title: World Athletics Championships

text: Following bids from both Stuttgart, West Germany and Helsinki, Finland, the IAAF Council awarded the inaugural competition to Helsinki, to take place in 1983 and be held in the Helsinki Olympic Stadium (where the 1952 Summer Olympics had been held).


title: World Athletics Championships

text: Two IAAF world championship events preceded the inaugural edition of the World Championships in Athletics in 1983. The 1976 World Championships had just one event – the men's 50 kilometres walk which was dropped from the Olympic programme for the 1976 Summer Olympics and the IAAF responded by setting up their own contest. Four years later, the 1980 World Championships contained only two newly approved women's events, (400 metres hurdles and 3000 metres), neither of which featured on the programme for the 1980 Summer Olympics.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: Over the years the competition has grown in size. In 1983 1,333 athletes from 153 countries participated. By the 2003 competition, in Paris, it had grown to 1,679 athletes from 198 countries with coverage being transmitted to 179 countries.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: There has also been a change in composition over the years, with several new events, all for women, being added. By 2005, the only differences were men's competition in the 50 km walk, and equivalent events in women's 100 m hurdles and heptathlon to men's 110 m hurdles and decathlon.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: is the name under which Russian athletes competed in the 2017 and 2019 Championships. Their medals were not included in the official medal table.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: In the "IAAF placing table" the total score is obtained from assigning eight points to the first place and so on to one point for the eight placed finalists. Points are shared in situations where a tie occurs. However, the IAAF site shows all points rounded to the nearest integer.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: Boldface denotes active athletes and highest medal count among all athletes (including these who not included in these tables) per type.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki> including one medal in the relay event in which she participated in the heats only <BR>


title: World Athletics Championships

text: <nowiki>**</nowiki> including two medals in the relay events in which she participated in the heats only <BR>


title: World Athletics Championships

text: <nowiki>***</nowiki> including three medals in the relay events in which she participated in the heats only <BR>


title: World Athletics Championships

text: <nowiki>****</nowiki> including four medals in the relay events in which she participated in the heats only


title: World Athletics Championships

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki> At the 1993 World Championships in Athletics in Stuttgart, Germany, Dragutin Topić competed as an Individual World Championship Participant (IWP) as Athletic Federation of Yugoslavia was suspended by IAAF due to United Nations sanctions stemming from the Yugoslav wars.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: A total of 35 world records have been set or equalled at the competition: 18 by men, 15 by women, and 2 in the mixed relay.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: The first world record to be set at the World Championships was by Jarmila Kratochvílová of Czechoslovakia, who ran 47.99 seconds to win the 1983 women's 400 m final.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: The most recent world record was in the Men's Pole vault in 2022, when Armand Duplantis of Sweden cleared the new record height of 6.21 metres. World records have become less common as the history of the event has expanded, with no world records set in the 1997, 2001, 2007 or 2013 editions.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: American athletes have been the most successful with fourteen world records, followed by Jamaica and Great Britain on four each. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt has broken the most world records at the competition, at four, while American Carl Lewis set three. Jonathan Edwards holds the distinction of breaking the world record twice in one championships: improving upon his own newly-set world record in the 1995 men's triple jump final. The men's 4 × 100 metres relay has yielded the most world records, with five set between 1983 and 2011.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: Ben Johnson's time of 9.83 seconds at the 1987 World Championships men's 100 m final was initially considered to be a world record, but this was rescinded in 1989 after Johnson admitted to steroid use between 1981 and 1988.


title: World Athletics Championships

text: Also, the 2009 Jamaican men's 4 × 100 metres relay team time of 37.31 seconds was retrospectively recognised to as the world record after the team's time of 37.10 at the 2008 Olympics was rescinded after the disqualification of Nesta Carter (who was not present in the World Championships team).


title: Claudia O'Doherty

text: Claudia O'Doherty (born 29 November 1983) is an Australian actress, writer, and comedian. She won the 2009 Melbourne Fringe Best Comedy Award and the Brisbane Comedy Festival Award for her debut show "Monsters of the Deep 3D". O'Doherty co-wrote the books "100 Facts About Pandas" and "100 Facts About Sharks" with David O'Doherty and Mike Ahern. She was a main cast member in the Netflix TV series "Love".


title: Claudia O'Doherty

text: O'Doherty has appeared several times on the podcast "Comedy Bang! Bang!", usually playing an exaggerated version of a character also named Claudia O'Doherty. She appeared with "Weird Al" Yankovic, Jimmy Pardo, Nick Kroll, Stars, and Peaches, among others. She also acted on one episode of the "Comedy Bang! Bang!" TV series.


title: Claudia O'Doherty

text: In 2012, her stand-up show "The Telescope" was nominated for Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. O'Doherty has appeared on the television show "Problems", and in Judd Apatow's film "Trainwreck", opposite Bill Hader and Amy Schumer.


title: Claudia O'Doherty

text: In 2014, O'Doherty appeared in "The Inbetweeners 2" as an airline rep. In January 2015, she appeared on the British panel show "QI" alongside Jimmy Carr, Suggs, regular panelist Alan Davies and host Stephen Fry. O'Doherty was a writer for "Inside Amy Schumer" and also appeared in several episodes. Schumer learned of her when Bill Hader sent Schumer links to O'Doherty's webisode from Channel 4 in the UK.


title: Claudia O'Doherty

text: From 2016 to 2018, O'Doherty appeared in the Netflix series "Love". She played the role of Bertie, the new roommate of Mickey, played by Gillian Jacobs.


title: Claudia O'Doherty

text: In 2022 O’Doherty appeared as Jillian G in the Dan Goor sitcom Killing It. In June 2022 it was announced the series would be renewed for a second season.


title: Claudia O'Doherty

text: O'Doherty is from Sydney, Australia, where she attended SCEGGS Darlinghurst and the University of Sydney. At the University, she participated in the Arts Revue and met Nick Coyle and Charlie Garber, with whom she began writing and performing under the name Pig Island. She lives in Los Angeles.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: Dimmu Borgir () is a Norwegian symphonic black metal band from Jessheim, formed in 1993. The name is derived from Dimmuborgir, a volcanic formation in Iceland, the name of which means "dark cities" or "dark castles/fortresses" in Icelandic, Faroese and Old Norse. The band has been through numerous lineup changes over the years; vocalist Shagrath and rhythm guitarist Silenoz are the only original members who still remain, with lead guitarist Galder being a longstanding member.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: Dimmu Borgir was founded in 1993 by Silenoz and Tjodalv. Shagrath, Brynjard Tristan, & Stian Aarstad later joined Dimmu Borgir, and then released an EP in 1994 entitled "Inn i evighetens mørke" (""Into the Darkness of Eternity"" in English). This short EP sold out within weeks, and the band followed up with the 1994 full-length album "For All Tid" (""For All Time"" in English). This album featured vocal contributions by Vicotnik of Ved Buens Ende and Dødheimsgard and Aldrahn of Dødheimsgard and Zyklon-B. The initial line-up consisted of Shagrath playing drums with Tjodalv on guitar and Silenoz contributing lead vocals. This line-up changed before the release of "Stormblåst" (""Stormblown"" in English) on Cacophonous Records in 1996, an album considered by many to be their finest. It is also the last album which features all lyrics written and sung in Norwegian.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: After "Stormblåst", keyboardist Stian Aarstad left the band due to his obligation to serve in the Norwegian army, thus being unable to participate in the 1996 recording of "Devil's Path". That period was also marked by the departure of bassist Brynjard Tristan and the arrival of Nagash. Stian Aarstad returned for the recording of 1997's "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant". He had trouble attending rehearsals and was unable to tour. He was then subsequently dismissed and replaced by Kimberly Goss for their 1997/1998 world tour. "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant" was a huge success for the band, and was their first release signed to Nuclear Blast, a German record label. The album was recorded in the Abyss Studios, owned by Hypocrisy's frontman Peter Tägtgren. After the release of "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant", the band went on tour with In Flames, Dissection and other bands who were prominent in the scene at the time.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: After the tour for "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant", the band recruited new members Mustis on keyboards and Astennu on lead guitar. Dimmu Borgir's following full-length albums "Spiritual Black Dimensions" in 1999 and 2001's "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia", both met critical acclaim. However, another line-up change occurred between the two albums; Nagash quit and was replaced by new bassist/singer ICS Vortex, and Tjodalv left due to his family commitments, and to form the subsequent band Susperia, only to be replaced with Nicholas Barker of Cradle of Filth. Astennu was fired from his guitar duties as well due to creative differences, and was replaced by Galder.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: Despite the regular video play on MTV2 and Fuse that their follow-up album would receive, the band stated that they were not "commercially-oriented", and instead, they "simply wished to spread their message to more people". In 2003, Dimmu Borgir recorded "Death Cult Armageddon". "Death Cult Armageddon" was recorded with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Adam Klemens. All orchestrations were arranged by Gaute Storaas (who had previously worked with Dimmu Borgir on the album "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia"). In 2004, Dimmu Borgir performed on the mainstage at Ozzfest.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: In 2005, the band did a complete re-recording of the "Stormblåst" album, featuring Hellhammer of Mayhem fame as the session drummer. The album also featured a DVD with a live performance from the 2004 Ozzfest tour.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: Dimmu Borgir's eighth studio album, "In Sorte Diaboli", was released on 24 April 2007. A special edition version was released in a boxed case with a DVD, backward-printed lyrics, and a mirror. The album artwork was released on 14 February 2007 on a promotional webpage for the album. This album features once more the drumming of Hellhammer of Mayhem. Blomberg left the band in mid-tour in 2007 because of a neck injury that resulted in limited movement of his right arm. With the release of this album, Dimmu Borgir became the first black metal band with a number one album on the charts in their native country. In October 2008, they released their second live DVD set titled The Invaluable Darkness, which was based on several shows during the world tour supporting "In Sorte Diaboli".


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: In 2009, members ICS Vortex and Mustis independently announced their departure from Dimmu Borgir. Mustis released a statement claiming his disfavor with the band, stating that he was not properly credited for his writing contributions to the band's music, mentioning possibly taking legal action.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: Dimmu Borgir soon after confirmed the pair's dismissal from the band, releasing a statement explaining why the two were fired. Shagrath, Silenoz and Galder wrote: "Funny then, how the new album is half-way finished written already by the rest of us without any of these guys' input, still having all those elements we're known for." Many fans were quite disappointed, however, without the composition of Mustis, and soaring signature voice of ICS Vortex.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: Dimmu Borgir's ninth studio album, "Abrahadabra", was released on 24 September 2010 in Germany, 27 September 2010 for the rest of Europe and 12 October 2010 in North America. Silenoz explained that the growing periods of time between albums was because the band had stopped writing music while touring, which was affecting the quality of the music. He described the new album as having an "eerie and haunting feel to it", adding that the material is "epic", "primal", atmospheric and ambient. A promotional image released with the statement showed Shagrath returning to the keyboards. The album features an ensemble orchestra, the "Kringkastingsorkestret" (the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra), as well as the Schola Cantorum choir, totaling more than 100 musicians and singers.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: Gaute Storaas, composer of the orchestral arrangements, released a statement on his role in working on the album. "Their music is epic, thematic and symphonic already from the creation; they are clearly having an orchestral approach to composing. My role in this is sometimes just to transcribe their themes, sometimes to take their ideas, tear them apart and build them back up in ways that are true to the band's intentions. The music must also be both interesting and playable for the musicians, and hopefully, meet the quality standards of the orchestral world."


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: On 8 July the band confirmed that they had tapped Swedish multi-instrumentalist Snowy Shaw (Therion, Dream Evil) to replace bassist/clean vocalist ICS Vortex on their then-upcoming album, "Abrahadabra", and world tour. On 25 August it was announced that Snowy Shaw had left Dimmu Borgir to rejoin Therion. On 17 September 2010 Dimmu Borgir released the song "Born Treacherous" from "Abrahadabra" on their official Myspace page. Then on 24 September the band announced they would stream "Abrahadabra" in its entirety until 7 p.m. EST that evening. The keyboards and bass are currently played by Gerlioz from Apoptygma Berzerk and Cyrus of Susperia respectively, and the clean vocals are sampled.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: 28 May 2011 saw Dimmu Borgir, for the first time in the band's career, perform live with a full symphony orchestra and choir in a one-off show with the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra and Schola Cantorum Choir (who collaborated on "Abrahadabra" the previous year) at the Oslo Spectrum entitled "Forces of the Northern Night". This was broadcast live on Norway's main national TV carrier NRK. The setlist for this show consisted of tracks from the band's recent transfiguration "Abrahadabra", leading tracks "Vredysbyrd" and "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse" from "Death Cult Armageddon", as well as newly updated versions of tracks from their standard back catalog; "The Serpentine Offering", "Kings of the Carnival Creation", and "Mourning Palace" which were re-orchestrated by Gaute Storaas. The band played a similar show the following year at the Wacken Open Air festival, having yet performed a second live show with a symphony orchestra and choir. This time, they were accompanied by the Czech National Orchestra with the same choir, being the second band in the festival's history to play with a live orchestra and choir (next to German power metal band Rage's 2007 performance). The show was broadcast live on Germany's Kultur TV arts channel. Silenoz has also said in several recent interviews that both live sets have been fully mixed and will be accompanied by a feature-length documentary and bonus material when released. In late 2011-2012 the band went on a special tour for fans in various European countries, including playing in some small, intimate venues celebrating their 1997 album Enthrone Darkness Triumphant by playing the album in its entirety, alongside an additional set of various fan favourite tracks, following a poll to fans directly, asking which of their first 3 albums would they want to see played in full on their next European tour.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: The band originally announced in August 2013 that work had commenced on the band's next album. However, the production and release of the album has faced numerous delays. It will mark the longest-ever gap between each studio release. Following various delays, the Oslo and Wacken Orchestra performances, recorded between 2011 and 2012, were released on CD/DVD/Blu-ray format on 28 April 2017 worldwide as their third live video release titled "Forces of the Northern Night". Silenoz recently revealed that the band is in the mixing stage of the follow-up to "Abrahadabra". Ten songs will feature on the next album and they have said it has since been completed. On 18 December 2017 it was announced that the first single from the new album will be initially released on a 7-inch vinyl EP, and will be titled "Interdimensional Summit", and was released on 23 February 2018. The new album was titled "Eonian" and was released on 4 May through Nuclear Blast, and marked the band's first new release of original material in almost eight years. A second song from the new album, "Council of Wolves and Snakes", was made available for streaming online on 30 March. On 28 May, it was announced that Victor Brandt (Entombed A.D., Firespawn) had officially joined as the band's new bassist.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: According to recent updates on the band member's Instagram accounts, the band are now in the process of writing and pre-production for their eleventh studio album. Silenoz has stated in a recent interview that the band would not take as long to release their next album.


title: Dimmu Borgir

text: Dimmu Borgir's older releases (since 1994 to 1999) are, according to AllMusic journalist Bradley Torreano, strongly influenced by Darkthrone, Mayhem, Bathory, Emperor, Celtic Frost, Immortal, Venom, and Iron Maiden. The band became more progressive and symphonic through the years; many black metal purists consider the band's second album, "Stormblåst", to be "the act's last true contribution to black metal". "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant", Dimmu Borgir's third album, "distinguished itself in two important areas, firstly forgoing their native language for English and secondly for its dramatic increase in synthesizer content." Significant experimentation began with 1999's "Spiritual Black Dimensions" (due to the addition of Vortex's clean vocals, and the variety of musical ideas from then-new member Mustis), as well as "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia" due to addition of influences from composers such as Antonín Dvořák, Enya, Richard Wagner, and Frédéric Chopin. As the music strongly differed from the older, rawer black metal style, Jon "Metalion" Kristiansen called "Spiritual Black Dimensions" "a fine case of melodic, over-produced symphonic metal. If you like this melodic style I can't really think of anyone doing it better [...]. No, I wouldn't call this black metal. Read the interview with Funeral Mist for the right definition of black metal."


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The Battle of the Trench (), also known as the Battle of Khandaq () and the Battle of the Confederates (), took place in year 627; it was a 27-day-long defense by Muslims of Yathrib (now Medina) from Arab and Jewish tribes. The strength of the confederate armies is estimated at around 10,000 men with six hundred horses and some camels, while the Medinan defenders numbered 3,000.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The largely outnumbered defenders of Medina, mainly Muslims led by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, dug a trench on the suggestion of Salman the Persian, which, together with Medina's natural fortifications, rendered the confederacy's cavalry (consisting of horses and camels) useless, locking the two sides in a stalemate. Hoping to make several attacks at once, the confederates persuaded the Muslim-allied Medinan Jews, Banu Qurayza, to attack the city from the south. However, Muhammad's diplomacy derailed the negotiations, and broke up the confederacy against him. The well-organized defenders, the sinking of confederate morale, and poor weather conditions caused the siege to end in a fiasco.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The siege was a "battle of wits", in which the Muslims tactically overcame their opponents while suffering very few casualties. Efforts to defeat the Muslims failed, and Islam became influential in the region. As a consequence, the Muslim army besieged the area of the Banu Qurayza tribe, leading to their surrender.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The battle is named after the "Trench", or "khandaq", that was dug by Muslims in preparation for the battle as an act of defense. The word "khandaq" () is the Arabised form of the Middle Persian word "kandag" (; meaning "that which has been dug"). Salman the Persian advised Muhammad to dig a trench around the city. The battle is also referred to as the "Battle of Confederates" (). The Qur'an uses the term "confederates" () in to denote the confederacy of non-believers and Jews against Islam.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: After their migration from Mecca, the Muslims fought the Meccan Quraysh at the Battle of Badr in 624, and at the Battle of Uhud in 625. Although the Muslims neither won nor were defeated at the Battle of Uhud, their military strength was gradually growing. In Sha'ban AH 4 (October 625) Muhammad raised a force of 300 men and 10 horses to meet the Quraysh army of 1,000 at Badr for the second time. Although no fighting occurred, the coastal tribes were impressed with Muslim power. Muhammad also tried, with limited success, to break up many alliances against the Muslim expansion. Nevertheless, he was unable to prevent the Meccan one.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: As they had in the battles of Badr and Uhud, the Muslim army again used strategic methods against their opponents (at Badr, the Muslims surrounded the wells, but did not deprive their opponents of water since Ali did not want to follow the footsteps of the Meccan army; at the Battle of Uhud, Muslims made strategic use of the hills). In this battle, they dug a trench to render the enemy cavalry ineffective.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The reason for this battle was to save Medina from attack, after Banu Nazir and Banu Qurayzah tribes formed an alliance with the Quraysh to attack him as revenge for expelling them from Medina during the Invasion of Banu Qaynuqa and Invasion of Banu Nadir. The Muslim scholar Ibn Kathir states: "The reason why the Confederates came was that a group of the leaders of the Banu Nadir, whom the Messenger of God had expelled from Al-Madinah to Khaybar, including Sallam bin Abu Al-Huqayq, Sallam bin Mishkam, and Kinanah bin Ar-Rabi`, went to Makkah where they met with the leaders of Quraysh and incited them to make war against the Prophet." It was also mostly due to some Meccan hate from the disbelievers to finish off the Muslims, as the prophet had given Makkah a new religion, Islam, which was meddling with the old ways, Idol Worship, and challenging with the authority of the elderly that held Makkah in a dictatorship.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Early in 627, the Banu Nadir met with the Quraysh of Mecca. Huyayy ibn Akhtab, along with other leaders from Khaybar, traveled to swear allegiance with Safwam ibn Umayya at Mecca.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The bulk of the Confederate armies were gathered by the Quraysh of Makkah, led by Abu Sufyan, who fielded 4,000-foot soldiers, 300 horsemen, and 1,000–1,500 men on camels.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The Banu Nadir began rousing the nomads of Najd. The Nadir enlisted the Banu Ghatafan by paying them half of their harvest. This contingent, the second-largest, added a strength of about 2,000 men and 300 horsemen led by Unaina bin Hasan Fazari. The Bani Assad also agreed to join, led by Tuleha Asadi. From the Banu Sulaym, the Nadir secured 700 men, though this force would likely have been much larger had not some of its leaders been sympathetic towards Islam. The Bani Amir, who had a pact with Muhammad, refused to join.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Other tribes included the Banu Murra, with 400 men led by Hars ibn Auf Murri, and the Banu Shuja, with 700 men led by Sufyan ibn Abd Shams. In total, the strength of the Confederate armies, though not agreed upon by scholars, is estimated to have included around 10,000 men and six hundred horsemen. In December 626 the army, which was led by Abu Sufyan, marched on Medina.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: In accordance with the plan, the armies began marching towards Medina, Meccans from the south (along the coast), and the others from the east. At the same time, horsemen from the Banu Khuza'a left to warn Medina of the invading army.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The men from Banu Khuza'a reached Muhammad in four days, warning him of the Confederate armies that were to arrive in a week. Muhammad gathered the Medinans to discuss the best strategy of overcoming the enemy. Meeting the enemy in the open (which led to victory at Badr), and waiting for them inside the city (a lesson learned from the defeat at Uhud) were both suggested. Ultimately, the outnumbered Muslims opted to engage in a defensive battle by digging deep trenches to act as a barrier along the northern front. The tactic of a defensive trench was introduced by Salman the Persian. Every capable Muslim in Medina including Muhammad contributed to digging the massive trench in six days. The ditch was dug on the northern side only, as the rest of Medina was surrounded by rocky mountains and trees, impenetrable to large armies (especially cavalry). The digging of the ditch coincided with a near-famine in Medina. Women and children were moved to the inner city. The Medinans harvested all their crops early, so the Confederate armies would have to rely on their own food reserves.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Muhammad established his military headquarters at the hillock of Sala' and the army was arrayed there; this position would give the Muslims an advantage if the enemy crossed the trench.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The final army that defended the city from the invasion consisted of 3,000 men, and included all inhabitants of Medina over the age of 14, except the Banu Qurayza (the Qurayza did supply the Muslims with some instruments for digging the trench).


title: Battle of the Trench

text: According to Irfan Shahid, the Muslims adopted the tactic of using trenches from the Persians, possibly via the Ghassanid Arabs who saw their king killed at the Battle of Thannuris in 527 by this tactic. The adopting is reflected in the Arabic word for this battle, "khandaq" (), which is a borrowing via Aramaic from Pahlavi "kandak".


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The siege of Medina began in January 627 and lasted for 20 nights. Adding in the six days of trench-building, the entire operation lasted 27 days and was contained within a single month (5 Shawwal-1 Dhu al-Qi'dah). Since sieges were uncommon in Arabian warfare, the arriving Confederates were unprepared to deal with the trenches dug by the Muslims. The Confederates tried to attack with horsemen in hopes of forcing a passage, but the Medinans were rigidly entrenched, preventing such a crossing. Both of the armies gathered on either side of the trench and spent two or three weeks exchanging insults in prose and verse, backed up with arrows fired from a comfortable distance. According to Rodinson, there were three dead among the attackers and five among the defenders. On the other hand, the harvest had been gathered and the besiegers had some trouble finding food for their horses, which proved of no use to them in the attack.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The Quraysh veterans grew impatient with the deadlock. A group of militants led by ‘Amr ibn ‘Abd Wudd (who was thought to be equal to a thousand men in fighting) and Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl attempted to thrust through the trench and managed to effect a crossing, occupying a marshy area near the hillock of Sala. 'Amr challenged the Muslims to a duel. According to Shia sources, in response, Ali ibn Abi Talib accepted the challenge, and was sent by Muhammad to fight. As Ali went to fight Amr ibn Abd Wudd, Muhammad said about Ali, "He is the embodiment of all Faith who is going to an encounter with the embodiment of all Unbelief."


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Both the fighters got lost in the dust as the duel became intense. Finally, the soldiers heard screams which hinted at decisive blows, but it was unclear which of the two was successful. The slogan, 'Allahu Akbar' (God is the greatest) from the dust confirmed Ali's victory. The Confederates were forced to withdraw in a state of panic and confusion. According to Shia sources, Ali allowed Amr's entourage to retreat; Ali never pursued a fleeing enemy.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The Confederate army made several other attempts to cross the trench during the night but repeatedly failed. Although the confederates could have deployed their infantry over the whole length of the trench, they were unwilling to engage the Muslims at the close-quarter as the former regarded the latter as superior in hand-to-hand fighting. As the Muslim army was well dug-in behind the embankment made from the earth which had been taken from the ditch and prepared to bombard attackers with stones and arrows, any attack could cause great casualties.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The Confederates attempted several simultaneous attacks, in particular by trying to persuade the Banu Qurayza to attack the Muslims from the south. From the Confederates, Huyayy ibn Akhtab, a Khaybarian, the leader of the exiled tribe Banu Nadir, returned to Medina seeking their support against the Muslims.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: So far the Banu Qurayza had tried their best to remain neutral, and were very hesitant about joining the Confederates since they had earlier made a pact with Muhammad. When Huyayy approached them, their leader refused to allow him entry.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Huyayy eventually managed to enter and persuade them that the Muslims would surely be overwhelmed. The sight of the vast Confederate armies, surging over the land with soldiers and horses as far as the eye could see, swung the Qurayza opinion in the favor of the Confederacy.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: News of the Qurayzah's supposed renunciation of the pact with Muhammad leaked out, and Umar promptly informed Muhammad. Such suspicions were reinforced by the movement of enemy troops towards the strongholds of the Qurayza. Muhammad became anxious about their conduct, and realised the grave potential danger the Qurayza posed. Because of his pact with the Qurayza, he had not bothered to make defensive preparations along the Muslims' border with the tribe. The Qurayza also possessed weaponry: 1,500 swords, 2,000 lances, 300 suits of armour, and 500 shields.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Muhammad sent three leading Muslims to bring him details of the recent developments. He advised the men to openly declare their findings, should they find the Banu Qurayza to be kind, so as to increase the morale of the Muslim fighters. However, he warned against spreading the news of a possible breach of the pact on the Qurayza's part, so as to avoid any panic within Muslim ranks.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The leaders found that the pact indeed had been renounced and tried in vain to convince the Qurayza to revert by reminding them of the fate of the Banu Nadir and Banu Qaynuqa at the hands of Muhammad. The findings of the leaders were signaled to Muhammad in a metaphor: ""Adal and Qarah"". Because the people of Adal and Qarah had betrayed the Muslims and killed them at the opportune moment, Maududi believes the metaphor means the Qurayza were thought to be about to do the same.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Muhammad attempted to hide his knowledge of the activities of Banu Qurayza; however, rumors soon spread of a massive assault on the city of Medina from Qurayza's side which severely demoralized the Medinans.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The Muslims found themselves in greater difficulties by day. Food was running short, and nights were colder. The lack of sleep made matters worse. So tense was the situation that, for the first time, the canonical daily prayers were neglected by the Muslim community. Only at night, when the attacks stopped due to darkness, could they resume their regular worship. According to Ibn Ishaq, the situation became serious and fear was everywhere.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Immediately after hearing the rumors about the Qurayza, Muhammad had sent 100 men to the inner city for its protection. Later he sent 300 horsemen (cavalry was not needed at the trench) as well to protect the city. The loud voices, in which the troops prayed every night, created the illusion of a large force.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The crisis showed Muhammad that many of his men had reached the limits of their endurance. He sent word to Ghatafan, trying to pay for their defection and offering them a third of Medina's date harvest if they withdrew. Although the Ghatafan demanded half, they eventually agreed to negotiate with Muhammad on those terms. Before Muhammad began the order of drafting the agreement, he consulted the Medinan leaders. They sharply rejected the terms of the agreement, protesting Medina had never sunk to such levels of ignominy. The negotiations were broken off. While the Ghatafan did not retreat they had compromised themselves by entering into negotiations with Medina, and the Confederacy's internal dissension had thereby been increased.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: At about that point, Muhammad received a visit from Nuaym ibn Masud, an Arab leader who was well-respected by the entire confederacy, but who had, unknown to them, secretly converted to Islam. Muhammad asked him to end the siege by creating discord amongst Confederates.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Nuaym then came up with an efficient stratagem. He first went to the Banu Qurayza and warned them about the intentions of the rest of the Confederacy. If the siege fails, he said, the Confederacy will not be afraid to abandon the Jews, leaving them at the mercy of Muhammad. The Qurayza should thus demand Confederate leaders as hostages in return for cooperation. This advice touched upon the fears the Qurayza had already harbored.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Next Nuaym went to Abu Sufyan, the Confederate leader, warning him that the Qurayza had defected to Muhammad. He stated that the tribe intended to ask the Confederacy for hostages, ostensibly in return for cooperation, but really to hand over to Muhammad. Thus the Confederacy should not give a single man a hostage. Nuaym repeated the same message to other tribes in the Confederacy.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Nuaym's stratagem worked. After consulting, the Confederate leaders sent Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl to the Qurayza, signaling a united invasion of Medina. The Qurayza, however, demanded hostages as a guarantee that the Confederacy would not desert them. The Confederacy, considering that the Qurayza might give the hostage to Muhammad, refused. Messages were repeatedly sent back and forth between the parties, but each held to its position stubbornly.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Abu Sufyan summoned Huyayy ibn Akhtab, informing him of Qurayza's response. Huyayy was taken aback, and Abu Sufyan branded him as a "traitor". Fearing for his life, Huyayy fled to the Qurayza's strongholds.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The Bedouins, the Ghatafan, and other Confederates from Najd had already been compromised by Muhammad's negotiations. They had taken part in the expedition in hopes of plunder, rather than for personal reasons. They lost hope as chances of success dwindled, uninterested in continuing the siege. The two confederate armies were marked by recriminations and mutual distrust.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The provisions of the Confederate armies were running out. Horses and camels were dying of hunger and wounds. For days the weather had been exceptionally cold and wet. Violent winds blew out the campfires, taking away from the Confederate army their source of heat. The Muslim camp, however, was sheltered from such winds. The enemy’s tents were torn up, their fires were extinguished, the sand and rain beat in their faces and they were terrified by the portents against them. They had already well nigh fallen out among themselves. During the night the Confederate armies withdrew, and by morning the ground was cleared of all enemy forces.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Following the retreat of the Confederate army, the Banu Qurayza neighborhoods were besieged by the Muslims. After a 25-day siege of their neighborhood, the Banu Qurayza unconditionally surrendered. When the Banu Qurayza tribe surrendered, the Muslim army seized their stronghold and their possessions for their acts. On the request of the Banu Aus, who were allied to the Qurayza, Muhammad chose one of them, Sa'ad ibn Mu'adh, as an arbitrator to pronounce judgment upon them. Sa'ad, who later died of his wounds from the battle, decreed the sentence, in which some of the men fighters shall be killed and some of their women and children enslaved. Muhammad approved of this decision, and the next day the sentence was carried out.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The men – numbering between 400 and 900 – were bound and placed under the custody of Muhammad ibn Maslamah, while the women and children were placed under Abdullah ibn Salam, a former rabbi who had converted to Islam.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: A lot of scholars have however cast doubt on ibn Ishaq's account and there is no reliable hadith about the exact number of people killed leading some to argue only prominent ones were executed. A number of individuals were spared when various Muslims intervened on their behalf. Several accounts note Muhammad's companions as executioners, Umar and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam in particular, and that each clan of the Aws was also charged with killing a group of Qurayza men.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: According to Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad, one woman who had thrown a millstone from the battlements during the siege and killed one of the Muslim besiegers, was also beheaded along with the men. 'Ã'isha, one of Muhammad's wives, is cited as describing the woman as laughing and chatting with her during the massacre, down to the moment her name was called out: 'By Allah,' she said,' that is me.' I said to her 'You poor soul, what is to happen to you?' She said: "I must be killed." "Why?" I asked her. "For something I did," she answered. She went away and was beheaded for her acts. By Allah,('Ã'isha adds) I shall never forget her cheerfulness and her great laugh when she knew that she was to be killed.'


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Ibn Asakir writes in his "History of Damascus" that the Banu Kilab, a clan of Arab clients of the Banu Qurayza, were also killed though this is not accepted by the majority of traditional Islamic historians.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The spoils of battle, including the enslaved women and children of the tribe, were divided up among the Muslims that had participated in the siege and among the emigrees from Mecca (who had hitherto depended on the help of the Muslims native to Medina).


title: Battle of the Trench

text: As part of his share of the spoils, Muhammad selected one of the women, Rayhana, for himself and took her as part of his booty. Muhammad offered to free and marry her and according to some sources she accepted his proposal, while according to others she rejected it and remained Muhammad's companion. She is said to have later become a Muslim.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Scholars argue that Muhammad had already decided upon this judgment before the Qurayza's surrender and that Sa'ad was putting his allegiance to the Muslim community above that to his tribe. One reason cited by some for such punishment is that Muhammad's previous clemency towards defeated foes was in contradiction to Arab and Jewish laws of the time, and was seen as a sign of weakness. Others see the punishment as a response to what was perceived as an act of treason by the Qurayza since they betrayed their joint defense pact with Muhammad by giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the Muslims.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The failure of the siege marked the beginning of Muhammad's undoubted ascendency in the city of Medina. The Meccans had exerted their utmost strength to dislodge Muhammad from Medina, and this defeat caused them to lose their trade with Syria and much of their prestige with it. Watt conjectures that the Meccans at this point began to contemplate that conversion to Islam would be the most prudent option.


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The Sunni Muslim Mufassir Ibn Kathir mentions this incident in his book Tafsir ibn Kathir, and his commentary on this verse mentions the reason and event of the Battle, his commentary is as follows:


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The event is referenced in the Sunni, Hadith collection Sahih al-Bukhari, it mentions the death of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, as follows:


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The Sahih al-Bukhari collection also mentions that after the battle, Muslims were to carry out offensive attacks against their enemies:


title: Battle of the Trench

text: Muhammad in order to stop the attacks called for a counter-attack against the idolaters, He asserted to his followers before:


title: Battle of the Trench

text: The incident also is mentioned in the historical works by writers of the third and fourth century of the Muslim era. These include the traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad, and quotes attributed to him (the "sira" and "hadith" literature), which provide further information on Muhammad's life. The earliest surviving written "sira" (biographies of Muhammad and quotes attributed to him) is Ibn Ishaq's "Life of God's Messenger" written some 120 to 130  years after Muhammad's death. Although the original work is lost, portions of it survive in the recensions of Ibn Hisham and Al-Tabari. Another early source is the history of Muhammad's campaigns by al-Waqidi (d. 823).


title: Battle of the Trench

text: A rock inscription was discovered in mount Sela; In the fourth and fifth line appear the words, “I am Muhammad ibn Abdullah” and that is the full name of the prophet Muhammad as his father was Abdullah. In the eighth line is the name, “ I am Salman the (?)”. In the twelfth line is the phrase “I am Sa'd bin Mu'adh”, and finally on the fifteenth line “I am Ali ibn Abu Talib”. As it is known that Saad ibn Muadh died in 627, the inscription can not be from a later era, further the location of this inscription may hint that it was meant to commemorate the Muslim victory in the battle.


title: Signed, Sealed, Delivered (TV series)

text: Signed, Sealed, Delivered (original title: Dead Letters), also known as Lost Letter Mysteries, is an American-Canadian drama/romantic comedy television series that aired on the Hallmark Channel from April 20 through June 22, 2014. Created by "Touched by an Angel"s Martha Williamson, "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" focuses on four postal workers who take it upon themselves to track down intended recipients of undeliverable mail. Similarly to her previous program, the show promotes Williamson's Christian beliefs as the characters struggle with their faith while relying on divine intervention to accomplish their task. It is set in Denver, Colorado but filmed mostly in the Vancouver area. On October 12, 2013, a two-hour pilot movie aired on Hallmark and was a ratings success. It was the number-one television movie on its airdate and the number-two movie for that week. The movie was watched by 1.72 million viewers. Following one season of the TV series, Hallmark announced "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" would transition to a series of television films on its Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel.


title: Signed, Sealed, Delivered (TV series)

text: "Variety"s Brian Lowry commented that it was "so old fashioned and hokey that it just might work." David Hinckley of New York "Daily News" gave it 3 stars out of 5 in 2014 and said that while all the characters were terribly likable, they spoke as if they were reading from Hallmark greeting cards.


title: Signed, Sealed, Delivered (TV series)

text: "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" scored 58 out of 100 on Metacritic based on five "mixed or average" reviews.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) is an American rock band founded in 1996 by producer, composer, and lyricist Paul O'Neill, who brought together Jon Oliva and Al Pitrelli (both members of Savatage) and keyboardist and co-producer Robert Kinkel to form the core of the creative team. The band gained in popularity when they began touring in 1999 after completing their second album, "The Christmas Attic", the year previous. In 2007, the "Washington Post" referred to them as "an arena-rock juggernaut" and described their music as "Pink Floyd meets Yes and the Who at Radio City Music Hall." TSO has sold more than 10 million concert tickets and over 10 million albums. The band has released a series of rock operas: "Christmas Eve and Other Stories", "The Christmas Attic", "Beethoven's Last Night", "The Lost Christmas Eve", their two-disc "Night Castle" and "Letters From the Labyrinth". Trans-Siberian Orchestra is also known for their extensive charity work and elaborate concerts, which include a string section, a light show, lasers, moving trusses, video screens, and effects synchronized to music.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Both "Billboard Magazine" and "Pollstar" have ranked them as one of the top twenty-five ticket-selling bands in the first decade of the new millennium. Their path to success was unusual in that, according to O'Neill, TSO is the first major rock band to go straight to theaters and arenas, having never played at a club, never having an opening act and never being an opening act.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Paul O'Neill managed and produced rock bands including Aerosmith, Humble Pie, AC/DC, Joan Jett, and Scorpions, later producing and co-writing albums by the progressive metal band Savatage, where he began working with Jon Oliva (who had left Savatage to spend time with his family and take care of personal matters), Al Pitrelli and Robert Kinkel. O'Neill took his first steps into rock music in the 1970s when he started the progressive rock band Slowburn, for whom he was the lyricist and co-composer. What was intended to be the band's debut album was recorded at Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios and engineered by Dave Wittman. Although Wittman's engineering was capturing the exact sound O'Neill was hearing in his head, O'Neill was having trouble with it because many of his melodies were between two and three octaves. Rather than releasing an album that he was not happy with, he shelved the project, but continued working in the industry at Contemporary Communications Corporation (also known as Leber & Krebs).


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Over the years, O'Neill continued to work as a writer, producer, manager, and concert promoter. In 1996, he accepted Atlantic Records' offer to start his own band. He built the band on a foundation created by the marriage of classical and rock music and the artists he idolized (Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Queen, Yes, The Who, and Pink Floyd, and hard rock bands such as Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin and the multiple lead vocalists of the R&B groups the Temptations and the Four Tops). He brought in Oliva, Kinkel, and Pitrelli to help start the project. O'Neill has stated, "My original concept was six rock operas, a trilogy about Christmas and maybe one or two regular albums."


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In the 1980s I was fortunate enough to have visited Russia. If anyone has ever seen Siberia, it is incredibly beautiful but incredibly harsh and unforgiving as well. The one thing that everyone who lives there has in common that runs across it in relative safety is the Trans-Siberian Railway. Life, too, can be incredibly beautiful but also incredibly harsh and unforgiving, and the one thing that we all have in common that runs across it in relative safety is music. It was a little bit overly philosophical, but it sounded different, and I like the initials, TSO.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Their debut album, the first installment of the intended Christmas Trilogy, was a rock opera called "Christmas Eve and Other Stories", and was released in 1996. It remains among their best-selling albums. It contains the instrumental "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" which originally appeared on Savatage's rock opera, "Dead Winter Dead", a story about the Bosnian War. Their 1998 release "The Christmas Attic", the sequel to "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" followed a similar format. This album produced the hit "Christmas Canon", a take on Johann Pachelbel's "Canon in D major" with lyrics and new melodies added.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: "Beethoven's Last Night" was written and recorded in 1998 and 1999 and turned over to Atlantic Records in late 1999 for release in 2000. The story begins when Mephistopheles appears before Beethoven, whom Paul O'Neill refers to as "the world's first Heavy Metal Rock Star", to collect the great composer's soul. Of course Beethoven is horrified at the thought of eternal damnation, but the devil has an offer and the bargaining begins. There are numerous plot twists including the fate of his music, and the ending is based on a true but little known fact about Beethoven. Also in 1998, at the request of Scott Shannon of WPLJ, they performed live for the first time in a charity concert for Blythedale Children's Hospital. In 1999, at the urging of Bill Louis, a DJ for WNCX in Cleveland, they did their first tour, during which they debuted sections of "Beethoven's Last Night". They performed the album in its entirety for the first time during the spring tour of 2010. In October 2011, "Beethoven's Last Night" was released in Europe to coincide with their European tour with new cover art by Greg Hildebrandt and the missing pages of poetry from the original release.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: To coincide with the 2012 spring tour, "Beethoven's Last Night: The Complete Narrated Version" was released by Atlantic/Rhino/Warner Brothers Record. This two-disc deluxe edition includes all the music from the original release and, for the first time, the narration featured during live performances of the album. It comes packaged with a booklet filled with Hildebrandt's illustrations of the story, plus the full lyrics and narration. The narration is performed by Bryan Hicks, who has been handling the live narration on the tours for this album. Creator Paul O'Neill explains, "This is how I have always envisioned the story being experienced. Where the listener can relax, close their eyes and within minutes be wandering the streets of 1800s Vienna with Beethoven on the last great adventure of his life."


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Whenever the band was off the road they returned to the studio and in 2004 completed "The Lost Christmas Eve", the final installment of the Christmas Trilogy. It is a story of loss and redemption that encompasses a rundown hotel, an old toy store, a blues bar, a Gothic cathedral and their respective inhabitants all intertwined on a single enchanted Christmas Eve in New York City. The next year they combined all three Christmas albums and released them in a box set titled "The Christmas Trilogy," which also contained a DVD of their 1999 TV special "The Ghosts of Christmas Eve" (Each of the albums still continue to be available individually.) "The Lost Christmas Eve" was first performed live in 2012 followed by a encore tour in 2013. Critics once again called it "stunning showmanship" "that included every trick known to man kind including massive pyro, spectacular lasers, stages that hover over the audience, hot back up singers all the while constantly connecting with their audience."


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: After another few years of touring, "Night Castle", Trans-Siberian Orchestra's fifth album, was released on October 27, 2009 well received by fans and critics alike. It debuted at #5 on the "Billboard" Album Charts. It was certified gold in eight weeks and is now platinum. "Their most ambitious and adventurous work to date. It runs the gamut from hard rock to classical taking the listener on a journey through history detailing the triumphs and follies of man but is ultimately a story of transformation and love." Initially intended to be their first regular, non rock opera, consisting of ten stand alone songs album, O'Neill credits Jon Oliva persistence that it was too early for such a move and that the fifth album had to be a rock opera. Insisting that "TSO was not like any other band and that the fans expected a story. It was a little bit of a role reversal because when we were working in Savatage, I was always wanting to do a concept record." The two-disc set includes a version of "O Fortuna" from "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff, which was previewed live by the band during their 2004–2008 tours. An MP3 version of the album released through Amazon.com contains an additional track entitled "The Flight of Cassandra".


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: The first half is a rock opera about a seven-year-old child on a beach who meets a stranger from New York City who tells her a story that takes her all around the world and through time where she encounters various characters, many of which are based on historical individuals such as Desiderius Erasmus. The second half pays homage to Trans-Siberian Orchestra's influences. It also contains new versions of several Savatage songs as well as "Nut Rocker", originally by B. Bumble and the Stingers and previously made famous by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, featuring Greg Lake on bass guitar.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In February 2011, "Night Castle" was released in Europe with two live bonus tracks ("Requiem" and "Toccata-Carpimus Noctem") added. Both live tracks were recorded on the 2010 spring tour at the Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie, in Texas. Metal Kaoz, reviewed it as a two-hour plus double rock opera CD with, "no filler" that flows smoothly. "The classical layers meet the beauty of Metal music and form the fine blend... a wide range of emotions and musical colors...tracks that will blow your mind. Hit play and wander freely in TSO's, Night Castle."


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: On October 30, 2012 Trans-Siberian Orchestra released a new five-song EP entitled "Dreams of Fireflies (On a Christmas Night)" on Lava Republic Universal Records. It debuted in "Billboard" Magazine's Top 200 Albums chart at number #9, and #1 in the rock charts. It was the band's first EP and with a list price of five dollars or under was Trans-Siberian Orchestra's way of saying thank you to their fans. Rather than containing the usual TSO story, it was more like a Harry Chapin album where a short story is contained within the song. For example, "Someday" is about how people have a tendency to put off saying thank you to individuals that they owe a great debt to and with the best of intention tell themselves that they will do it someday. Also each song is accompanied by a short poem.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Released on October 11, 2013, this fifteen-track collection is Trans-Siberian Orchestra's first greatest hits collection and includes songs from all six prior releases. Cover art once again provided by Greg Hildebrandt.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: On November 11, 2011, TSO released a new choral piece entitled, "Who I Am". This was originally released as a digital download to fans who purchased tickets through the band's ticket pre-sale but is now available through other music sites as well as being released on their 2015 album, "Letters from the Labyrinth". The song was performed live as the opening number for the 2011 winter tour in acknowledgment of the rough times many people in the world were going through but bringing a message of hope by pointing out that together we can solve these problems as earlier generations have done in the past. It was accompanied by sound and video clips of individuals who helped humanity progress forward or overcome seemingly impossible situations. The first quote and image was Reverend M. L. King's voice echoing " I have a dream...that all men will be judged by the content of their character," followed by President Kennedy's inaugural challenge, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." It included pictures of Jonas Salk, the scientist who cured polio, Saint "Mother" Theresa of Calcutta who spent her life caring for the unwanted and ended with Neil Armstrong taking the first step on the moon and the NASA's Gene Kranz paraphrased quote in regard to saving the astronauts aboard the damaged space capsule Apollo 13, that, "Failure is not an option."


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In 2013 the band announced the late November release of a novella, "Merry Christmas Rabbi". Referred to as the final missing piece to the Christmas Trilogy, it is the journal discovered by the girl in the "Christmas Attic" rock opera that leads into the song, "Dream Child". Press releases described it as "the story of a fateful Christmas Eve and how one of the craziest gambles in human history leads to a second chance for a troubled youth who finds himself past the point of no return."


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: O'Neill died on April 5, 2017, at age 61, while staying at an Embassy Suites by Hilton hotel on the University of South Florida campus in Tampa. Cause of death as determined by the Hillsborough County, Florida medical examiner’s Office, was intoxication from a mixture of methadone, codeine, Valium and doxylamine, and the manner of death as drug abuse.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In June of 2017, the organization announced that they would continue with their Christmas-themed touring. "The Ghosts of Christmas Eve" story, which they had performed in 2015 and 2016, was announced as their story once again for the 2017 tour.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: David Z, bassist for TSO, died on July 14, 2017, while touring with Adrenaline Mob for their "We The People" tour; a tractor-trailer veered off Interstate 75 in Florida and struck the RV that Adrenaline Mob was riding in. Fellow TSO and Adrenaline Mob member Russell Allen was also injured in the accident.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: For the 20th annual TSO winter tour in 2018, the band decided to once again tour with "The Ghosts of Christmas Eve" story. In 2019, TSO returned to the "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" show, which had previously been performed from the inaugural 1999 tour through 2011. No tour was held in 2020, due to continued mass gathering restrictions tied to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The band instead played an online livestream performance of Christmas Eve and Other Stories on December 18.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In 2009, a group of musicians from the metro New York area formed a band, called The Wizards of Winter, inspired by TSO. The Wizards released their own limited-release Christmas album in 2011 while performing a mixture of TSO and original material in live concerts. In 2013, four of the original members of TSO — Tommy Farese, Guy LeMonnier, Tony Gaynor, and Michael Lanning toured as guests with The Wizards of Winter. Another original TSO vocalist, Joe Cerisano toured with them in 2014. The band released two new Christmas albums ("The Wizards of Winter" and "The Magic of Winter") with Guy LeMonnier and Tony Gaynor joining the band as full members. The band now performs their own original material when touring, with a few TSO songs added. In June 2018, long-time TSO drummer John O. Reilly also joined the Wizards of Winter as a full member.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In 2005 Carson Williams started a synchronized lighting race when he used 88 Light-O-Rama channels, over ten thousand lights and a small radio transmitter to illuminate his home to "Wizards in Winter". A video of the house quickly went viral on the internet and eventually was picked up by Miller Lite as the theme for their TV ads over the next two years. Other homes soon followed eventually crossing to single homes with over a million lights. Soon after entire cities like Denver and Chicago were lighting their downtown districts in a similar manner, as well as many major theme parks such as Disney World and Universal Studios.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Since Trans-Siberian Orchestra began touring, the band has donated over $16 million to a combination of local and national charities. At every tour stop, the group donates one dollar or more from each ticket sold to a local charity in the city where they are performing. A single day (two shows) in New Jersey's Izod arena yielded $40,000 to local charities. The band helps any charity or group they think is in need but especially ones that protect and help children. In 2010 Paul O'Neill voiced the band's philosophy on the TSO's web site and also in the 2010 Winter Tour Book, "We are all in this together. We must look out for the well being of each other, most of all the young. For the young are the architects of the future and we are the architects of the young. We can not tell those yet to be born that we did our best." Paul was a well known history buff.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Paul O'Neill constantly stated that the fans own the band: "TSO's goal is to make the best albums and concerts we possibly can, sparing no amount of time or expense and then charge the lowest possible price. No musician or singer is on the TSO flight deck for the money. We do it because we love the energy from the crowd especially the kids. Also in Trans Siberian Orchestra the crew are as much a member of the band as anyone on the flight deck. They actually have the hardest jobs. They are the first ones in and the last ones out. Watching them at work is like watching a well choreographed ballet or military operation. TSO could not be TSO without them and we know it." Al Pitrelli summed it up more humorously, "No one in TSO is paid to be on the stage, that we do for free. The money is to stay out of trouble on our off time."


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Over the years, O'Neill consistently thanks the audience, referring to them as the second half of Trans-Siberian Orchestra and that without them TSO would just be notes and words echoing in an empty arena. "The fans' enthusiasm and energy power the stage show as much, if not more, than any local electric company."


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In 1999, TSO performed a stage adaptation of "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" for its first live tour.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In 2009, "Billboard" ranked TSO as one of the Top 25 Touring Artists of the past decade. Live shows are known for their extensive use of pyrotechnics, lasers, and lights synchronized with the performance.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Between 2010 and 2012 spring tours were held, in which the entire "Beethoven's Last Night" album, and songs of "Night Castle" were played. In 2011, for the very first time in the band's history, a European leg was included, with venues predominantly in Germany, but also in Austria, Belgium, England, and Switzerland. Initially, Savatage was announced to reunite at the end of the TSO setlist. However, the plans were scrapped, as the band cited undisclosed personal matters that held Jon Oliva from being available to tour.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: Their 2012-2013 Fall/Winter tour, sponsored by the Hallmark Channel featured "The Lost Christmas Eve" album in place of "Christmas Eve and Other Stories".


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In 2013, TSO kicked off their second European tour with a performance on New Year's Eve 2013-14 in front of over one million fans at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. "A daring feat in which the band played three shows across two continents in 27 hours." The show was broadcast live to millions more on German television.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In August 2014 the band announced the first half of the winter tour they would feature "The Christmas Attic", the only rock opera from the "Christmas Trilogy" never performed live up to that point.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In August 2022, TSO announced the return of "the Ghosts of Christmas Eve" for the winter tour. A new instrumental song entitled "Carousels of Christmas", written by Jon Oliva, is being performed on the 2022 tour.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: On July 30, 2015, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and a reunited Savatage headlined the 26th edition of Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany, which is the largest metal festival in the world. The 2015 festival lasted three days and featured over one hundred bands. This event marked both TSO's first outdoor festival appearance and first Savatage show in 13 years. A massive set was designed so that the two main festival stages would be identical, although this aspect of the show was not revealed until the second half of the performance. For the first 40 minutes Savatage played a reunion show featuring Jon Oliva as the main lead singer for the first time in over 25 years, as well as Zak Stevens. This was followed by a Trans-Siberian Orchestra set on the next stage debuting several new songs. Following this, for the first time in music history, the entire band played a coordinated set spanning the two festival main stages, connected by a catwalk. This united Trans-Siberian Orchestra featured four guitarists, four keyboard players, two drummers, two bassists, a full string section, and 24 vocalists and dancers performing in sync for nearly 80,000 people.


title: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

text: In the televised broadcast a week after the show but right before the actual performance, Paul O'Neill and Al Pitrelli admitted to being blindsided by non-stop rain and mud on the night before which removed any chance to check the staging until the actual show. Metal Recusants, which favorably reviewed the entire event said, "If all the above shows were spectacular and memorable the Savatage's and Trans-Siberian Orchestra show is a whole new level of shows...I have never seen such a thing take place before and it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience."


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: Leap Year is a 2010 romantic comedy directed by Anand Tucker and written by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan. "Leap Year" stars Amy Adams and Matthew Goode.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: The film follows a real estate worker who heads to Ireland to ask her boyfriend to accept her wedding proposal on leap day, when tradition supposedly holds that men will not refuse a woman's proposal for marriage. Her plans are interrupted by a series of events and are further complicated when she hires an Irish innkeeper to take her to her boyfriend in Dublin. Principal photography took place in County Wicklow, Dublin, County Mayo, and County Galway, with filming taking place in and around the Aran Islands, Connemara, Temple Bar, Georgian Dublin, Wicklow National Park, and Olaf Street, Waterford.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: "Leap Year" premiered in New York City on January 6, 2010 and was released theatrically on January 8, 2010, by Universal Pictures in the United States and on February 28 by Optimum Releasing in Ireland. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics, with many criticising the film’s pacing, plot and limited chemistry between Adams and Goode. The movie is inspired by the 1945 movie "I Know Where I'm Going!".


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: Successful real estate stager Anna Brady is frustrated that her cardiologist boyfriend Jeremy Sloane still has not proposed to her after four years. She decides to travel from Boston to Dublin, to propose to him on February 29, leap day, while he is there at a conference. Anna wishes to invoke an Irish tradition, Bachelor's Day, that a man who is proposed to on leap day must accept the proposal.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: During the flight, a storm diverts the plane to Cardiff, Wales. Anna hires a boat to take her west to Cork. The severity of the storm forces her to be put ashore at a small seaside village called Dingle. Anna requests Declan O'Callaghan, a surly Irish innkeeper, to taxi her to Dublin. At first he refuses, but after his tavern is threatened with foreclosure, he agrees to drive her for €500. Along the way, he mocks her belief in a leap year tradition of women proposing to men.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: A herd of cows blocks the road. Anna steps in cow dung while attempting to move the animals, and tries to clean her shoes while leaning on Declan's car, which causes it to roll downhill into a stream. Continuing on foot, Anna flags down a van with three travellers who offer her a lift. Ignoring Declan's warning, Anna hands them her luggage. They drive off without her. Anna and Declan make their way on foot to a roadside pub, where they discover the three thieves going through Anna's luggage. Declan fights them and retrieves Anna's bag.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: While waiting for a train, they ask each other what they would grab if their homes were on fire and they had only 60 seconds to flee. They lose track of time and miss the train. They are forced to stay at a bed & breakfast in Tipperary, where they pretend to be married so that their conservative hosts will allow them to stay. During dinner, when other couples kiss to show their love for each other, Anna and Declan are "forced" to kiss as well. This stirs feelings that neither had expected. They sleep in the same bed, but do not admit their new feelings for each other.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: While hitchhiking, Anna and Declan are caught in a hailstorm and take shelter in a nearby church, where a wedding is taking place. They are invited to the reception, where Anna gets drunk. Anna questions her own intentions with Jeremy and realizes that she has feelings for Declan. Just as the two are about to kiss, Anna vomits and passes out. The following day they arrive in Dublin. Declan reveals he was once engaged but his fiancée ran off to Dublin with his mother's claddagh ring and his best friend. Anna suggests that while in Dublin, he should ask for his mother's ring back. When they arrive at the hotel where Jeremy is staying, Jeremy surprises Anna by proposing to her right in the lobby. Seeing that Declan had already walked out of the hotel, she accepts Jeremy's proposal.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: At their engagement party in Boston, Anna learns that Jeremy proposed because he thought it was the only way to appease the co-op board of the apartment building the couple wanted to move into. Dismayed, Anna pulls the fire alarm and waits, testing the 60-second concept she discussed with Declan earlier. Jeremy retrieves all of their electronic materials and neglects to check for Anna. Anna realizes there is nothing in the apartment that means anything to her, including Jeremy. Meanwhile, in Dublin, Declan retrieves his mother's claddagh ring from his ex-fiancée.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: Anna returns to the tavern in Dingle, where Declan has pulled together the balance he owed his property owner with the help of the community. She tells him she has broken off her engagement and proposes that they get together, and not make plans. Declan leaves. Thinking she has been rejected, Anna rushes outside to the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. Declan emerges, revealing that he went out to retrieve his mother's claddagh ring. Declan says he wants to make plans with her, and proposes on the cliffside. Anna happily accepts. They drive away in Declan's car, leaving their destination open to fate.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: On October 17, 2008, it was announced that Amy Adams was to star in the film as Anna Brady. On November 23, Anand Tucker signed on to direct the film, with Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan collaborating on the screenplay. On February 12, 2009, it was announced that Matthew Goode would be playing the role of Declan O'Callaghan, the surly innkeeper. On March 18, it was announced that Adam Scott was to play Jeremy Sloane, Anna's long time boyfriend, and that Kaitlin Olson would play Libby, Anna's best friend. The film was shot in County Wicklow, Dublin, County Mayo and County Galway, with filming taking place in and around the Aran Islands, Connemara, Temple Bar, Georgian Dublin, Wicklow National Park and Olaf Street, Waterford. On October 19, it was announced that Randy Edelman had been chosen to compose the film's score. The decision to choose Edelman came as a surprise, as Tucker had used Barrington Pheloung for two of his previous films, "Hilary & Jackie" and "When Did You Last See Your Father?".


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: An audio CD soundtrack for "Leap Year" was released on the Varèse Sarabande record label on January 12, 2010. That album contains only the original score, composed and conducted by Randy Edelman. The musical selections that were used, and credited at the end of the film, are not available on the CD. Those include:


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: The film opened at the American box office at number 6, with a modest US$9,202,815, behind blockbusters "Avatar", "Sherlock Holmes", "", as well as "Daybreakers" and "It's Complicated". The film's final gross of US$25,918,920 in the United States against a production budget of US$19,000,000. In addition to this, the film made US$6,688,396 in international markets, for a final worldwide gross of US$32,607,316.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: "Leap Year" was released on DVD in the United States on May 4, 2010. It debuted at number 4 on the American DVD rentals chart, with a first week rental index of 56.63. It placed 5th on the DVD sales chart, selling an estimated 159,843 units, and has sold almost 800,000 units in total to April 2013.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 23% and an average rating of 4.30/10 based on reviews from 141 critics. The site's critical consensus is that: "Amy Adams is as appealing as ever, but her charms aren't enough to keep "Leap Year" from succumbing to an overabundance of clichés and an unfunny script'." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score out of 33 out of 100, based on 30 reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave it 3 out of 4, and described "Leap Year" as a 'full-bore, PG-rated, sweet rom-com'. 'It sticks to the track, makes all the scheduled stops, and bears us triumphantly to the station'. Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a B− grade, stating that the film could have used more 'pizzazz'.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club, gave it a grade of C− and concluded, "The film functions as the cinematic equivalent of a Shamrock Shake: sickeningly, artificially sweet, formulaic, and about as authentically Gaelic as an Irish Spring commercial".


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" saw it as "so witless, charmless, and unimaginative, that it can be described as a movie only in a strictly technical sense".


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: Richard Roeper gave it a C−, stating that it had a 'Recycled plot, lame sight gags, Leprechaun-like stock Irish characters,' adding that 'The charms of Amy Adams rescue "Leap Year" from Truly Awful status'.


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: Donald Clarke of "The Irish Times" gave the film one star out of five, and in a scathing review, described it as 'offensive, reactionary, patronising filth' and cited the film as evidence that 'Hollywood is incapable of seeing the Irish as anything but IRA men or twinkly rural imbeciles'. Paul Whitington of the Irish Independent describes the film as "grotesque and insulting paddywhackery" and says Goode is out of his depth as he "struggle[s] badly with his accent".


title: Leap Year (2010 film)

text: The film's lead actor Matthew Goode admitted 'I just know that there are a lot of people who will say it is the worst film of 2010' and revealed that the main reason he signed on to the film was so that he could work close to home and be able to see his girlfriend and newborn daughter.


title: D-Day (military term)

text: In the military, D-Day is the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. The best-known D-Day is during World War II, on June 6, 1944—the day of the Normandy landings—initiating the Western Allied effort to liberate western Europe from Nazi Germany. However, many other invasions and operations had a designated D-Day, both before and after that operation.


title: D-Day (military term)

text: The terms D-Day and H-Hour are used for the day and hour on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. They designate the day and hour of the operation when the day and hour have not yet been determined, or where secrecy is essential. For a given operation, the same D-Day and H-Hour apply for all units participating in it. When used in combination with numbers, and plus or minus signs, these terms indicate the point of time following or preceding a specific action, respectively. Thus, H−3 means 3 hours before H-Hour, and D+3 means 3 days after D-Day. (By extension, H+75 minutes is used for H-Hour plus 1 hour and 15 minutes.) Planning papers for large-scale operations are made up in detail long before specific dates are set. Thus, orders are issued for the various steps to be carried out on the D-Day or H-Hour plus or minus a certain number of days, hours, or minutes. At the appropriate time, a subsequent order is issued that states the actual day and times.


title: D-Day (military term)

text: Other days such as A-Day (Battle of Leyte), L-Day (Battle of Okinawa) etc. have different meanings for the military.


title: D-Day (military term)

text: Other languages have terms equivalent to D-Day such as "Hari H" (Indonesian),"Час Ч" (Russian), "Dagen D" (Swedish), ' (Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian), ' (Basque), ' (French), ' (Irish), "Tag X" (German), and "" (Romanian). The initial "D" in D-Day has been given various meanings in the past, while more recently it has obtained the connotation of "Day" itself, thereby creating the phrase "Day-Day", or "Day of Days".


title: D-Day (military term)

text: The earliest use of these terms by the United States Army that the U.S. Army Center of Military History has been able to find was during World War I. In Field Order Number 9, First Army, American Expeditionary Forces, dated 7 September 1918: "The First Army will attack at H hour on D day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel Salient."


title: D-Day (military term)

text: D-Day for the invasion of Normandy by the Allies was originally set for June 5, 1944, but bad weather and heavy seas caused U.S. Army General Dwight David Eisenhower to delay until June 6 and "that" date has been popularly referred to ever since by the short title "D-Day". Because of the connotation with the invasion of Normandy, planners of later military operations sometimes avoided the term to prevent confusion. For example, Douglas MacArthur's invasion of Leyte began on "A-Day", and the invasion of Okinawa began on "L-Day". The Allies' proposed invasions of Japan would have begun on "X-Day" (on Kyūshū, scheduled for November 1945) and "Y-Day" (on Honshū, scheduled for March 1946).


title: Beehive

text: A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the subgenus "Apis" live and raise their young. Though the word "beehive" is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature distinguishes "nest" from "hive". "Nest" is used to discuss colonies that house themselves in natural or artificial cavities or are hanging and exposed. "Hive" is used to describe an artificial/man-made structure to house a honey bee nest. Several species of "Apis" live in colonies, but for honey production the western honey bee ("Apis mellifera") and the eastern honey bee ("Apis cerana") are the main species kept in hives.


title: Beehive

text: The nest's internal structure is a densely packed group of hexagonal prismatic cells made of beeswax, called a honeycomb. The bees use the cells to store food (honey and pollen) and to house the brood (eggs, larvae, and pupae).


title: Beehive

text: Beehives serve several purposes: production of honey, pollination of nearby crops, housing supply bees for apitherapy treatment, and to try to mitigate the effects of colony collapse disorder. In America, hives are commonly transported so that bees can pollinate crops in other areas. A number of patents have been issued for beehive designs.


title: Beehive

text: Honey bees use caves, rock cavities and hollow trees as natural nesting sites. In warmer climates they may occasionally build exposed hanging nests; members of other subgenera have exposed aerial combs. The nest is composed of multiple honeycombs, parallel to each other, with a relatively uniform bee space. It usually has a single entrance. Western honey bees prefer nest cavities approximately 45 litres in volume and avoid those smaller than 10 or larger than 100 litres. Western honey bees show several nest-site preferences: the height above ground is usually between and , entrance positions tend to face downward, equatorial-facing entrances are favored, and nest sites over from the parent colony are preferred. Bees usually occupy nests for several years.


title: Beehive

text: The bees often smooth the bark surrounding the nest entrance, and coat the cavity walls with a thin layer of hardened plant resin called propolis. Honeycombs are attached to the walls along the cavity tops and sides, but small passageways are left along the comb edges. The basic nest architecture for all honeybees is similar: honey is stored in the upper part of the comb; beneath it are rows of pollen-storage cells, worker-brood cells, and drone-brood cells, in that order. The peanut-shaped queen cells are normally built at the lower edge of the comb.


title: Beehive

text: Bees were kept in human-made hives in Egypt in antiquity. The walls of the Egyptian sun temple of Nyuserre Ini from the 5th Dynasty, dated earlier than 2422 BC, depict workers blowing smoke into hives as they remove honeycombs. Inscriptions detailing the production of honey are found on the tomb of Pabasa from the 26th Dynasty (), and describe honey stored in jars, and cylindrical hives.


title: Beehive

text: The archaeologist Amihai Mazar cites 30 intact hives that were discovered in the ruins of the city of Rehov (2,000 residents in 900 BC, Israelites and Canaanites). This is evidence that an advanced honey industry existed in Israel, approximately 4,000 years ago. The beehives, made of straw and unbaked clay, were found in orderly rows, with a total of 150 hives, many broken. Ezra Marcus from the University of Haifa said the discovery provided a glimpse of ancient beekeeping seen in texts and ancient art from the Near East. An altar decorated with fertility figurines was found alongside the hives and may indicate religious practices associated with beekeeping. While beekeeping predates these ruins, this is the oldest apiary yet discovered.


title: Beehive

text: Traditional beehives simply provided an enclosure for the bee colony. Because no internal structures were provided for the bees, the bees created their own honeycomb within the hives. The comb is often cross-attached and cannot be moved without destroying it. This is sometimes called a "fixed-frame" hive to differentiate it from the modern "movable-frame" hives. Harvest generally destroyed the hives, though there were some adaptations using extra top baskets which could be removed when the bees filled them with honey. These were gradually supplanted with box hives of varying dimensions, with or without frames, and finally replaced by newer modern equipment.


title: Beehive

text: Honey from traditional hives was typically extracted by "pressing" – crushing the wax honeycomb to squeeze out the honey. Due to this harvesting, traditional beehives typically provided more beeswax, but far less honey, than a modern hive.


title: Beehive

text: Mud hives are still used in Egypt and Siberia. These are long cylinders made from a mixture of unbaked mud, straw, and dung.


title: Beehive

text: Clay tiles were the customary homes of kept bees in the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Long cylinders of baked clay were used in ancient Egypt, the Middle East and to some extent in Greece, Italy and Malta. They sometimes were used singly, but more often stacked in rows to provide some shade, at least for those not on top. Keepers would smoke one end to drive the bees to the other end while they harvested honey.


title: Beehive

text: Skeps, baskets placed open-end-down, have been used to house bees for some 2000 years. Believed to have been first used in Ireland, they were initially made from wicker plastered with mud and dung but after the Middle Ages, almost all were made of straw. In northern and western Europe, skeps were made of coils of grass or straw. In its simplest form, there is a single entrance at the bottom of the skep. Again, there is no internal structure provided for the bees and the colony must produce its own honeycomb, which is attached to the inside of the skep. The size of early modern skeps was about a bushel (c.36 litres) to two pecks (c. 18 litres).


title: Beehive

text: Skeps have two disadvantages: beekeepers cannot inspect the comb for diseases and pests, and honey removal is difficult and often results in the destruction of the entire colony. To get the honey beekeepers either drove the bees out of the skep or, by using a bottom extension called an eke or a top extension called a cap, sought to create a comb with only honey in it. Quite often the bees were killed, sometimes using lighted sulfur, to allow the honeycomb to be removed. Skeps could also be squeezed in a vise to extract the honey.


title: Beehive

text: As of 1998, most US states prohibited the use of skeps, or any other hive that cannot be inspected for disease and parasites.


title: Beehive

text: Later skep designs included a smaller woven basket (cap) on top over a small hole in the main skep. This cap acted as a crude super, allowing some honey to be extracted with less destruction of brood and bees. In England, such an extension piece consisting of a ring of about 4 or 5 coils of straw placed below a straw beehive to give extra room for brood rearing was called an "eke", "imp" or "nadir". An eke was used to give just a bit of extra room, or to "eke" some more space, a nadir is a larger extension used when a full story was needed beneath.


title: Beehive

text: The term is derived from Old Norse "skeppa", "basket". A person who made such woven beehives was called a "skepper", a surname that still exists in western countries. In England the thickness of the coil of straw was controlled using a ring of leather or piece of cow's horn called a "girth" and the coils of straw could be sewn together using strips of briar. Likenesses of skeps can be found in paintings, carvings and old manuscripts. The skep is often used on signs as an indication of industry ("the busy bee").


title: Beehive

text: In the late 18th century, more complex skeps appeared with wooden tops with holes in them over which glass jars were placed. The comb would then be built in the glass jars, making the designs commercially attractive.


title: Beehive

text: In the eastern United States, especially in the southeast, sections of hollow trees were used until the 20th century. These were called "gums" because they often were from black gum ("Nyssa sylvatica") trees.


title: Beehive

text: Sections of the hollow trees were set upright in "bee yards" or apiaries. Sometimes sticks or crossed sticks were placed under a board cover to give an attachment for the honeycomb. As with skeps, the harvest of honey from these destroyed the colony. Often the harvester would kill the bees before even opening their nest. This was done by inserting a metal container of burning sulfur into the gum.


title: Beehive

text: Natural tree hollows and artificially hollowed tree trunks were widely used in the past by beekeepers in Central Europe. For example, in Poland such a beehive was called a "barć" and was protected in various ways from unfavorable weather conditions (rain, frost) and predators (woodpeckers, bears, pine martens, forest dormice). Harvest of honey from these did not destroy the colony, as only a protective piece of wood was removed from the opening and smoke was used to temporarily pacify the bees.


title: Beehive

text: Part of the reason why bee gums are still used is that this allows the producers of the honey to distinguish themselves from other honey producers and to ask a higher price for the honey. An example where bee gums are still used is Mont-Lozère, France, although in Europe they are referred to as log hives. The length of these log hives used is shorter than bee gums; they are hollowed out artificially and cut to a specific size.


title: Beehive

text: The earliest recognizably modern designs of beehives arose in the 19th century, though they were perfected from intermediate stages of progress made in the 18th century.


title: Beehive

text: Intermediate stages in hive design were recorded for example by Thomas Wildman in 1768-1770, who described advances over the destructive old skep-based beekeeping so that the bees no longer had to be killed to harvest the honey. Wildman, for example, fixed a parallel array of wooden bars across the top of a straw hive or skep (with a separate straw top to be fixed on later) "so that there are in all seven bars of deal" [in a hive] "to which the bees fix their combs". He also described using such hives in a multi-story configuration, foreshadowing the modern use of supers: he described adding (at the proper time) successive straw hives below, and eventually removing the ones above when free of brood and filled with honey, so that the bees could be separately preserved at the harvest for the following season. Wildman also described a further development, using hives with "sliding frames" for the bees to build their comb, foreshadowing more modern uses of movable-comb hives. Wildman acknowledged the advances in knowledge of bees previously made by Swammerdam, Maraldi, and de Reaumur – he included a lengthy translation of Reaumur's account of the natural history of bees – and he also described the initiatives of others in designing hives for the preservation of bee-life when taking the harvest, citing in particular reports from Brittany dating from the 1750s, due to Comte de la Bourdonnaye.


title: Beehive

text: In 1814 Petro Prokopovych, the founder of commercial beekeeping in Ukraine, invented one of the first beehive frames which allowed an easier honey harvest.


title: Beehive

text: The correct distance between combs for easy operations in beehives was described in 1845 by Jan Dzierżon as 1½ inches from the center of one top bar to the center of the next one. In 1848, Dzierżon introduced grooves into the hive's side walls replacing the strips of wood for moving top bars. The grooves were , the spacing later termed bee space.


title: Beehive

text: On the basis of the aforementioned measurements, August Adolph von Berlepsch (Bienezeitung May 1852) in Thuringia and L.L. Langstroth (October 1852) in the United States designed their own movable-frame hives. Langstroth used, however "about 1/2 inch" above the frame's top bars and "about 3/8 inch" between the frames and hive body.


title: Beehive

text: Hives can be vertical or horizontal. There are three main types of modern hive in common use worldwide:


title: Beehive

text: Most hives have been optimized for "Apis mellifera" and "Apis cerana". Some other hives have been designed and optimized for some meliponines such as " Melipona beecheii". Examples of such hives are the Nogueira-Neto hive and the UTOB hive.


title: Beehive

text: Langstroth hives are named for Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth, who patented his design in the United States on October 5, 1852. It was based on the ideas of Johann Dzierzon and other leaders in apiculture. It combines a top-worked hive with hanging frames and the use of bee spaces between frames and other parts. Variants of his design have become the standard style of hive for many of the world's beekeepers, both professional and amateur. Langstroth hive bodies are rectangular in shape and can be stacked to expand the usable space for the bees. They can be made from a variety of materials, but commonly of timber. The modern Langstroth hive consists of:


title: Beehive

text: Inside the boxes, frames are hung parallel to each other. Langstroth frames are thin rectangular structures made of wood or plastic and typically have a plastic or wax foundation on which the bees draw out the comb. The frames hold the honeycomb formed by the bees with beeswax. Eight or ten frames side by side (depending on the size of the box) will fill the hive body and leave the right amount of bee space between each frame and between the end frames and the hive body. With appropriate provision of bee space, the bees are not likely to glue parts together with propolis nor fill spaces with burr combalthough the dimensions now usual for top bee space are not exactly the same as those that Langstroth described. Self-spacing beehive frames were introduced by Julius Hoffman, a student of Johann Dzierzon. Langstroth frames can be reinforced with wire, making it possible to spin the honey out of the comb in a centrifuge. As a result, the empty frames and comb can be returned to the beehive for re-filling by the bees. Creating honeycomb involves a significant energy investment, conservatively estimated at of honey needed to create of comb in temperate climates. Reusing comb can thus increase the productivity of a beekeeping enterprise.


title: Beehive

text: The sizes of hive bodies (rectangular boxes without tops or bottoms placed one on top of another) and of internal frames vary between named styles. A variety of approximations to Langstroth's original box and frame sizes are still used, with top bars some long or a little more. However, this class of hives includes several other styles, mostly used in Europe, which differ mainly in the size and number of frames used. These include:


title: Beehive

text: The Warré hive was invented by the village priest Émile Warré, and is also called ('the people's hive'. It is a modular and storied design similar to a Langstroth hive. The hive body is made of boxes stacked vertically; however, it uses top bars for comb support instead of full frames similar to a Top-Bar Hive, as a general rule. The popularity of this hive is growing among 'sustainable-practice' beekeepers.


title: Beehive

text: The Warre hive differs from other stacked hive systems in one fundamental aspect: when the bees need more space as the colony expands, the new box is "nadired"; i.e., positioned underneath the existing box or boxes. This serves the purpose of warmth retention within the brood nest of the hive, considered vital to colony health.


title: Beehive

text: The WBC, invented by and named after William Broughton Carr in 1890, is a double-walled hive with an external housing that splays out towards the bottom of each frame covering a standard box shape hive inside. The WBC is in many respects the 'classic' hive as represented in pictures and paintings, but despite the extra level of insulation for the bees offered by its double-walled design, many beekeepers avoid it, owing to the inconvenience of having to remove the external layer before the hive can be examined.


title: Beehive

text: In 1890, Charles Nash Abbott (1830–1894), advisor to Ireland's Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, designed a new Congested Districts Board (CDB) hive in Dublin, Ireland. It was commissioned by and named after the Congested Districts Board for Ireland which provided support for rural populations until its absorption in the department of Agriculture.


title: Beehive

text: One of the most famous Slovenian beekeepers was Anton Žnideršič (1874–1947). He developed the AZ hive house and hive box widely used today in Slovenia.


title: Beehive

text: These are single, long, boxes, with the bars hanging in parallel. The hive body of a common style of horizontal hive is often shaped like an inverted trapezoid, but it may be rectangular in cross-section and able to accept normal frames. They have movable comb and make use of the concept of bee space. They were developed as a lower-cost alternative to the standard Langstroth hives and equipment. They do not require the beekeeper to lift heavy supers when the hive is inspected or manipulated. They are popular in the US due to their alignment with the organic, treatment-free philosophies of many new beekeeping devotees in the United States. The initial costs and equipment requirements are typically much less than other hive designs. Scrap wood can often be used to build a good hive. Horizontal hives do not require the beekeeper to lift super boxes; all checks and manipulation can be done while lifting only one comb at a time and with minimal bending. In areas where large land animals (such as ratels and bears) present a threat to beehives, single-box hives may be suspended out of reach. Elsewhere, they are commonly raised to a level that allows the beekeeper to inspect and manipulate them in comfort.