the other a sulfide matte containing the valuable metal sulfide and some impurities. Such "reverb" furnaces are today about 40 meters long, 3 meters high and 10 meters wide. Fuel is burned at one end to melt the dry sulfide concentrates (usually after partial roasting) which are fed through openings in the roof of the furnace. The slag floats over the heavier matte and is removed and discarded or recycled. The sulfide matte is then sent to the converter. The precise details of the process vary from one furnace to another depending on the mineralogy of the orebody.


title: Smelting

text: While reverberatory furnaces produced slags containing very little copper, they were relatively energy inefficient and off-gassed a low concentration of sulfur dioxide that was difficult to capture; a new generation of copper smelting technologies has supplanted them. More recent furnaces exploit bath smelting, top-jetting lance smelting, flash smelting and blast furnaces. Some examples of bath smelters include the Noranda furnace, the Isasmelt furnace, the Teniente reactor, the Vunyukov smelter and the SKS technology. Top-jetting lance smelters include the Mitsubishi smelting reactor. Flash smelters account for over 50% of the world's copper smelters. There are many more varieties of smelting processes, including the Kivset, Ausmelt, Tamano, EAF, and BF.


title: Smelting

text: Smelting has serious effects on the environment, producing wastewater and slag and releasing such toxic metals as copper, silver, iron, cobalt and selenium into the atmosphere. Smelters also release gaseous sulfur dioxide, contributing to acid rain, which acidifies soil and water.


title: Smelting

text: The smelter in Flin Flon, Canada was one of the largest point sources of mercury in North America in the 20th century. Even after smelter releases were drastically reduced, landscape re-emission continued to be a major regional source of mercury. Lakes will likely receive mercury contamination from the smelter for decades, from both re-emissions returning as rainwater and leaching of metals from the soil.


title: Smelting

text: Air pollutants generated by aluminum smelters include carbonyl sulfide, hydrogen fluoride, polycyclic compounds, lead, nickel, manganese, polychlorinated biphenyls and mercury. Copper smelter emissions include arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, lead, manganese and nickel. Lead smelters typically emit arsenic, antimony, cadmium and various lead compounds.


title: Smelting

text: Wastewater pollutants discharged by iron and steel mills includes gasification products such as benzene, naphthalene, anthracene, cyanide, ammonia, phenols and cresols, together with a range of more complex organic compounds known collectively as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Treatment technologies include recycling of wastewater; settling basins, clarifiers and filtration systems for solids removal; oil skimmers and filtration; chemical precipitation and filtration for dissolved metals; carbon adsorption and biological oxidation for organic pollutants; and evaporation.


title: Smelting

text: Pollutants generated by other types of smelters varies with the base metal ore. For example, aluminum smelters typically generate fluoride, benzo(a)pyrene, antimony and nickel, as well as aluminum. Copper smelters typically discharge cadmium, lead, zinc, arsenic and nickel, in addition to copper.


title: Smelting

text: Labourers working in the smelting industry have reported respiratory illnesses inhibiting their ability to perform the physical tasks demanded by their jobs.


title: Smelting

text: In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency has published pollution control regulations for smelters.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: Rowdy Rathore is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language action comedy film directed by Prabhu Deva and produced by Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Ronnie Screwvala under the UTV Motion Pictures and Bhansali Productions banners. A remake of the 2006 Telugu film "Vikramarkudu", based on an original story written by V. Vijayendra Prasad, it stars Akshay Kumar in double roles of a brave police officer and thief. The film also features Sonakshi Sinha, Gurdeep Kohli, Yashpal Sharma and Paresh Ganatra in supporting roles, while Nassar portrays the main antagonist. In the film, Vikram Rathore, a brave police officer, dies at the hands of corrupt politicians. But his team replaces him with Shiva, a thief who happens to be his look-alike, in an attempt to catch the culprits.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: Filmed primarily in Mumbai and Hampi on a budget of 60 crore, "Rowdy Rathore" was released worldwide on 1 June 2012. Its music was composed by Sajid–Wajid. It opened to mixed to reviews from the critics and became a blockbuster at the domestic and worldwide box office. Good word-of-mouth had helped it to take its distributor share to in India at the end of its run. It has emerged one of the biggest grosser ever in Mumbai circuit and grossed in seven weeks. The film grossed over becoming one of the highest-grossing Indian films.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: Shivam "Shiva" Bhardwaj is a small-time thief in Mumbai who falls in love with Parvati "Paro" Gupta from Patna. He tells her the truth about being a thief and resolves to give up crime because he loves Paro dearly. Before that, he decides to commit a large robbery along with his con-friend 2G, which would enable him to earn a lot of money so he can give up the crime life. He also "tricks" a woman on a railway station and flees with a trunk. This leads Shiva to Chinki, a little girl who was in the trunk instead of the wealth he thought was there. Chinki thinks that he is her father. Puzzled, he is forced to keep Chinki with him, as a police officer Vishal Sharma keeps his eye on him.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: Shiva fears Paro will catch him with Chinki, and he will lose her forever. He finds a photo of Chinki and her father, who looks exactly like Shiva, thus realizing why Chinki thinks Shiva is her father. Eventually, it is revealed that Chinki's father is Vikram Singh Rathore, a brave police officer who criminals fear. While chasing a goon to find his daughter, Vikram gets hit by an auto, and his brain endures severe trauma. The doctor tells him that the brain injury is serious enough to put his life in danger.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: After a few days, Shiva gets fed up with Chinki and breaks the tape recorder she uses to listen to her late mother's voice. The next morning, he learns that her mother died. Feeling guilty, he fixes the recorder and becomes fond of Chinki, taking care of her. Unfortunately, Paro sees this and believes he has a daughter that he hid from her, and she leaves for Patna heartbroken. Soon, the goons who are after Vikram see Shiva. Thinking he is Vikram, they start chasing him. Shiva and Chinki flee for their lives and encounter the woman from the railway station, who tells Shiva to run. Shiva is soon surrounded by the goons; it is revealed that Vikram is watching the whole thing from the top of a building. Just as Shiva is about to get stabbed, Vikram jumps down, killing one of the goons.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: Shiva and the goons are shocked to see the identical-looking Vikram. Vikram locks Shiva and Chinki in a cell for safety and starts fighting the goons. His brain injury gets worse, but he eventually kills every goon by himself.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: At the hospital, Shiva realizes that the railway station woman is, in fact, a real police officer, Inspector Razia Khan. The officers tell Shiva that the man who looks like him is ASP Vikram Singh Rathore, a disciplined and respected police officer.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: The officers narrate the whole incident to Shiva. Six months ago, Vikram traveled to a village called Devgarh as the new ASP. There, a goon called Baapji and his son Munna caused trouble, torturing and annexing money from the villagers. Vikram immediately arrested Munna by force for raping Vishal's wife, but he was released because of Baapji's political influence. Baapji arranged a party celebrating Munna's release. At the party, Munna humiliated the police officers and made them pull their pants down. Vikram, being the next target, moved back to the balcony, where Munna slipped off and died in the process. The next day, Vikram got attacked by Baapji's brother Titla, where he was stabbed in the back while the people were celebrating Munna's death, and shot in the head while trying to save a village child. He was then assumed to be dead. While the police officers were getting ready to bury him, he started breathing, having survived. Everybody promised not to disclose this to anyone. The officers then took Vikram to Mumbai for treatment.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: After Shiva hears the whole story, the doctors say that Vikram doesn't have much time left. Vikram requests Shiva to take care of Chinki. Shiva promises and says that Chinki is now his daughter. Vikram dies holding Shiva's hand.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: Shiva vows to complete Vikram's unfinished work. He takes on Vikram's identity and goes to Devgarh with Chinki to take revenge. He sets Baapji's liquor factory on fire and distributes the grains and money back to the villagers. Paro finds out the truth, reconciles with him, and vows that she will also take care of Chinki. He also encouraged police officers to beat Baapji and crews with sticks. Following a heavy climax, Shiva eventually kills Baapji and Titla, and rescues Paro and Chinki after they are kidnapped by Baapji and Titla. The story with Devgarh now falling back into safe hands and Shiva, Paro and 2G leaving on train with Chinki, presumably back to Mumbai.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: Akshay Kumar learnt a special combat karate technique for his character role in the film. Kumar reported that he had accepted the role in "Rowdy Rathore" since his son loves to watch him in action roles. Sanjay Leela Bhansali teamed up with designer Shabinaa Khan to co-produce "Rowdy Rathore", which is his first film with Akshay Kumar. It is also Bhansali's second film as a producer and his first in the action genre. Maryam Zakaria was selected to perform an item number.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: The filming started on 10 August 2011. During the shooting for a climax scene, Akshay hurt his shoulder. The police denied permission for the shooting of "Rowdy Rathore" at the World Heritage Site Hampi, following protests from local activists and artists. The film unit consisting of director Prabhu Deva, actors Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha and 50 other dancers left the site on Tuesday, authorities issued directions to the crew to stop shooting with immediate effect following violations of ASI conservation rules and for tranquillity. Local people and artists opposed the shooting of a song sequence, featuring Akshay and Sonakshi, along with many dancers, scheduled to be shot at several heritage sites in Karnataka, including the Vijaya Vittala temple, Lotus Mahal, Maha Navami Dibba and other historic places in the 15th century capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. The movie had the 50 crore insurance for Akshay Kumar.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: The trailer of "Rowdy Rathore" was launched in an open stadium in Worli on 2 April 2012 and received over 2,295,756 views in under one month on YouTube.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: UTV tied up with radio channel Red FM for organizing a contest titled "Rowdy Hunt" to look for social do-gooders and others who work towards social betterment – winners of the contest will accompany star Akshay Kumar to promote the film during his tours. The hunt has taken place in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mumbai and New Delhi, where callers were invited to share their grievances and tackle the culprit on a public platform in true "Rowdy" style. The RJ/host will then select five rowdies in each city based on a "Rowdy Meter" who will then comprise Akshay Kumar's Rowdy Gang in a particular city.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: The cast and crew went to Dubai as part of the promotional tour. Sonakshi Sinha promoted the film on Big FM. On 26 May 2012, she promoted the film on "Dance India Dance Lil' Masters" on Zee Tv, and the Zee Network are giving out free cinema tickets to people who are correct in the Safari Cinema. Wardrobe company Dollar Industries has tied up with the producers to promote their products with the film.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: The soundtrack is by Sajid–Wajid and was released on 27 April 2012. The line "Chinta Ta Ta Ta" and part of its music has been borrowed from the original song of its Telugu version, which was confirmed by Wajid. Kumar Sanu has sung a song for this film, making his comeback after four years.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: The film received a U/A certificate from Central Board of Film Certification and the film's satellite rights was sold for . The film released worldwide on 1 June 2012. "Rowdy Rathore" was released in 2,300 screens in India and around 400 screens overseas.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: "Rowdy Rathore" received mixed reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 4 stars, saying, "If you savor typical masaledaar fares, this one should be on your have-to-watch listing for certain. Dhamaal entertainer!" "DNA India" gave 3 stars out of 5 and said, ""Rowdy" is Akshay's return to action. And how! The actor takes charge of the film from the first scene and holds it tight all through. To put it simply, the film is to Akshay what "Wanted" was for Salman!" Srijana Mitra Das for "The Times of India" gave the film 3 stars of 5, and said, "Fans will love Akshay's mooch-twirling masala-act but be ready for hardcore action too — some pretty gruesome."


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: Mrigank Dhaniwala for Koimoi.com gave it 3 stars out of 5, and gave the verdict that the film entertains in parts. "Watch it for Akshay Kumar's performance and the comedy." Shomini Sen from Zee News also gave 3 stars out of 5 and said, "The premise of the film may be good, but the treatment is that of a typical south Indian pot boiler." Based on 21 reviews, review aggregate site desimartini.com gave the verdict, "Although the movie doesn't do complete justice to the original Telugu blockbuster, it does have some funny dialogues and action sequences that will make you want to whistle! "Rowdy Rathore" is a one time watch." The site's average audience rating is 3/5.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the film 2 stars out of 5, saying, ""Rowdy Rathore" plays out pretty much like a comic-book fantasy rendered in the form of a live-action film. Go for it if you must, but don't expect the earth from it." Blessy Chettiar of "DNA India" gave the film 2 stars out of 5, concluding, "Akshay's me-too is fun while it lasts. Watch it for him, lest he feels bad for jumping on the South remake bandwagon too late to get any attention." Raja Sen of Rediff.com too gave the film 2 stars out of 5, and commented, "It can hardly be called a film, but ah well. Watch it if only to remind yourself of old Khiladi flicks..." Oneindia.in criticised the film's illogical plot, however concluded saying, "Overall, "Rowdy Rathore" is a total paisa wasool film, hence it's a must watch."


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: Trisha Gupta of Firstpost reviewed "Rowdy Rathore is a mess of maal, masala and moustache while it has neither the wit nor the charm needed to craft a real send-up". Mayank Shekhar, on his website theW14.com, says "While you can't tell one Akshay Kumar from the other in this film, you obviously can't tell this film from any other action hit from recent or distant past either. That's what a dead formula film is supposed to be. Going by box-office figures, the producers, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and UTV, are certain this is what the audiences currently desire. They probably do. Is this what they deserve? I'm not sure. Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times gave the film 1 out of 5 stars and said, "The film is one more in the line of movies — many of which are remakes from the south — that value masala above all else. But Dabangg and even Wanted, the latter of which was also directed by Prabhu Deva, were far more cohesive and compelling. Rowdy Rathore is pure noise. Only the brave should venture in." Rajeev Masand of "CNN-IBN" gave 1 stars out of 5, commenting "At 2 hours and 20 minutes, Rowdy Rathore is excruciatingly long. The one-liners have little impact and make no sense, and the action has a been-there-seen-that feel to it. A few jokes work because Akshay Kumar does goofy well, but this film doesn't have half the energy of Prabhudeva's last directorial outing in Hindi, the Salman Khan starrer Wanted."


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: "Rowdy Rathore" had been the most appreciated film since "Dabangg" released in 2010. It had seen the best word of mouth since "Dabangg" which is reflected in trending of its first three-week run. Good word-of-mouth had helped it to take its distributor share to in India at the end of its run. "Rowdy Rathore" has emerged one of the biggest grosser ever in Mumbai circuit and grossed in seven weeks. The film grossed over and became one of the highest grossing Hindi films of that year.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: The film took a bumper opening at single screens at an occupancy of around 95%–100%. It collected around nett domestic in the opening day. "Rowdy Rathore" had a good opening weekend with collection of . The film further collected on Monday and on Tuesday. "Rowdy Rathore" had collected around nett plus in its first week and this makes it the second highest collections ever for a regular Friday-Thursday week behind "Dabangg", which collected nett. The collections of "Rowdy Rathore" were around nett on its 8th day, which was better than the new release "Shanghai" on its first week. The film collected a huge nett in its second week taking the two-week business to nett. It was steady on its third week as it collected around nett on its third Friday despite being new release, "Ferrari Ki Sawaari". It had collected nett in third week, in fourth week and nett in fifth week thus taken its five weeks total to . The film eventually made in India.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: "Rowdy Rathore" had collected around overseas in ten days. Collections had been considered average" in most circuits while UAE was the best. "Rowdy Rathore" has finished around and is an average fare overseas.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: The satellite rights of the Hindi version were syndicated to Sony Entertainment Television. Later on, the film was also dubbed in regional languages- Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. The rights of the Tamil Version were secured by Star Vijay. The rights of the Telugu version were purchased by Star Maa. The rights of the Malayalam version were acquired by Asianet. All the three dubbed versions were given a U/A rating.


title: Rowdy Rathore

text: For theatrical release, the film was given a U/A certificate, but later on, the film was recertified U by the censor board for video and release on Doordarshan.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: Operation Gothic Serpent was a military operation conducted in Mogadishu, Somalia, by an American force code-named "Task Force Ranger" during the Somali Civil War in 1993. The primary objective of the operation was to capture Mohamed Farrah Aidid, a Somalia clan leader who was wanted by the Unified Task Force in response to his attacks against United Nations troops. The operation took place from August to October 1993 and was led by US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: On 3 October 1993, the task force executed a mission to capture two of Aidid's lieutenants. The mission ultimately culminated in what became known as the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. The battle was extremely bloody and the task force inflicted massive casualties on Somali militia forces, while suffering heavy losses themselves. The Malaysian, Pakistani, and conventional US Army troops under UNOSOM II which aided in TF Ranger's extraction suffered losses as well, though not as heavy. Overall, the Somali National Alliance achieved a strategic victory as the battle resulted in the withdrawal of American troops during 1994. The aftermath of this confrontation shifted American foreign policy and led to an eventual termination of the United Nations mission in Somalia in 1995. At the time, the Battle of Mogadishu was the most intense, bloodiest single firefight involving US troops since Vietnam.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: In December 1992, US President George H. W. Bush ordered the military to join the UN in a joint operation known as Operation Restore Hope, with the primary mission of restoring order in Somalia. The country was racked by civil war and a severe famine as it was ruled by a number of faction leaders. Over the next several months, the situation deteriorated.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: During the early months of 1993, all the parties involved in the civil war agreed to a disarmament conference held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopa. Enactment of the agreed upon terms, however, was not so easily achieved. One particularly powerful party, the Somali National Alliance, formed in 1992 and led by Mohamed Farah Aidid, was a particularly belligerent faction. This alliance consisted of faction leaders across the country operating under Aidid's. A great number of Somali civilians also resented the international forces, leading many, including women and children, to take up arms and actively resist US forces during fighting in Mogadishu.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: On 5 June 1993, one of the deadliest attacks on UN forces in Somalia occurred when 24 Pakistani soldiers were ambushed and killed in an Aidid-controlled area of Mogadishu. Any hope of a peaceful resolution of the conflict quickly vanished. The next day, the UN Security Council issued Resolution 837, calling for the arrest and trial of those who carried out the ambush. US warplanes and UN troops began an attack on Aidid's stronghold. Aidid remained defiant, and the violence between Somalis and UN forces escalated.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: On 8 August 1993, Aidid's militia detonated a remote controlled bomb against a US Army vehicle, killing four Military Police. On 19 August, a second bomb attack injured four more soldiers. And on 22 August, a third attack occurred, injuring 6 US soldiers. In response, President Clinton approved Operation Gothic Serpent, which would deploy a 441 man special task force, named Task Force Ranger, to hunt down and capture Aidid. By this time, however, circumstances on the ground had changed significantly and Aidid was in hiding, no longer appearing publicly.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: On 22 August, advance forces were deployed to Somalia followed shortly after by the main force on 25 August. The task force was handled as a strategic asset and led by Major General William F. Garrison, head of JSOC, and was not under UN command or the command of US General Thomas M. Montgomery, the deputy commander of UNOSOM II forces as well as commander of US forces in Somalia. Instead, Garrison and TF Ranger received orders directly from CENTCOM.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: The task force had intelligence support from a joint effort between CIA officers and Intelligence Support Activity.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: In Mogadishu, the task force occupied an old hangar and construction trailers under primitive conditions, without access to potable water.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: Only days after arriving, on 28 August, Somali militia launched a mortar attack on the hangar at 19:27 which injured four Rangers. These mortar attacks became a regular occurrence but rarely caused any further significant injuries.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: The task force launched its first raid at 03:09 on 30 August, hitting the Lig Ligato house. There, they captured 9 individuals along with weapons, drugs, communications gear, and other equipment. They were highly embarrassed, however, when it was found out that the prisoners they had taken were actually UN employees. Regardless of the fact that the employees were in a restricted area and were found with weapons and drugs, the incident was ridiculed in the media. Colin Powell, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was reportedly so upset he "had to screw myself off the ceiling".


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: Missions followed on 6 September, with a raid on an old Russian compound; 14 September, when they raided the Jialiou house/police station; 17 September, with a raid on Radio Mogadishu; 18 September, a raid on the garages of Osman Atto's (Aidid's financier); and 21 September when they captured Osman Atto himself. Local intelligence assets had given Atto a cane that concealed a hidden locating beacon. Delta operators tracked his vehicle convoy via helicopter and disabled Atto's vehicle with shots to its engine block before taking him into custody. This was also the first known takedown of a moving vehicle from a helicopter.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: To obfuscate when exactly a mission would occur, Garrison had the 160th SOAR conduct flights with soldiers aboard multiple times per day so militia could not rely solely on seeing helicopters to know that a raid was going to occur. They also varied their insertion and extraction tactics, using various permutations of ground vehicle and helicopter-based infil and exfil.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: At approximately 0200 on 25 September, Aidid's men shot down a Black Hawk with an RPG and killed three crew members at New Port near Mogadishu, though the two pilots, who were both injured, managed to escape and evade to reach friendly units. Pakistani and US forces secured the area and were able to evacuate the casualties. The helicopter and crew were from 9th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment and 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, and not part of the Task Force Ranger mission, but the helicopter's destruction was still a huge psychological victory for the SNA.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: On the afternoon of 3 October 1993, informed that two lieutenants of Aidid's clan were at a residence in the "Black Sea" neighborhood in Mogadishu, the task force sent 19 aircraft, 12 vehicles, and 160 men to capture them. The two Somali lieutenants alongside 22 others were quickly captured and loaded on a convoy of ground vehicles. However, armed militiamen and civilians, some of them women and children, converged on the target area from all over the city. Shortly before the mission was to be concluded, an MH-60 Black Hawk, "Super Six One", was shot down by a Somali combatant using a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). Both of the pilots were killed on impact, but the crew survived the crash landing.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: Shortly afterward, another Black Hawk helicopter, "Super Six Four", was shot down by an RPG fired from the ground. No rescue team was immediately available, and the small surviving crew, including one of the pilots, Michael Durant, couldn't move. Two Delta snipers, Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart, provided cover from a helicopter and repeatedly volunteered to secure the crash site. Upon their third request the two were finally granted permission to be inserted. The two men made their way to the crash site, quickly establishing a perimeter, and securing the surviving crew. The crash site came under heavy attack from the Somali militia, despite attempts from the 160th helicopters overhead to hold back the mob. MSG Gordon, SFC Shughart, and the surviving crew of Super 64 were overwhelmed and killed, save for CW3 Durant who was taken hostage. Shughart and Gordon were both posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: Meanwhile, the remaining Rangers and Delta operators fought their way to the first crash site. Repeated attempts by the Somalis to overrun US positions were beaten back with heavy small arms fire accompanied by close air support from helicopters. A rescue convoy was organized, bolstered by UNOSOM II forces, including the 19th Battalion, Royal Malay Regiment (Mech);, Pakistani 15 FF Regiment and a squadron of Patton tanks from 19th Lancers; and US Army 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry, 10th Mountain Division (which included elements of 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry; 41st Engineer Battalion; and 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation). In heavy combat with the Somalis, the rescue convoy broke through and extracted the besieged forces.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: The mission's objective of capturing Aidid's associates was accomplished, but the battle turned out to be the most difficult close combat that US troops had engaged in since the Vietnam War. In the end, four MH-60 Black Hawks were shot down with two crashing in the city, 9 members of TF Ranger were killed (as were 1 Malaysian soldier and 2 US soldiers from UNOSOM), 6 were MIA (5 later confirmed KIA and 1 POW), and dozens were wounded (2 of whom would later succumb to their injuries). Somali casualties were estimated to be 314 killed and 812 wounded (including civilians), though figures do vary. The American public was outraged at the failure and demanded a withdrawal.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: Two days after the battle's end, a Somali mortar strike on their compound killed one Delta Force operator and injured another 12–13 members of TF Ranger.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: Following the battle, President Clinton ordered that additional troops be deployed to protect US soldiers and aid in withdrawal. Negotiations eventually secured the release of the captured pilot POW. In the end, the battle had resulted in 17 KIA and 85–97 wounded for the task force.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: Clinton called for a full withdrawal by 31 March 1994. Conforming to this request, most troops were out of the country by 25 March 1994. A few hundred US Marines remained offshore, but all US and United Nations troops were finally removed from the area at the conclusion of Operation United Shield in March 1995.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: US Secretary of Defense Les Aspin resigned his post late in 1993. He was specifically blamed for denying the US Army permission to have its own armor units in place in Somalia, units which might have been able to break through to the trapped soldiers earlier in the battle. US political leaders had, at the time, felt the presence of tanks would taint the peacekeeping image of the mission.


title: Operation Gothic Serpent

text: Osama bin Laden, who was living in Sudan at the time, cited this operation, in particular the US' withdrawal, as an example of American weakness and vulnerability to attack.


title: Zip bomb

text: In computing, a zip bomb, also known as a decompression bomb or zip of death, is a malicious archive file designed to crash or render useless the program or system reading it. It is often employed to disable antivirus software, in order to create an opening for more traditional malware.


title: Zip bomb

text: A zip bomb allows a program to function normally, but, instead of hijacking the program's operation, creates an archive that requires an excessive amount of time, disk space, or memory to unpack.


title: Zip bomb

text: Most modern antivirus programs can detect whether a file is a zip bomb in order to avoid unpacking it.


title: Zip bomb

text: A zip bomb is usually a small file for ease of transport and to avoid suspicion. However, when the file is unpacked, its contents are more than the system can handle.


title: Zip bomb

text: One example of a zip bomb is the file "42.zip", which is a zip file consisting of 42 kilobytes of compressed data, containing five layers of nested zip files in sets of 16, each bottom-layer archive containing a 4.3-gigabyte (; − ) file for a total of (; − ) of uncompressed data.


title: Zip bomb

text: This file is available for download on various websites across the Internet, making it widely accessible. In many anti-virus scanners, only a few layers of recursion are performed on archives to help prevent attacks that would cause a buffer overflow, an out-of-memory condition, or exceed an acceptable amount of program execution time.


title: Zip bomb

text: Zip bombs often rely on repetition of identical files to achieve their extreme compression ratios. Dynamic programming methods can be employed to limit traversal of such files, so that only one file is followed recursively at each level, effectively converting their exponential growth to linear.


title: Zip bomb

text: There are also zip files that, when uncompressed, yield identical copies of themselves. A sophisticated form of zip bomb exploits the specifications of zip files and the Deflate compression algorithm to create bombs without the use of nested layers as used in "42.zip".


title: Pink discography

text: American singer and songwriter Pink has released eight studio albums, one live album, five video albums, six compilation albums, 55 singles, six promotional singles, and 51 music videos. Throughout her career, Pink has sold 60 million albums, 75 million singles and 2.4 million DVDs worldwide. According to RIAA, she has sold 18 million albums and 13.5 million digital singles. She is also UK's second best-selling female artist of the 21st century. "Billboard" ranked her as the fifth top female artist of the 2000s (13th overall), eighth top female artist of the 2010s (18th overall) and the 59th greatest artist of all time. Official Charts Company hailed her as UK's most played female artist of the 21st century.


title: Pink discography

text: In 2000, she released her debut studio album, "Can't Take Me Home". It has sold four million units worldwide and yielded three singles, "There You Go", "Most Girls", and "You Make Me Sick". A year later, Pink recorded the "Moulin Rouge!" version of "Lady Marmalade" with Christina Aguilera, Mýa, and Lil' Kim. Later that year, Pink released her second studio album, "Missundaztood", which has sold 15 million copies worldwide. The record was promoted by four singles, "Get the Party Started", "Don't Let Me Get Me", "Just Like a Pill", and "Family Portrait", all of which achieved commercial success.


title: Pink discography

text: In 2003, Pink released her third studio album, "Try This". The album was her least successful album, having sold 3 million units worldwide. Its single releases include "Trouble", "God Is a DJ", and "Last to Know". Her fourth studio album, "I'm Not Dead", was released in 2006 and fared moderately on the charts. It generated seven singles, including top 10 singles "Stupid Girls", "U + Ur Hand", and "Who Knew". Pink's fifth album, "Funhouse" (2008), sold over seven million copies worldwide and charted at number one in several countries, including Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It includes her second number one hit on the "Billboard" Hot 100, "So What".


title: Pink discography

text: In 2010, Pink released her first greatest hits album, "Greatest Hits... So Far!!!". It produced two top 10 hit singles, "Raise Your Glass" and "Fuckin' Perfect". Her sixth album, "The Truth About Love", was released in 2012 and produced six singles, "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)", "Try", "Just Give Me a Reason", "True Love", "Walk of Shame", and "Are We All We Are". In 2017, the singer released her seventh album "Beautiful Trauma", which topped the charts in Australia, Austria, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Its lead single "What About Us" reached number one in Australia and the Netherlands.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: Black Crab is a 2022 Swedish action thriller film directed by Adam Berg, written by Adam Berg and Pelle Rådström. It stars Noomi Rapace, Aliette Opheim and Dar Salim. It is about a speed skater (Rapace) conscripted to join a team of soldiers for a dangerous mission to skate across sea ice behind enemy lines. The team is tasked with delivering a secret package to an island research base, which they are told could end the war.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: The film opens with a flashback scene in which Edh is in a car with her daughter, Vanja, waiting in a traffic jam. Civilians are attacked by approaching enemies and the pair are forced out of the car.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: A few years later Edh, now a soldier, is disembarking from a train. A lieutenant drives her to the base through a dangerous neighborhood and strands her there. Edh is attacked by refugees, and manages to fight her way out. Upon arriving at the base, she is taken for a briefing with Colonel Raad and she meets the other soldiers recruited for the special mission: Karimi, Malik, Granvik,


title: Black Crab (film)

text: The Colonel explains that the team must cross the ice-covered Stockholm Archipelago on skates and deliver some canisters to a research base, named Ödö, which he says could lead to victory in the war. The team will skate across the ice, as it is too thin for vehicles. Edh points out that this appears to be a suicide mission, but she is given a reason to try to make it: the chance to be reunited with Vanja, who has been found in a refugee camp.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: The team leaves as the base is attacked the next day, and is joined by the lieutenant who abandoned Edh earlier, Nylund. Before they can be properly briefed on the mission, Forsberg falls through the thin ice and drowns. Edh jumps in after her, saving the two packages from Forsberg’s backpack but leaving her body behind.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: The group takes Edh to a house on land, where they warm her and themselves by a fire and Nylund is selected to be their new commander, according to the chain of command. This gets some pushback from Edh as she wonders whose place he took on the mission, as he was a last-minute substitute for an unnamed missing person.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: The following morning, Edh hears the thrum of rotors and she catches Karimi using the radio. The helicopter fires a missile into the house as the team escapes, leading to the suspicion that Karimi is a traitor. He claims he was calling his girlfriend, a radio operator at the F28 base, bombed when Karimi was making his way to it.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: Later, the group finds it difficult to skate across the thin ice and decides to travel over land. They find an elderly couple hiding in a home, having refused to leave during the evacuation. As they eat, Edh spots a machine pistol mounted under the table, and she silently pleads with the man not to attack. He nevertheless fires, and the soldiers return fire, leaving Karimi and the couple dead. Malik, injured, downplays the severity of his wound. As they prepare to leave, a voice claiming to be Karimi’s girlfriend from the F28 base radios in and asks to talk to him. They answer evasively and ultimately close the connection.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: While resting on a ship they find frozen in the ice, Granvik opens the packages, which contain vials of liquid with a biohazard warning, suggesting they could be some sort of biological weapon. This leads to a crisis of conscience amongst the team. As Malik slowly dies from his injuries, he insists that the virus would not be the end of the war, but instead the end of everything. He shoots himself in the head.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: After spotting lights on the ice, which could be enemy forces, Edh leaves alone to continue the mission with the vials. She comes across dangerously thin ice and attempts to skate across, but it cracks and leaves her stranded. Granvik and Nylund rescue her with a rope before all three attempt to cross. Granvik shoots a lone machine gunner in a pillbox on a rocky hill overlooking the ice, before the trio comes across the latter's comrades, frozen to death.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: Granvik recounts why he enlisted in the military: after being forced by the enemy to dig a mass grave with his childhood friend, he fell in as his friend was shot and the enemy soldiers did not realize he was still alive. Forced to push his way out from under the corpses, he witnessed them being eaten by rats and enlisted soon after.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: The next morning, awoken by memories of her daughter, Edh realises Nylund has run off with the capsules. She and Granvik are attacked by a group of enemy soldiers. The two kill them all, but Edh is shot and Granvik is killed. Edh continues her journey on the ice, catching up to Nylund who reveals he is now abandoning the mission and is instead intent on destroying the capsules. When he refuses to stop, they begin shooting at one another. Edh fires a sniper rifle at him, injuring him, and recovers the capsules. She leaves Nylund on the ice, but soon experiences visions of Malik and Forsberg before collapsing on the ice as some soldiers arrive on horseback.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: She awakes in an infirmary with frostbite to her extremities. She finds out that she has reached her objective, the military base. Edh is congratulated, awarded medals, and promoted to Second Lieutenant for succeeding in the operation, by the base commander, Nordh. An injured Nylund watches with other soldiers. She asks to see her daughter, but is told that this was a ruse to increase her willpower to get the packages to the base. On learning about this, Edh attacks the commander but is restrained by Nylund, who holds her as she cries.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: Edh decides to destroy the capsules and convinces Nylund to make a last-ditch effort to dispose of them. They make their way to the laboratory where the virus is being held. After forcing a scientist to give them the vials, they escape with it by triggering the evacuation alarm and hiding in hazmat suits as everyone flees.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: Edh, after insisting Nylund find seats on the fleeing helicopters, is found by Nordh, and reveals that she has secured the vials to an unpinned grenade. Nordh tries to encourage to think of her daughter, Edh says that’s all she ever does, and she ends her life by stepping off the cliff and detonating the grenade. After her fall in the sea, the dead Edh reunites with her dead daughter underwater and they embrace each other.


title: Black Crab (film)

text: The critics' consensus reads: ""Black Crab" can be exciting in the moment, but its bleak and derivative story add up to a fairly forgettable viewing experience." Charles Bramesco, for "The Guardian", wrote that "in narrowing focus to the plight of speed skater Caroline Edh (Noomi Rapace), director Adam Berg and his co-writers (Jerker Virdborg, author of the source novel, and Pelle Rådström) give themselves enough room to wriggle out of the most difficult questions their premise poses. [...] Thin ice has rules and terrors all its own, however, maximized through Berg’s suspense-forward direction. [...] A pacifist parable taking a brave stand against nothing, totally removed from the sociocultural landscape of today’s Sweden, it sounds out like one of Caroline’s screams into the howling Scandinavian wind – impassioned, futile, heard by no one".


title: Black Crab (film)

text: Matt Fowler, for "IGN", highlighted that "Black Crab displays many of the lovely tropes associated with a ragtag quest story, including the systematic elimination of players on the board, with each victim falling as the film highlights the various hazards and obstacles in their way across the enemy-occupied ice. [...] Black Crab has all the ingredients to grab you and take you on a thrill ride – and at times it achieves this – but it suffers partial collapse by the end because of its need to land a little loftier than necessary. Noomi Rapace is powerful throughout, as a desperate soldier skating for her family, and the camera work out on the desolate, ominous expanses of ice is often gorgeous, but the film never lets us in on what's actually going on in the world and that lessens the impact of the final act".


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin (, born 9 April 1974), also known as the Chessboard Killer () and the Bitsa Park Maniac (), is a Russian serial killer who is believed to have killed at least forty-nine people, and possibly as many as sixty, between 1992 and 2006. Pichushkin was active in Moscow's Bitsa Park, where a number of the victims' bodies were found. In 2007 he was sentenced to life imprisonment.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Alexander Pichushkin was born on 9 April 1974 in Mytishchi, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, and grew up on 2 Khersonskaya Street in Moscow proper. He lived there with his mother Natalia Elmouradovna, his younger half-sister, her husband, and their son in a two-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor. Their apartment building was a six-minute walk from the north end of Bitsa Park.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Pichushkin is remembered to have been an initially sociable child. However, this changed following an incident in which Pichushkin fell backwards off a swing, which then struck him in the forehead as it swung back. Experts speculated that this event damaged the frontal cortex of Pichushkin's brain; such damage is known to produce poor impulse regulation and a tendency towards aggression. Since Pichushkin was still a child, the damage would have been more severe, as a child's forehead provides only a fraction of the protection for the brain compared to an adult's. Following this accident, Pichushkin frequently became hostile and impulsive.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Due to his behavior, Pichushkin's mother decided to transfer him from the mainstream school he had been attending to one for children with learning disabilities. Prior to this transfer, children from the mainstream school were known to have physically and verbally bullied Pichushkin, referring to him as "that retard". This abuse served to intensify Pichushkin's anger. Upon reaching early adolescence, his maternal grandfather recognized that Pichushkin was highly intelligent and felt that his innate talents were being wasted, as he wasn't involved in any activities at home and the school he was enrolled in focused more on overcoming disability than on promoting achievement.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Pichushkin moved into his grandfather's home and was encouraged to pursue intellectual pursuits outside of school. The deepest of these interests was chess. Pichushkin was taught how to play, and after demonstrating his ability was introduced to the exhibition games against elderly men who played publicly in Bitsa Park. An outstanding chess player, Pichushkin found a channel for his aggression when dominating the chessboard in all of his games. However, he continued to be bullied by mainstream school children and suffered an emotional blow when, toward the end of his adolescence, his grandfather died. Pichushkin was left to return to his mother's home, after which he enrolled as a student.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: According to reports, the death of his grandfather greatly affected Pichushkin. In an effort to both dull the pain of the loss as well as to calm his severe aggressive tendencies, he began to consume large quantities of vodka. He continued to play chess both at home and in Bitsa Park, now joining the other men in drinking vodka, though unlike them he could play without being greatly affected by the alcohol. It was at this time that Pichushkin began to develop a more sinister hobby that, at the time, remained unknown to anyone: whenever he knew he was going to come into contact with children, he would take a video camera along and proceed to threaten them. On one occasion that has since been made public, he held a young child by one leg, upside down, and said to the camera: "You are in my power now... I am going to drop you from the window... and you will fall fifteen meters to your death..." He then watched these videos repeatedly to reaffirm his power. However, by 1992, this practice had become insufficient to satisfy his urges.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Russian media have speculated that Pichushkin was motivated, in part, by a macabre competition with another notorious Russian serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted of killing fifty-two children and young women over a twelve-year period. Pichushkin has said his aim was to kill sixty-four people, the number of squares on a chessboard. He later recanted this statement, saying that he would have continued killing indefinitely had he not been stopped.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Pichushkin's first murder occurred on 27 July 1992, when he was aged 18. Pichushkin arranged to meet his classmate, Mikhail Odïtchuk, in Bitsa Park to jointly hatch a plan to kill sixty-four people. However, when they had arrived at the meeting point, Odïtchuk changed his mind and told Pichushkin that he no longer wanted to take action. Feeling teased by his best friend, Pichushkin pulled a hammer out of his bag and delivered about twenty blows to Odïtchuk's head, killing him. Once Odïtchuk was dead, Pichushkin deposited his body near a sewer entrance at Bitsa Park, then returned to his mother's apartment a short distance away.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: When Odïtchuk's body was discovered the following day, Moscow police opened an investigation. Witness testimony provided to the police stated that Odïtchuk was last seen with Pichushkin, walking in the direction of the park. Pichushkin was arrested at his mother's home on 30 July and taken to Moscow police station for questioning. When asked about his schedule on the day of Odïtchuk's murder, Pichushkin confirmed having met with Odïtchuk but claimed to have left him unharmed in the park. With no evidence tying him to the murder, Pichushkin was released.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: In September 1992, Pichushkin was romantically rejected by Olga A., his 18-year-old neighbor, as she was already in a relationship with a man named Sergei B. Sergei's body was later discovered outside his apartment building. It has been suggested that Pichushkin, furious that Olga rejected him, went to Sergei's apartment and threw him out a window, causing him to fall several meters to his death; however, this has not been confirmed, and a police investigation ruled Sergei's death a suicide.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Pichushkin ceased killing for several years until 1996, when Russia placed a moratorium on the death penalty. This reignited Pichushkin's interest in killing.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: On 17 May 2001, Pichushkin was in Bitsa Park playing chess with a 52-year-old man named Yevgeny Pronin. At the end of their game, Pichushkin invited Pronin to take a walk with him, claiming it was the anniversary of his dog's death and that he wanted to visit the grave in Bitsa Park. Pronin accompanied him to an isolated area in Bitsa Park, whereupon Pichushkin pulled out a bottle of vodka and offered him a drink. The men made a toast to the dog, after which Pichushkin struck Pronin in the head with the bottle. Once Pronin was dead, Pichushkin threw his body into a nearby well.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Between May 2001 and September 2005, Pichushkin attacked thirty-six victims; three of his victims survived their injuries. Pichushkin would approach his victim in Bitsa Park (the vast majority of them elderly homeless people), offer to share a drink of vodka, and then kill them—typically by striking the back of their skull with a hammer or a bottle, although he was also alleged to have pushed his victims into the sewage canal to drown. Occasionally, he would then "sign" the corpse by impaling the victim's skull with sticks or an empty vodka bottle.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: From October 2005 to his final murder in 2006, Pichushkin's "modus operandi" changed. He would kill his victims by repeated blows to the head with a hammer, and would then push a vodka bottle into the gaping wound in their skulls. He would always attack from behind in order to take the victim by surprise and avoid spilling blood on his clothes. He also widened his range of victims, beginning to target younger men, women, and children. Ten of his victims lived in the same four-building complex where he lived—four from 2 Khersonskaya; two from 4 Khersonskaya, next door; three from 6; and one from 8.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: In June 2006, Pichushkin offered to go for a walk with his 36-year-old coworker, Marina Moskalyova. Though she was reportedly suspicious of him, Moskalyova agreed to go. Before she left, she wrote a note to her son letting him know she was with Pichushkin and left his phone number. Pichushkin was aware of the note, but was undeterred.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Moskalyova's body was discovered in Bitsa Park on 14 June 2006, complete with Pichushkin's trademark injuries. A Moscow Metro ticket found in her possession led authorities to review surveillance tape footage from the metro system, where she was filmed, just hours before her death, walking on a platform accompanied by Pichushkin.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Once apprehended, Pichushkin led police officers to the scenes of many of his crimes in Bitsa Park, and demonstrated a keen recollection of how the murders were committed. He was filmed reenacting his crimes in great detail, a process which is a regular part of Russian criminal investigation. Pichushkin also revealed that some of the murders he committed were not done using his preferred method (hammer blows to the back of the head), but by throwing his victims down into the sewer lines beneath Bitsa Park (although one of his victims did survive this ordeal).


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Pichushkin claimed that deciding whether his victims should live or die made him feel like God. "In all cases I killed for only one reason. I killed in order to live, because when you kill, you want to live," he once said. "For me, life without murder is like life without food for you. I felt like the father of all these people, since it was me who opened the door for them to another world."


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Pichushkin was convicted on 24 October 2007 of forty-nine murders and three attempted murders. He asked a Russian court to add an additional eleven victims to his body count, bringing his claimed death toll to sixty, and three surviving victims. During his trial, Pichushkin was housed in a glass cage for his own protection.


title: Alexander Pichushkin

text: Upon conviction, Judge Vladimir Usov sentenced Pichushkin to life imprisonment, with the first fifteen years to be spent in solitary confinement. Pichushkin appealed his sentencing, claiming it was "too harsh" and asking for a reduction to twenty-five years. As of 2017, Pichushkin was spending his days in solitary confinement at the Arctic penal colony "Polar Owl".


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: Pleistocene megafauna is the set of large animals that lived on Earth during the Pleistocene epoch. Pleistocene megafauna became extinct during the Quaternary extinction event resulting in substantial changes to ecosystems globally. The role of humans in causing Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions is controversial.


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: Megafauna are any animals with an adult body weight of over . Pleistocene megafauna include the straight-tusked elephant, cave bear ("Ursus spelaeus"), interglacial rhinoceros ("Stephanorhinus"), heavy-bodied Asian antelope ("Spirocerus"), Eurasian hippopotamuses, woolly rhinoceros, mammoths, giant deer, sabre-toothed cat ("Homotherium"), cave lion, and the leopard in Europe.


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: The last glacial period, commonly referred to as the 'Ice Age', spanned 125,000 to 14,500 years ago and was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age which occurred during the final years of the Pleistocene epoch. The Ice Age reached its peak during the last glacial maximum, when ice sheets commenced advancing from 33,000 years BP and reached their maximum positions 26,500 years BP. Deglaciation commenced in the Northern Hemisphere approximately 19,000 years BP, and in Antarctica approximately 14,500 years BP which is consistent with evidence that this was the primary source for an abrupt rise in the sea level 14,500 years ago.


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: A vast mammoth steppe stretched from the Iberian peninsula across Eurasia and over the Bering land bridge into Alaska and the Yukon where it was stopped by the Wisconsin glaciation. This land bridge existed because more of the planet's water was locked up in glaciation than now and therefore the sea levels were lower. When the sea levels began to rise this bridge was inundated around 11,000 years BP. During the last glacial maximum, the continent of Europe was much colder and drier than it is today, with polar desert in the north and the remainder steppe or tundra. Forest and woodland was almost non-existent, except for isolated pockets in the mountain ranges of southern Europe.


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: The fossil evidence from many continents points to the extinction mainly of large animals at or near the end of the last glaciation. These animals have been termed the Pleistocene megafauna. Scientists frequently define megafauna as the set of animals with an adult body weight of over 45 kg (or 99 lbs). Across Eurasia, the straight-tusked elephant became extinct between 100,000 and 50,000 years BP. The cave bear ("Ursus spelaeus"), interglacial rhinoceros ("Stephanorhinus"), heavy-bodied Asian antelope ("Spirocerus"), and the Eurasian hippopotamuses died out between 50,000 and 16,000 years BP. The woolly rhinoceros and mammoths died out between 16,000 and 11,500 years BP. The giant deer died out after 11,500 BP with the last pocket having survived until about 7,700 years BP in western Siberia. A pocket of mammoths survived on Wrangel Island until 4,500 years BP. As some species became extinct, so too did their predators. Among the top predators, the sabre-toothed cat ("Homotherium") died out 28,000 years BP, the cave lion 11,900 years BP, and the leopard in Europe died out 27,000 years BP. The Late Pleistocene was characterized by a series of severe and rapid climate oscillations with regional temperature changes of up to 16 °C, which has been correlated with megafaunal extinctions. There is no evidence of megafaunal extinctions at the height of the LGM, indicating that increasing cold and glaciation were not factors. Multiple events appear to also involve the rapid replacement of one species by one within the same genus, or one population by another within the same species, across a broad area.


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: The ancestors of modern humans first appeared in East Africa 195,000 years ago. Some migrated out of Africa 60,000 years ago, with one group reaching Central Asia 50,000 years ago. From there they reached Europe, with human remains dated to 43,000-45,000 years BP discovered in Italy, Britain, and in the European Russian Arctic dated to 40,000 years ago. Another group left Central Asia and reached the lower Yana River, Siberia, well above the Arctic circle, 27,000 years ago. Remains of mammoth that had been hunted by humans 45,000 YBP have been found at Yenisei Bay in the central Siberian Arctic. Modern humans then made their way across the Bering land bridge and into North America between 20,000 and 11,000 years ago, after the Wisconsin glaciation had retreated but before the Bering land bridge became inundated by the sea. However, there remains no consensus among scholars on the timing of human migration into the Americas. In the Fertile crescent the first agriculture was developing 11,500 years ago.


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: Megafauna extinctions resulted in global changes to ecosystem structure and function. Extinction of megafauna broadly restructured ecological communities and species interactions. The extinction of megafauna affected mutualist species, resulting in co-extinctions. Evidence from fossil pollen indicates that megafaunal extinctions may have resulted in the development of novel plant communities, and altered fire regimes on a global scale. Some evidence, however, suggests that vegetation changes preceded megafaunal extinctions.


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: Pleistocene grazers limited wildfire by consuming biomass in grassland ecosystems; the decline of these grazers increased grassland fire frequency. Some hypothesize that forbs in modern grasslands are adapted to disturbance by large herbivores on former mammoth steppes, and are currently in decline due to the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna. In Europe, evidence from the pollen record suggests that megafauna promoted open vegetation with shifting mosaics of forest and grassland, however this hypothesis is debated. In the Yukon region of Canada, the decline of "Mammuthus" and "Equus" may have contributed to the development of woody flora. In Siberia and Beringia, the extinction of mammoths may have contributed to the expansion of "Betula" (birch) tree cover. In Australia, however, megafaunal extinction may not have caused significant changes in fire regimes or vegetation. Some argue that modern ecosystems can be understood by considering the effects of extinct megafauna.


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: Some extant plants have adaptations resulting from interactions with Pleistocene megafauna, including defenses against Pleistocene megaherbivores, and large fruits adapted to dispersal by megaherbivores. Such species are termed anachronistic plants. Members of the plant family Rosaceae (including "Malus", apples) evolved large fruits as an adaptation to dispersal by megafaunal herbivores. Megafaunal extinction caused the decline of "Cucurbita" species which relied on megaherbivores for dispersal. "Cucurbita" fruits contain cucurbitacins, bitter compounds that are toxic to small herbivores but can be tolerated by megafauna; "Cucurbita" seeds have been found in fossil mastodon dung. Some argue that plant adaptations to megafauna resulted in traits that allowed for domestication. Human dispersal may have prevented the range contraction of Neotropical species with fruit formerly dispersed by megafauna.


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: Megafaunal extinction may have caused global cooling of the Earth's climate due to reduced methane emissions from megaherbivores and increased woody vegetation associated with reduced trampling and browsing. Smith "et al." suggest that megafaunal extinctions in the Americas contributed to the Younger Dryas cooling event.


title: Pleistocene megafauna

text: Four theories have been advanced as likely causes of these extinctions: hunting by the spreading humans (or overkill hypothesis, initially developed by geoscientist Paul S. Martin), the change in climate at the end of the last glacial period, disease, and an extraterrestrial impact from an asteroid or comet. These factors are not necessarily exclusive: any or all may have combined to cause the extinctions. Of these, climate change and the overkill hypothesis have the most support, with evidence weighing towards the overkill hypothesis.