title: United States national missile defense

text: There is no theoretical perspective for economically viable boost-phase defense against the latest solid-fueled ICBMs, no matter if it would be ground-based missiles, space-based missiles, or airborne laser (ABL).


title: United States national missile defense

text: A ground-based boost-phase defense might be possible, if the goals were somewhat limited: to counter older liquid-fuel propelled ICBMs, and to counter simple solid-propellant missiles launched from less challenging locations (such as North Korea).


title: United States national missile defense

text: Using orbital launchers to provide a reliable boost-phase defense against liquid-fueled ICBMs is not likely, as it was found to require at least 700 large interceptors in orbit. Using two or more interceptors per target, or countering solid fueled missiles, would require many more orbital launchers. The old Brilliant Pebbles project—although it did not apply to the boost phase—estimated the number at 4,000 smaller orbital launchers.


title: United States national missile defense

text: The airborne laser (ABL) is possibly capable of intercepting a liquid fuel missile if within  from a launch point.


title: Mark Lester

text: Mark Lester (born Mark A. Letzer; 11 July 1958) is an English former child actor, osteopath, and acupuncturist who starred in a number of British and European films in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1968 he played the title role in the film "Oliver!", a musical version of the Charles Dickens' novel "Oliver Twist". Lester also made several appearances in a number of British television series. In 1977, after appearing in the all-star international action adventure film "The Prince and the Pauper", he retired from acting. In the 1980s, he trained as an osteopath specialising in sport injuries.


title: Mark Lester

text: Mark Lester was born in the city of Oxford to actress Rita Keene Lester and actor and producer Michael Lester (originally Michael Boris Letzer). His father is Jewish and his mother Anglican. Lester was educated at three independent schools: at Corona Theatre School in Ravenscourt Park in West London, followed by Tower House School, a boys' preparatory school near Richmond Park (also in West London), and at Halliford School in Shepperton in Surrey.


title: Mark Lester

text: Lester initially had supporting roles in several British television series, including "The Human Jungle" and "Danger Man". In 1964, at the age of six, Lester was cast in Robert Dhéry's film "Allez France!" (1964) (English title "The Counterfeit Constable") with Diana Dors.


title: Mark Lester

text: He also appeared in "" (1965), played a small part as the second schoolboy in "Fahrenheit 451" (1966) and had a larger role in "Our Mother's House" (1967).


title: Mark Lester

text: In 1967, at the age of eight, Lester was cast in the title role in the film version of Lionel Bart's musical "Oliver!". The multiple Academy Award-winning adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel co-starred Jack Wild, Ron Moody, Harry Secombe, Shani Wallis and Oliver Reed and was directed by Carol Reed. Since Lester could not sing, his singing was dubbed by Kathe Green, daughter of the film's music arranger Johnny Green.


title: Mark Lester

text: Lester received critical acclaim for his portrayal of a dysfunctional and withdrawn only child in "Run Wild, Run Free" (1969), starring opposite John Mills, released by Columbia who financed "Oliver!". He played a disturbed child in the first regular episode of "Then Came Bronson" ("The Runner") and also guest starred on "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir". Columbia wanted to sign him to a long term contract but Lester's parents refused.


title: Mark Lester

text: Lester had leading roles in "Eyewitness" (1970), a British thriller with Susan George shot on Malta; "The Boy Who Stole the Elephant" (1970), a TV movie for Disney; and the horror film "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" (1971), with Shelley Winters.


title: Mark Lester

text: He was reunited with Wild in "Melody" (1971), which depicted schoolchildren in love, based on a script by Alan Parker. Tracy Hyde played the role of Melody in the film, which used music from the Bee Gees and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.


title: Mark Lester

text: Lester starred in a film version of "Black Beauty" (1971). He was announced for a version of "Treasure Island" but it was never made.


title: Mark Lester

text: After this period, his acting roles in the UK would begin to wane. This coincided with a decline in the British film industry.


title: Mark Lester

text: Lester remained in demand for films outside England: "What the Peeper Saw" (1972) with Britt Ekland; "Senza ragione" (1973), in Italy with Franco Nero; "Little Adventurer" (1973), a Japanese film; "Scalawag" (1973), a pirate film with Kirk Douglas shot in Yugoslavia; and the costume drama "La Prima volta sull'erba" (English title "The First Time on the Grass", 1974), which was nominated for the Golden Bear prize at the 25th Berlin International Film Festival.


title: Mark Lester

text: Lester ended his film career playing the dual role as Edward VI of England and Tom Canty in the all-star film "The Prince and the Pauper" (US title: "Crossed Swords", 1977) starring Raquel Welch, Charlton Heston, Rex Harrison, George C. Scott, and Oliver Reed, who had played Bill Sikes in "Oliver!".


title: Mark Lester

text: At the age of 18, Lester had access to some of his earnings from his films. He bought a Ferrari and a house in Belgravia and went to parties, nightclubs and restaurants, often paying for friends, and taking drugs. In his twenties, he became a karate black belt; through this he grew interested in sports injuries, and from there osteopathy. At the age of 28, he took his A-Levels, passing Chemistry and Biology. He became an osteopath, studying at the British School of Osteopathy, and in 1993, Lester opened the Carlton Clinic, an acupuncture clinic in Cheltenham.


title: Mark Lester

text: Lester has four children with his first wife, Jane, whom he married in January 1993 and divorced in 2005. In 2006 he married his second wife, Lisa, a psychiatric nurse.


title: Mark Lester

text: Lester was a close friend of Michael Jackson and is godfather to Jackson's three children. In August 2009, after Jackson's death, Lester gave an interview to the British tabloid newspaper "News of the World" in which he claimed that he could be the biological father of Paris, the late singer's daughter. Lester claimed to have been a sperm donor for Jackson in 1996, and announced that he was willing to take a paternity test to determine whether he was the father. Brian Oxman, former lawyer for the Jackson family, rejected the claim in a television interview, stating, "The thing I always heard from Michael was that Michael was the father of these children, and I believe Michael." In 2019, Lester stated that he was one of twenty sperm donors for Jackson. Lester also appears in the documentary, "", in which he doubts allegations of sexual misconduct that had been made against Jackson by Wade Robson and James Safechuck.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: Louise Erdrich ( ; born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954) is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of the Anishinaabe (also known as Ojibwa and Chippewa).


title: Louise Erdrich

text: Erdrich is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of the Native American Renaissance. She has written 28 books in all, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children's books. In 2009, her novel "The Plague of Doves" was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and received an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. In November 2012, she received the National Book Award for Fiction for her novel "The Round House". She is a 2013 recipient of the Alex Awards. She was awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction at the National Book Festival in September 2015. In 2021, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel "The Night Watchman".


title: Louise Erdrich

text: She was married to author Michael Dorris and the two collaborated on a number of works. The couple separated in 1995.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: She is also the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis that focuses on Native American literature and the Native community in the Twin Cities.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: Erdrich was born on June 7, 1954, in Little Falls, Minnesota. She was the oldest of seven children born to Ralph Erdrich, a German-American, and Rita (née Gourneau), a Chippewa woman (of half Ojibwe and half French blood). Both parents taught at a boarding school in Wahpeton, North Dakota, set up by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Erdrich's maternal grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, served as tribal chairman for the federally recognized tribe of Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians for many years. Though not raised in a reservation, she often visited relatives there. She was raised "with all the accepted truths" of Catholicism.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: While Erdrich was a child, her father paid her a nickel for every story she wrote. Her sister Heidi became a poet and also lives in Minnesota; she publishes under the name Heid E. Erdrich. Another sister, Lise Erdrich, has written children's books and collections of fiction and essays.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: Erdrich attended Dartmouth College from 1972 to 1976. She was a part of the first class of women admitted to the college and earned a B.A. in English. During her first year, Erdrich met Michael Dorris, an anthropologist, writer, and then-director of the new Native American Studies program. While attending Dorris' class, she began to look into her own ancestry, which inspired her to draw from it for her literary work, such as poems, short stories, and novels. During that time, she worked as a lifeguard, waitress, researcher for films, and as an editor for the Boston Indian Council newspaper "The Circle."


title: Louise Erdrich

text: In 1978, Erdrich enrolled in a Master of Arts program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned the Master of Arts in the Writing Seminars in 1979. Erdrich later published some of the poems and stories she wrote while in the M.A. program. She returned to Dartmouth as a writer-in-residence.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: After graduating from Dartmouth, Erdrich remained in contact with Michael Dorris. He attended one of her poetry readings, became impressed with her work, and developed an interest in working with her. Although Erdrich and Dorris were on two different sides of the world, Erdrich in Boston and Dorris in New Zealand for field research, the two began to collaborate on short stories.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: The pair's literary partnership led them to a romantic relationship. They married in 1981, and raised three children whom Dorris had adopted as a single parent (Reynold Abel, Madeline, and Sava) and three biological children together (Persia, Pallas, and Aza Marion). Reynold Abel suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and in 1991, at age 23, he was killed when he was hit by a car. In 1995, their son Sava accused Dorris of committing child abuse; in 1997, after Dorris' death, his adopted daughter Madeline claimed that Dorris had sexually abused her and Erdrich had neglected to stop the abuse.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: Dorris and Erdrich separated in 1995, and Dorris died by suicide in 1997. In his will, he omitted Erdrich and his adopted children Sava and Madeline.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: In 2001, at age 47, Erdrich gave birth to a daughter, Azure, fathered by a Native American man Erdrich declines to identify publicly. She discusses her pregnancy with Azure, and Azure's father, in her 2003 non-fiction book, "Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country". She uses the name "Tobasonakwut" to refer to him. He is described as a traditional healer and teacher, who is eighteen years Erdrich's senior and a married man. In a number of publications, Tobasonakwut Kinew, who died in 2012, is referred to as Erdrich's partner and the father of Azure.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: When asked in an interview if writing is a lonely life for her, Erdrich replied, "Strangely, I think it is. I am surrounded by an abundance of family and friends and yet I am alone with the writing. And that is perfect." Erdrich lives in Minneapolis.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: In 1979 she wrote "The World's Greatest Fisherman", a short story about June Kashpaw, a divorced Ojibwe woman whose death by hypothermia brought her relatives home to a fictional North Dakota reservation for her funeral. She wrote this while "barricaded in the kitchen." At her husband's urging, she submitted it to the Nelson Algren Short Fiction prize in 1982, which it won, and eventually it became the first chapter of her debut novel, "Love Medicine", published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston in 1984.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: "When I found out about the prize I was living on a farm in New Hampshire near the college I'd attended," Erdrich told an interviewer. "I was nearly broke and driving a car with bald tires. My mother knitted my sweaters, and all else I bought at thrift stores ... The recognition dazzled me. Later, I became friends with Studs Terkel and Kay Boyle, the judges, toward whom I carry a lifelong gratitude. This prize made an immense difference in my life."


title: Louise Erdrich

text: "Love Medicine" won the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award. It has also been featured on the National Advanced Placement Test for Literature.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: In the early years of their marriage, Erdrich and Michael Dorris often collaborated on their work, saying they plotted the books together, "talk about them before any writing is done, and then we share almost every day, whatever it is we've written" but "the person whose name is on the books is the one who's done most of the primary writing." They got started with "domestic, romantic stuff" published under the shared pen name of "Milou North" (Michael + Louise + where they live).


title: Louise Erdrich

text: In 1982, Erdrich's story, "The World's Greatest Fisherman," won $5,000 in the Nelson Algren fiction competition. She expanded the story into the novel "Love Medicine" (1984), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. It is the only debut novel ever to receive that honor. Erdrich later turned "Love Medicine" into a tetralogy that includes "The Beet Queen" (1986), "Tracks" (1988), and "The Bingo Palace" (1994).


title: Louise Erdrich

text: During the publication of "Love Medicine", Erdrich produced her first collection of poems, "Jacklight" (1984), which highlights the struggles between Native and non-Native cultures, as well as celebrating family, ties of kinship, autobiographical meditations, monologues, and love poetry. She incorporates elements of Ojibwe myths and legends. Erdrich continues to write poems, which have been included in her collections.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: Erdrich is best known as a novelist, and has published a dozen award-winning and best-selling novels. She followed "Love Medicine" with "The Beet Queen" (1986), which continued her technique of using multiple narrators and expanded the fictional reservation universe of "Love Medicine" to include the nearby town of Argus, North Dakota.The action of the novel takes place mostly before World War II. Leslie Marmon Silko accused Erdrich's "The Beet Queen" of being more concerned with postmodern technique than with the political struggles of Native peoples.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: "Tracks" (1988) goes back to the early 20th century at the formation of the reservation. It introduces the trickster figure of Nanapush, who owes a clear debt to Ojibwe figure Nanabozho. "Tracks" shows early clashes between traditional ways and the Roman Catholic Church. "The Bingo Palace" (1994), set in the 1980s, describes the effects of a casino and a factory on the reservation community. "Tales of Burning Love" (1997) finishes the story of Sister Leopolda, a recurring character from all the previous books, and introduces a new set of European-American people into the reservation universe.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: "The Antelope Wife" (1998), Erdrich's first novel after her divorce from Dorris, was the first of her novels to be set outside the continuity of the previous books.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: She subsequently returned to the reservation and nearby towns. She has published five novels since 1998 dealing with events in that fictional area. Among these are "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse" (2001) and "The Master Butchers Singing Club" (2003). Both novels have geographic and character connections with "The Beet Queen". In 2009, Erdrich was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for "The Plague of Doves" and a National Book Award finalist for "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse". "A Plague of Doves" focuses on the historical lynching of four Native people wrongly accused of murdering a Caucasian family, and the effect of this injustice on the current generations. Her Pulitzer-Prize winning novel "The Night Watchman" (2020) concerns a campaign to defeat the 'termination bill' (introduced by Senator Arthur Vivian Watkins), and Erdrich acknowledged her sources and its inspiration being her maternal grandfather's life. Her most recent novel, "The Sentence", tells the fictional story of a haunting at Erdirch's Minneapolis bookstore, set against the backdrop of the Covid pandemic, George Floyd's death and the resulting protests.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: She also writes for younger audiences; she has a children's picture book "Grandmother's Pigeon," and her children's book "The Birchbark House", was a National Book Award finalist. She continued the series with "The Game of Silence", winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction; and "The Porcupine Year".


title: Louise Erdrich

text: In addition to fiction and poetry, Erdrich has published nonfiction. "The Blue Jay's Dance" (1995) is about her pregnancy and the birth of her first child. "Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country" traces her travels in northern Minnesota and Ontario's lakes following the birth of her youngest daughter.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: Erdrich and her two sisters have hosted writers' workshops on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: Her heritage from both parents is influential in her life and prominent in her work. Although many of Erdrich's works explore her Native American heritage, her novel "The Master Butchers Singing Club" (2003) featured the European, specifically German, side of her ancestry. The novel includes stories of a World War I veteran of the German Army and is set in a small North Dakota town. The novel was a finalist for the National Book Award.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: Erdrich's interwoven series of novels have drawn comparisons with William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha novels. Like Faulkner's, Erdrich's successive novels created multiple narratives in the same fictional area and combined the tapestry of local history with current themes and modern consciousness.


title: Louise Erdrich

text: Her bookstore hosts literary readings and other events. Erdrich's new works are read here, and events celebrate the works and careers of other writers as well, particularly local Native writers. Erdrich and her staff consider Birchbark Books to be a "teaching bookstore". In addition to books, the store sells Native art and traditional medicines, and Native American jewelry. Wiigwaas Press, a small nonprofit publisher founded by Erdrich and her sister, is affiliated with the store.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: During the early evening of Friday, May 31, 2013, a very large and powerful tornado occurred over rural areas of Central Oklahoma. This rain-wrapped, multiple-vortex tornado was the widest tornado ever recorded and was part of a larger weather system that produced dozens of tornadoes over the preceding days. The tornado initially touched down at 6:03 p.m. Central Daylight Time (2303 UTC) about west-southwest of El Reno, rapidly growing in size and becoming more violent as it tracked through central portions of Canadian County. Remaining over mostly open terrain, the tornado did not impact many structures; however, measurements from mobile weather radars revealed extreme winds up to within the vortex. These are among the highest observed wind speeds on Earth, just slightly lower than the wind speeds of the 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado. As it crossed U.S. 81, it had grown to a record-breaking width of , beating the previous width record held by the 2004 Hallam tornado. Turning northeastward, the tornado soon weakened. Upon crossing Interstate 40, the tornado dissipated around 6:43 p.m. CDT (2343 UTC), after tracking for , it avoided affecting the more densely populated areas near and within the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: The tornado killed four storm chasers, the first known deaths in the history of storm chasing. Although the tornado remained over mostly open terrain, dozens of storm chasers unaware of its immense size and erratic movement were caught off-guard. Near U.S. 81, TWISTEX scientist and engineer Tim Samaras, along with his son Paul and research partner Carl Young, died in the tornado. Paul Samaras and Young were ejected from their Chevrolet Cobalt by the storm's sub-vortex, while Tim was still buckled in the passenger's seat. Local resident Richard Henderson, who decided to follow the storm, lost his life in that same area. He snapped a picture of the tornado from his cellular phone before it struck him. Other chasers, including Mike Bettes of The Weather Channel and Reed Timmer, were either injured or had their vehicles damaged. A Doppler on Wheels-based analysis of how the tornado impacted these teams revealed that they were hit by an intense internal sub-vortex. Overall, the tornado was responsible for eight fatalities and 151 injuries. Due to the ferocity and sheer size, as well as its irregular movement and the deaths linked with this tornado, it has become one of the most studied and infamous tornadoes ever. The National Weather Service referred to the tornado as "the most dangerous tornado in storm observing history."


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: Alongside rush hour traffic, thousands of residents in Oklahoma City attempted to outrun the storm by taking to the roads in an attempt to drive out of the tornado's projected path. By attempting to escape the storm by vehicle, in direct contrast to the recommended plan of action, residents put themselves at great risk from the storm; had the tornado maintained itself and passed over the congested freeways, more than 500 lives could have been lost.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: On May 31, 2013, a prominent mid-to-upper level trough and closed mid-level low pressure area moved east-northeastward, with a lead upper low pivoting over the Dakotas and Upper Midwest region. A moderately strong polar jet moved east-northeastward over the southern Rocky Mountains to the southern Great Plains. With a broad influence of moderately strong cyclonic flow aloft, the air mass was expected to become unstable across much of the southern Great Plains, through the Upper Midwest and Mississippi Valley, by the afternoon.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: Dewpoint values had ranged from the upper 60s °F (20 °C) to the lower 70s °F (20–22 °C), with temperatures in the low to mid-80s °F (27–30 °C), and CAPE (a meteorological concept used to predict the force and power of potential storms and tornadoes) predicting referring to values ranging from 3500 to 5000 J/kg. Deep layer wind shear speeds of would enhance storm organization and intensity. These factors, along with CAPE values in excess of 4000 J/kg and an embedded speed maxima rotating around the southern periphery of the low, made the threat of significant severe thunderstorms increasingly likely. These ingredients were present ahead of a cold front extending from the low from the eastern Dakotas southwestward to western Oklahoma, and ahead of a dry line extending from western Oklahoma southward into western north and west-central Texas. The most intense severe weather activity was expected across the southern Great Plains, specifically central and eastern Oklahoma, during the afternoon hours. As such, the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) issued a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms during the early morning hours of May 31 from southeastern Missouri to southwestern Oklahoma. The degree of wind shear, moisture and instability within the warm sector favored the development of discrete supercells. Very large hail and tornadoes were expected with the supercells, with the possibility of a few strong to violent tornadoes.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: At 3:30 p.m. Central Daylight Time (CDT) early that afternoon, the SPC issued a Particularly Dangerous Situation Tornado Watch from southwestern through northeastern Oklahoma, surrounding the Interstate 44 corridor.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: A quasi-linear complex of thunderstorms began developing near the Highway 81 corridor west of Oklahoma City between 4:00 and 4:45 p.m. CDT, and rapidly reached severe intensity. At 5:33 p.m. CDT (2233 UTC), the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Norman, Oklahoma issued a tornado warning for Canadian County, prompted by increasingly strong tornadic circulation exhibited in the southernmost supercell of this complex.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: At 6:03 p.m. CDT (2303 UTC), a large tornadic wall cloud formed and touched down, initially in the form of several smaller sub-vortices, west-southwest of El Reno. The tornado ultimately attained EF3 intensity during its existence, according to ground surveys. As the tornado passed south of El Reno across U.S. 81, it grew to an unprecedented width of , becoming the widest known tornado ever recorded in the United States. At 6:28 p.m. CDT (2328 UTC), the storm began moving into more densely populated areas of Canadian County while maintaining its intensity. This prompted the National Weather Service office in Norman to issue a tornado emergency for Yukon, Richland, Wiley Post Airport, Bethany, The Village, and eastern El Reno, as the tornado was projected to track toward western portions of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. Within minutes, the tornado turned northeast and soon passed directly over Interstate 40 at around 6:42 p.m. CDT (2342 UTC). Shortly thereafter, the tornado lifted off the ground as it neared Banner Road. Overall, the tornado was on the ground for 40 minutes along a path.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: A strong anticyclonic multivortex satellite tornado also formed southeast of the primary tornado at approximately 6:28 pm CDT (2328 UTC), and remained on the ground for 15 minutes before lifting at 6:43 (2343 UTC). Such companion tornadoes tend to be observed with especially large and intense tornadoes, although this was the first documented multiple-vortex anticyclonic tornado of this kind.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: The intensity of the tornado has been a subject of internal debate within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency utilizes the Enhanced Fujita Scale to rate and assess tornado intensity based on the damage left behind. This excludes the use of supplementary measurements, such as those from mobile radar, in concluding a tornado's intensity. Initially receiving an official EF3 rating based on damage, the El Reno tornado was subsequently upgraded to a radar-estimated EF5 rating, the highest on the scale, based on data from a mobile radar. The University of Oklahoma's RaXPol mobile Doppler weather radar, positioned at a nearby overpass, measured winds preliminarily analyzed as in excess of . These winds are considered the second-highest ever measured worldwide, just shy of the recorded during the 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: Revised RaXPol analysis found winds of well above ground level and ≥ below , with some subvortices moving at . The strongest winds occurred in small subvortices along the south side of the main vortex. The two most intense vortices occurred north and east of the intersection of 10th Street and Radio Road, about southeast of El Reno. The main funnel is believed to have had radar-estimated EF4 winds, with wind speeds around . Radar-estimated EF5 winds were only found aloft and in the smaller vortices that revolved around this funnel at .


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: Rick Smith, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Norman, stated that this tornado was among a "super-rare" category within the EF5 rating. Smith also stated that it was fortunate the tornado did not track into more densely populated areas, particularly those within the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, "this would have been … I don't even want to imagine what it would have been." William Hooke, a senior policy fellow at the American Meteorological Society stated that, "[Oklahoma City] dodged a bullet...You lay that path over Oklahoma City, and you have devastation of biblical proportions."


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: On August 30, the National Weather Service office in Norman once again revised the intensity of the El Reno tornado. Keli Pirtle, a Public Affairs worker at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, stated that, "despite the radar-measured wind speeds, the survey team did not find damage that would support a rating higher than EF3. While the wind measurements from the mobile radars are considered reliable, NWS policy for determining EF-ratings is based on surveys of ground damage." The lack of EF5 damage was likely a result of the rural nature of the area, as the sub-vortices that contained the EF5 wind speeds did not impact any structures.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: The tornado's unusual behavior consisted of these simultaneous occurrences: abrupt changes in direction, rapid enlargement to a width of in diameter in about 30 seconds, swift increase in forward motion from about within a few minutes, multiple vortices within and around, and an expansive translucent outer circulation without a full condensation funnel while being surrounded and obscured by precipitation made it a worst-case scenario for storm chasers. Several professional and amateur chasers were caught off guard and impacted by the tornado. Many were located in a region northeast of the tornado, known as the "bear's cage". Chasers can generally get a clear view of the tornado from that area; however, it places them at great risk and with little time to react should the storm take a left turn.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: In the case of El Reno, the wrapping rain bands did not lead to a narrow corridor of clear air close to the tornado. Rather, these rotating curtains of rain were the outer circulation of the tornado itself. Former Discovery Channel storm chaser Tim Samaras (an engineer), his son Paul Samaras (a photographer), and Tim's longtime chase partner Carl Young (a meteorologist), all professional storm chasers with the TWISTEX project, were caught directly by the tornado; all three died in their vehicle, two of them were ejected. Normally, Tim drove a reinforced three-quarter ton truck optimized for hail protection and stability in high winds; however, on May 31, Carl was driving an unmodified Chevrolet Cobalt, a subcompact vehicle with three 45-lb barometric probes in the trunk likened by one TWISTEX chaser to a "pizza delivery car", making it much less suited to high winds and rain-slicked backcountry dirt roads. It was also underpowered, which hampered their escape in the strong inflow winds. Tim's body was found still buckled in the passenger's seat. They were the first known tornado-related deaths of either recreational storm chasers or scientific researchers.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: Mike Bettes, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel, was also caught in the storm. His sport utility vehicle was severely damaged, having been thrown about ; the driver was left with a broken neck, fractured vertebrae, and several broken ribs while Bettes and the other passenger sustained minor injuries. Meteorologist Emily Sutton and storm chaser Kevin Josefy of Oklahoma City NBC affiliate KFOR-TV (channel 4) were also caught in the path of the storm; their vehicle was damaged by debris hurled by the tornado. University of Oklahoma student Billy Prater, along with his father and a friend, sought refuge under an overpass (an action strongly discouraged in these situations) when the tornado changed direction. Near Union City, debris from a barn destroyed by the tornado struck the vehicle of Brandon Sullivan and Brett Wright, breaking their windshield; they escaped without injury. The hood of Reed Timmer's Dominator 2, a vehicle designed for intercepting tornadoes, was torn off by lines that were down from the tornado. Storm chaser Dan Robinson received injuries after being enveloped within the outskirts of the tornadic circulation. He escaped a few hundred meters ahead of the TWISTEX crew and is believed to be the last person to see Samaras, his son Paul and Young.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: A Doppler on Wheels-based analysis of how the tornado impacted these teams revealed that they were hit by an intense internal sub-vortex. This analysis showed that both the Weather Channel and TWISTEX vehicles entered the tornado through the less intense north/northwestern side, then were impacted by the internal sub-vortex, which contained radar-indicated winds approaching and was moving in a complex quasi-trochoidal pattern, sometimes nearly stationary, sometimes with forward speeds over . Entering the larger tornadic circulation without the ability to maintain situational awareness of the internal sub-vortex was likely a key contributing factor to the deaths and injuries.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: In the wake of the storm chaser deaths, Kansas Emergency Management Association president Brian Stone called for there to be regulations put on future storm chasing; however, he stated that there are questions as to how it would actually be implemented. AccuWeather Senior Vice President Mike Smith urged against overreacting to their deaths, citing that they were the first chasers to be killed in 40 years of the practice and that chasing as a whole is a significant source of real-time and research information.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: On June 2, dozens of members of the storm chasing and spotting communities coordinated a tribute to Tim Samaras, Paul Samaras, and Carl Young. Using GPS transponders over Spotter Network, they aligned themselves to spell out the initials of the three men in North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska for many hours. The Discovery Channel scheduled a special tribute episode of "Storm Chasers" titled "Mile Wide Tornado: Oklahoma Disaster" on June 5, both honoring the three chasers and covering the events of the EF5-rated tornado that struck Moore and portions of southern Oklahoma City eleven days earlier on May 20. The November 2013 issue of "National Geographic", for its featured cover story, paid tribute to Tim Samaras, a National Geographic Explorer funded in part by the Society, and featured a detailed scientific analysis of the tornado itself.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: A team of scientists and veteran chasers embarked on a crowd-sourcing survey project to gather storm chaser information, including video and photographic recordings and GPS logs, to piece together precisely what happened. It is, as of February 2014, the largest such visual data set ever collected on a tornado. The chaser information is compiled with radar and lightning data and the project is intended to eventually expand to a standardized open access database covering future events. In association with the project, software was unveiled in 2015 allowing for the synchronization of maps, radar data, and storm chasers' footage of the storm. The tool was named "Tornado Environment Display" (TED) after Dr. Ted Fujita. Anton Seimon, one of the tool's architects, said that while the tool had only been used in relation to the El Reno tornado, it could potentially be applied to future tornadoes with sufficient footage as well.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: Since the tornado remained over mostly open terrain, damage was relatively light – although still significant in isolated locations – in comparison to its extreme intensity. Surveys from the National Weather Service revealed that structures in its path sustained EF3-level damage at most. The Oklahoma City West Livestock Market was described as a "war zone," sustaining extensive damage. Several large steel-frame warehouse type buildings were destroyed at that location. Multiple large brick buildings at the nearby Canadian Valley Technology Center were heavily damaged or destroyed, and a large metal wind turbine prop blade was thrown into the side of a daycare building on the property. Damage totals at that location alone were estimated at up to $40 million. One farmstead, consisting of a large barn, a cattle barn, three machine sheds, granaries and the owner's home, was also completely destroyed. Several other rural homes were destroyed, and large amounts of gravel was blown off of gravel roads in the area, with only the dirt underneath left at some locations. Several large metal electrical transmission poles were downed, trees were snapped and defoliated, and multiple vehicles were tossed from roadways in the area. At least 29 buildings and 40 vehicles were damaged or destroyed by the tornado, with repairs in the El Reno area expected to take at least a year.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: On June 1, the American Red Cross set up a shelter at the Redlands Community College in El Reno for victims of the storm. The following day, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin toured damaged areas of El Reno. Due to the tornadoes that occurred previously on May 20, a state of emergency was already in place for the affected areas, allowing residents to quickly obtain emergency assistance. Residents left homeless were provided with temporary housing constructed from shipping containers. Each container was fitted with a kitchen, bedroom, living room, and bathroom.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: Overall, eight people lost their lives as a result of the tornado, all of whom were killed in vehicles. Local hospitals in Oklahoma City, including OU Medical Center and INTEGRIS Southwest Medical Center, and Mercy Hospital in El Reno, reported receiving at least 115 injured, including five critical patients. Overall, 151 injuries were attributed to the tornado.


title: 2013 El Reno tornado

text: As the tornadoes approached the Oklahoma City metro, thousands of residents decided to leave the area for safety, possibly due to the still fresh memories of the devastation caused by the EF5 tornado that struck Moore on May 20. Already congested with rush hour traffic, Interstates 35, 40, 44 and 240, became "parking lots" as the storms neared. Residents reported the highways to be a scene of chaos, "people were going southbound in the northbound lanes. Everybody was running for their lives." It has been suggested that the evacuation was partially caused by a controversial call to action on-air by KFOR-TV chief meteorologist Mike Morgan, who suggested on-air during coverage of the storm – as the tornado was projected to track into Oklahoma City – that residents without underground storm shelters or safe rooms get into their cars and evacuate south of the track. This advice was contrary to the recommended plan to go to an interior room, bathtub or closet with no windows if no basement or other underground shelter is available. These locations are typically much safer than an automobile in tornadic winds. Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground stated that had the tornado tracked directly over one of the congested highways, the death toll could have easily exceeded 500.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: The Middle Kingdom of Egypt (also known as The Period of Reunification) is the period in the history of ancient Egypt following a period of political division known as the First Intermediate Period. The Middle Kingdom lasted from approximately 2040 to 1782 BC, stretching from the reunification of Egypt under the reign of Mentuhotep II in the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Twelfth Dynasty. The kings of the Eleventh Dynasty ruled from Thebes and the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty ruled from el-Lisht.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: The concept of the Middle Kingdom as one of three golden ages was coined in 1845 by German Egyptologist Baron von Bunsen, and its definition evolved significantly throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Some scholars also include the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt wholly into this period, in which case the Middle Kingdom would end around 1650 BC, while others only include it until Merneferre Ay around 1700 BC, last king of this dynasty to be attested in both Upper and Lower Egypt. During the Middle Kingdom period, Osiris became the most important deity in popular religion. The Middle Kingdom was followed by the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt, another period of division that involved foreign rule of Lower Egypt by the Hyksos of West Asia.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: After the collapse of the Old Kingdom, Egypt entered a period of weak pharaonic power and decentralization called the First Intermediate Period. Towards the end of this period, two rival dynasties, known in Egyptology as the Tenth and Eleventh, fought for control of the entire country. The Theban Eleventh Dynasty only ruled southern Egypt from the First Cataract to the Tenth Nome of Upper Egypt. To the north, Lower Egypt was ruled by the rival Tenth Dynasty from Herakleopolis. The struggle was to be concluded by Mentuhotep II, who ascended the Theban throne in 2055 BC. During Mentuhotep II's fourteenth regnal year, he took advantage of a revolt in the Thinite Nome to launch an attack on Herakleopolis, which met little resistance. After toppling the last rulers of the Tenth Dynasty, Mentuhotep began consolidating his power over all of Egypt, a process which he finished by his 39th regnal year. For this reason, Mentuhotep II is regarded as the founder of the Middle Kingdom.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Mentuhotep II commanded petty campaigns south as far as the Second Cataract in Nubia, which had gained its independence during the First Intermediate Period. He also restored Egyptian hegemony over the Sinai region, which had been lost to Egypt since the end of the Old Kingdom. To consolidate his authority, he restored the cult of the ruler, depicting himself as a god in his own lifetime, wearing the headdresses of Amun and Min. He died after a reign of 51 years and passed the throne to his son, Mentuhotep III.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Mentuhotep III reigned for only twelve years, during which he continued consolidating Theban rule over the whole of Egypt, building a series of forts in the eastern Delta region to secure Egypt against threats from Asia. He also sent the first expedition to Punt during the Middle Kingdom, using ships constructed at the end of Wadi Hammamat, on the Red Sea. Mentuhotep III was succeeded by Mentuhotep IV, whose name, significantly, is omitted from all ancient Egyptian king lists. The Turin Papyrus claims that after Mentuhotep III came "seven kingless years". Despite this absence, his reign is attested from a few inscriptions in Wadi Hammamat that record expeditions to the Red Sea coast and to quarry stone for the royal monuments. The leader of this expedition was his vizier Amenemhat, who is widely assumed to be the future pharaoh Amenemhet I, the first king of the Twelfth Dynasty.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Mentuhotep IV's absence from the king lists has prompted the theory that Amenemhet I usurped his throne. While there are no contemporary accounts of this struggle, certain circumstantial evidence may point to the existence of a civil war at the end of the 11th Dynasty. Inscriptions left by one Nehry, the Haty-a of Hermopolis, suggest that he was attacked at a place called Shedyet-sha by the forces of the reigning king, but his forces prevailed. Khnumhotep I, an official under Amenemhet I, claims to have participated in a flotilla of twenty ships sent to pacify Upper Egypt. Donald Redford has suggested these events should be interpreted as evidence of open war between two dynastic claimants. What is certain is that, however he came to power, Amenemhet I was not of royal birth.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: From the Twelfth Dynasty onwards, pharaohs often kept well-trained standing armies, which included Nubian contingents. These formed the basis of larger forces that were raised for defense against invasion, or expeditions up the Nile or across the Sinai. However, the Middle Kingdom was basically defensive in its military strategy, with fortifications built at the First Cataract of the Nile, in the Delta and across the Sinai Isthmus.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Early in his reign, Amenemhet I was compelled to campaign in the Delta region, which had not received as much attention as Upper Egypt during the 11th Dynasty. Also, he strengthened defenses between Egypt and Asia, building the Walls of the Ruler in the East Delta region. Perhaps in response to this perpetual unrest, Amenemhat I built a new capital for Egypt in the north, known as Amenemhet It Tawy, or "Amenemhet, Seizer of the Two Lands". The location of this capital is unknown, but is presumably near the city's necropolis, the present-day el-Lisht. Like Mentuhotep II, Amenemhet bolstered his claim to authority with propaganda. In particular, the Prophecy of Neferty dates to about this time, which purports to be an oracle of an Old Kingdom priest, who predicts a king, Amenemhet I, arising from the far south of Egypt to restore the kingdom after centuries of chaos.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Propaganda notwithstanding, Amenemhet never held the absolute power commanded in theory by the Old Kingdom pharaohs. During the First Intermediate Period, the governors of the nomes of Egypt, nomarchs, gained considerable power. Their posts had become hereditary, and some nomarchs entered into marriage alliances with the nomarchs of neighboring nomes. To strengthen his position, Amenemhet required registration of land, modified nome borders, and appointed nomarchs directly when offices became vacant, but acquiesced to the nomarch system, probably to placate the nomarchs who supported his rule. This gave the Middle Kingdom a more feudal organization than Egypt had before or would have afterward.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: In his twentieth regnal year, Amenemhat established his son Senusret I as his coregent, beginning a practice which would be used repeatedly throughout the rest of the Middle Kingdom and again during the New Kingdom. In Amenemhet's thirtieth regnal year, he was presumably murdered in a palace conspiracy. Senusret, campaigning against Libyan invaders, rushed home to Itjtawy to prevent a takeover of the government. During his reign, Senusret continued the practice of directly appointing nomarchs, and undercut the autonomy of local priesthoods by building at cult centers throughout Egypt. Under his rule, Egyptian armies pushed south into Nubia as far as the Second Cataract, building a border fort at Buhen and incorporating all of Lower Nubia as an Egyptian colony. Senusret I also exercised control over the land of Kush, from the Second to the Third Cataract, including the island of Sai. The southernmost inscription containing Sesostris I’s name has been found on the island of Argo, north of modern Dongola. To the west, he consolidated his power over the Oases, and extended commercial contacts into Syria-Palestine as far as Ugarit. In his 43rd regnal year, Senusret appointed Amenemhet II as junior coregent, before dying in his 46th.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: The reign of Amenemhat II has been often characterized as largely peaceful, but records of his , or daybooks, have cast doubt on that assessment. Among these records, preserved on temple walls at Tod and Memphis, are descriptions of peace treaties with certain Syrio-Palestinian cities, and military conflict with others. To the south, Amenemhet sent a campaign through lower Nubia to inspect Wawat. It does not appear that Amenemhet continued his predecessors' policy of appointing nomarchs, but let it become hereditary again. Another expedition to Punt dates to his reign. In his 33rd regnal year, he appointed his son Senusret II coregent.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Evidence for the military activity of any kind during the reign of Senusret II is non-existent. Senusret instead appears to have focused on domestic issues, particularly the irrigation of the Faiyum. This multi-generational project aimed to convert the Faiyum oasis into a productive swath of farmland. Senusret eventually placed his pyramid at the site of el-Lahun, near the junction of the Nile and the Fayuum's major irrigation canal, the Bahr Yussef. He reigned only fifteen years, which explains the incomplete nature of many of his constructions. His son Senusret III succeeded him.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Senusret III was a warrior-king, often taking to the field himself. In his sixth year, he re-dredged an Old Kingdom canal around the First Cataract to facilitate travel to Upper Nubia. He used this to launch a series of brutal campaigns in Nubia in his sixth, eighth, tenth, and sixteenth years. After his victories, Senusret built a series of massive forts throughout the country to establish the formal boundary between Egyptian conquests and unconquered Nubia at Semna. The personnel of these forts were charged to send frequent reports to the capital on the movements and activities of the local Medjay natives, some of which survive, revealing how tightly the Egyptians intended to control the southern border. Medjay were not allowed north of the border by ship, nor could they enter by land with their flocks, but they were permitted to travel to local forts to trade. After this, Senusret sent one more campaign in his 19th year, but turned back due to abnormally low Nile levels, which endangered his ships. To the north, One of Senusret's soldiers records a campaign into Palestine, perhaps against Shechem, the only reference to a military campaign against a certain location in Palestine from Middle Kingdom literature, although there are other references to action against Asiatics. It is not known whether Egypt wished to control Canaan like Northern Nubia, but numerous administrative seals of the period have been found there, as well as other indications of increased activity Northward in this period. As in the old kingdom, the contact was particularly strong with Byblos, known for its valuable wood.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Domestically, Senusret has been given credit for an administrative reform which put more power in the hands of appointees of the central government, instead of regional authorities. Egypt was divided into three "water", or administrative divisions: North, South, and Head of the South (perhaps Lower Egypt, most of Upper Egypt, and the nomes of the original Theban kingdom during the war with Herakleopolis, respectively). Each region was administrated by a "Reporter", "Second Reporter", some kind of council (the "Djadjat"), and staff of minor officials and scribes. The power of the nomarchs seems to drop off permanently during his reign, which has been taken to indicate that the central government had finally suppressed them, though there is no record that Senusret ever took direct action against them.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Senusret III left a lasting legacy as a warrior pharaoh. His name was Hellenized by later Greek historians as Sesostris, a name which was then given to a conflation of Senusret and several New Kingdom warrior pharaohs. In Nubia, Senusret was worshiped as a patron God by Egyptian settlers. The duration of his reign remains something of an open question. His son Amenemhet III began reigning after Senusret's 19th regnal year, which has been widely considered Senusret's highest attested date. However, a reference to a year 39 on a fragment found in the construction debris of Senusret's mortuary temple has suggested the possibility of a long coregency with his son.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: The reign of Amenemhat III was the height of the Middle Kingdom's economic prosperity. His reign is remarkable for the degree to which Egypt exploited its resources. Mining camps in the Sinai, which had previously been used only by intermittent expeditions, were operated on a semi-permanent basis, as evidenced by the construction of houses, walls, and even local cemeteries. There are 25 separate references to mining expeditions in the Sinai, and four to expeditions in Wadi Hammamat, one of which had over two thousand workers. Amenemhet reinforced his father's defenses in Nubia and continued the Faiyum land reclamation project.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: After a reign of 45 years, Amenemhet III was succeeded by Amenemhet IV, whose nine-year reign is poorly attested. Clearly by this time, dynastic power had begun to weaken, for which several explanations have been proposed. Contemporary records of the Nile flood levels indicate that the end of the reign of Amenemhet III was dry, and crop failures may have helped to destabilize the dynasty. Further, Amenemhet III had an inordinately long reign, which tends to create succession problems. The latter argument perhaps explains why Amenemhet IV was succeeded by Sobekneferu, the first historically attested female king of Egypt. Sobekneferu ruled no more than four years, and as she apparently had no heirs, when she died the Twelfth Dynasty came to a sudden end as did the Golden Age of the Middle Kingdom.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: After the death of Sobeknefru, the throne may have passed to Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep, though in older studies Wegaf, who had previously been the Great Overseer of Troops, was thought to have reigned next. Beginning with this reign, Egypt was ruled by a series of ephemeral kings for about ten to fifteen years. Ancient Egyptian sources regard these as the first kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty, though the term dynasty is misleading, as most kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty were not related. The names of these short-lived kings are attested on a few monuments and graffiti, and their succession order is only known from the Turin Canon, although even this is not fully trusted.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: After the initial dynastic chaos, a series of longer reigning, better-attested kings ruled for about fifty to eighty years. The strongest king of this period, Neferhotep I, ruled for eleven years and maintained effective control of Upper Egypt, Nubia, and the Delta, with the possible exceptions of Xois and Avaris. Neferhotep I was even recognized as the suzerain of the ruler of Byblos, indicating that the Thirteenth Dynasty was able to retain much of the power of the Twelfth Dynasty, at least up to his reign. At some point during the 13th Dynasty, Xois and Avaris began governing themselves, the rulers of Xois being the Fourteenth Dynasty, and the Asiatic rulers of Avaris being the Hyksos of the Fifteenth Dynasty. According to Manetho, this latter revolt occurred during the reign of Neferhotep's successor, Sobekhotep IV, though there is no archaeological evidence. Sobekhotep IV was succeeded by the short reign of Sobekhotep V, who was followed by Wahibre Ibiau, then Merneferre Ai. Wahibre Ibiau ruled ten years, and Merneferre Ai ruled for twenty-three years, the longest of any Thirteenth Dynasty king, but neither of these two kings left as many attestations as either Neferhotep of Sobekhotep IV. Despite this, they both seem to have held at least parts of Lower Egypt. After Merneferre Ai, however, no king left his name on any object found outside the south. This begins the final portion of the Thirteenth Dynasty when southern kings continue to reign over Upper Egypt. But when the unity of Egypt fully disintegrated, the Middle Kingdom gave way to the Second Intermediate Period.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: When the Eleventh Dynasty reunified Egypt it had to create a centralized administration such as had not existed in Egypt since the downfall of the Old Kingdom government. To do this, it appointed people to positions which had fallen out of use in the decentralized First Intermediate Period. Highest among these was the vizier. The vizier was the chief minister for the king, handling all the day-to-day business of government in the king's place. This was a monumental task, therefore it would often be split into two positions, a vizier of the north, and a vizier of the south. It is uncertain how often this occurred during the Middle Kingdom, but Senusret I clearly had two simultaneously functioning viziers. Other positions were inherited from the provincial form of government at Thebes used by the Eleventh Dynasty before the reunification of Egypt. The "Overseer of Sealed Goods" became the country's treasurer, and the "Overseer of the Estate" became the King's chief steward. These three positions and the "Scribe of the Royal Document," probably the king's personal scribe, appear to be the most important posts of the central government, judging by the monument count of those in these positions.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Beside this, many Old Kingdom posts which had lost their original meaning and become mere honorifics were brought back into the central government. Only high-ranking officials could claim the title "Member of the Elite", which had been applied liberally during the First Intermediate Period.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: This basic form of administration continued throughout the Middle Kingdom, though there is some evidence for a major reform of the central government under Senusret III. Records from his reign indicate that Upper and Lower Egypt were divided into separate "waret" and governed by separate administrators. Administrative documents and private stelae indicate a proliferation of new bureaucratic titles around this time, which have been taken as evidence of a larger central government. Governance of the royal residence was moved into a separate division of government. The military was placed under the control of a chief general. However, it is possible that these titles and positions were much older, and simply were not recorded on funerary stelae due to religious conventions.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Decentralization during the First Intermediate Period left the individual Egyptian provinces, or Nomes, under the control of powerful families who held the hereditary title of "Great Chief of the Nome", or Nomarch. This position developed during the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, when the various powers of Old Kingdom provincial officials began to be exercised by a single individual. At roughly this time, the provincial aristocracy began building elaborate tombs for themselves, which have been taken as evidence of the wealth and power which these rulers had acquired as nomarchs. By the end of the First Intermediate Period, some nomarchs ruled their nomes as minor potentates, such as the nomarch Nehry of Hermopolis, who dated inscriptions by his own regnal year.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: When the Eleventh Dynasty came to power, it was necessary to subdue the power of the nomarchs if Egypt was to be reunified under a central government. The first major steps towards that end took place under Amenemhet I. Amenemhet made the city, not the nome, the center of administration, and only the "haty-a", or mayor, of the larger cities would be permitted to carry the title of nomarch. The title of nomarch continued to be used until the reign of Senusret III, as did the elaborate tombs indicative of their power, after which they suddenly disappeared. This has been interpreted several ways. Traditionally, it has been believed that Senusret III took some action to suppress the nomarch families during his reign. Recently, other interpretations have been proposed. Detlef Franke has argued that Senusret II adopted a policy of educating the sons of nomarchs in the capital and appointing them to government posts. In this way, many provincial families may have been bled dry of scions. Also, while the title of "Great Overlord of the Nome" disappeared, other distinctive titles of the nomarchs remained. During the First Intermediate Period, individuals holding the title of "Great Overlord" also often held the title of "Overseer of Priests." In the late Middle Kingdom, there existed families holding the titles of mayor and overseer of priests as hereditary possessions. Therefore, it has been argued that the great nomarch families were never subdued, but were simply absorbed into the pharaonic administration of the country. While it is true that the large tombs indicative of nomarchs disappeared at the end of the Twelfth Dynasty, grand royal tombs also ceased being built soon thereafter due to general instability surrounding the decline of the Middle Kingdom.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Throughout the history of ancient Egypt, the annual inundation of the Nile River was relied upon to fertilize the land surrounding it. This was essential for agriculture and food production. There is evidence that the collapse of the previous Old Kingdom may have been due in part to low flood levels, resulting in famine. This trend appears to have been reversed during the early years of the Middle Kingdom, with relatively high water levels recorded for much of this era, with an average inundation of 19 meters above its non-flood levels. The years of repeated high inundation levels correspond to the most prosperous period of the Middle Kingdom, which occurred during the reign of Amenemhat III. This seems to be confirmed in some of the literature of the period, such as in the Instructions of Amenemhat, where the king tells his son how agriculture prospered under his reign.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: After the reunification of Egypt in the Middle Kingdom, the kings of the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties were able to turn their focus back to art. In the Eleventh Dynasty, the kings had their monuments made in a style influenced by the Memphite models of the Fifth and early Sixth Dynasty. During this time, the pre-unification Theban relief style all but disappeared. These changes had an ideological purpose, as the Eleventh Dynasty kings were establishing a centralized state after the First Intermediate Period, and returning to the political ideals of the Old Kingdom. In the early Twelfth Dynasty, the artwork had a uniformity of style due to the influence of the royal workshops. It was at this point that the quality of artistic production for the elite members of society reached a high point that was never surpassed, although it was equaled in other periods. Egypt prospered in the late Twelfth Dynasty, and this was reflected in the quality of the materials used for royal and private monuments.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: The kings of the Twelfth Dynasty were buried in pyramid complexes based on those of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. In the Old Kingdom, these were made of stone bricks, but the Middle Kingdom kings chose to have theirs made of mud bricks and finished with a casing of Tura limestone. Private tombs, such as those found in Thebes, usually consisted of a long passage cut into rock, with a small chamber at the end. These tended to have little or no decoration. Stone box sarcophagi with both flat and vaulted lids were manufactured in the Middle Kingdom, as a continuation of the Old Kingdom tradition. The motifs on these were more varied and of higher artistic quality than that of any sarcophagi produced before and after the Middle Kingdom. Additionally, funerary stelae developed in regard to images and iconography. They continued to show the deceased seated in front of a table of offerings, and began to include the deceased's wife and other family members.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Towards the end of the Middle Kingdom, there was a change to the art pieces placed in non-royal tombs. The amount of wooden tomb models decreased drastically, and they were replaced by small faience models of food. Magic wands and rods, models of protective animals, and fertility figures began to be buried with the dead. Additionally, the number of statues and funerary stelae increased, but their quality decreased. In the late Twelfth Dynasty, coffins with interior decorations became rare, and the decorations on the outside became more elaborate. The "rishi"-coffin made its first appearance during this time. Made of wood or cartonnage, the coffin was in the shape of a body wrapped in linen, wearing a beaded collar and a funerary mask.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: There were also changes to the art form of stelae in the Middle Kingdom. During this time, round-topped stelae developed out of the rectangular form of previous periods. Many examples of both of these types come from this period; excavation at Abydos yielded over 2000 private stelae, ranging from excellent works to crude objects, although very few belonged to the elite. Additionally, classic royal commemorative stelae were first found in this period. These took the form of a round-topped stelae, and they were used to mark boundaries. For example, Senusret III used them to mark the boundary between Egypt and Nubia. Because of the prosperity of this period, the lower elite were able to commission statues and stelae for themselves, although these were of poorer artistic quality. Those who commissioned non-royal stelae had the ultimate goal of eternal existence. This goal was communicated with the specific placement of information on the stone slabs similar to royal stelae (the owner's image, offering formula, inscriptions of names, lineage and titles).


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: In the first half of the Twelfth Dynasty, proportions of the human figure returned to the traditional Memphite style of the Fifth and early Sixth Dynasties. Male figures had broad shoulders, a low small of the back, and thick muscular limbs. Females had slender figures, a higher small of the back and no musculature. In this period, sketches for the production of statues and reliefs were laid out on a squared grid, a new guide system. Since this system contained a greater number of lines, it allowed more body parts to be marked. Standing figures were composed of eighteen squares from the feet to the hairline. Seated figures were made of fourteen squares between their feet and hairline, accounting for the horizontal thigh and knee. The black granite seated statue of king Amenemhat III to the right, above is a perfect example of male proportions and the squared grid system at this period. Most royal statues, such as this one, would serve as representations of the king's power.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: The quality of Egyptian statuary reached its peak in the Middle Kingdom. Royal statues combined both elegance and strength in a manner that was seldom seen after this period. A popular form of statuary during this time was that of the sphinx. During this period, sphinxes appeared in pairs, and were recumbent, with human faces, and a lion's mane and ears. An example would be the diorite sphinx of Senusret III.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: One of the innovations in sculpture that occurred during the Middle Kingdom was the block statue, which would continue to be popular through to the Ptolemaic Kingdom almost 2,000 years later. Block statues consist of a man squatting with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms folded on top his knees. Often, these men are wearing a "wide cloak" that reduces the body of the figure to a simple block-like shape. The surface of the garment or "wide cloak" allowed space for inscriptions. Most of the detail is reserved for the head of the individual being depicted. In some instances the modeling of the limbs has been retained by the sculptor. There are two basic types of block statues: ones with the feet completely covered by the cloak and ones with the feet uncovered.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: This statue to the right represents a woman from the top echelon of society and demonstrates characteristics of Middle Kingdom art. The heavy tripartite wig frames the broad face and passes behind the ears, thus giving the impression of forcing them forward. They are large in keeping with the ancient Egyptian ideal of beauty; the same ideal required small breasts, and also in this respect the sculpture is no exception. Whereas the natural curve of the eyebrows dips towards the root of the nose, the artificial eyebrows in low relief are absolutely straight above the inner corners of the eyes, a feature which places the bust early in the Twelfth Dynasty. Around 1900 BC these artificial eyebrows began to follow the natural curve and dip toward the nose.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: In the later Twelfth Dynasty, proportions of the human figure changed. These changes survived through the Thirteenth to Seventeenth Dynasties. Male figures had smaller heads in proportion the rest of the body, narrow shoulders and waists, a high small of the back, and no muscled limbs. Female figures had these proportions more to an extreme with narrower shoulders and waists, slender limbs and a higher small of the back in order to keep a distinction between male and female measurements.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Richard B. Parkinson and Ludwig D. Morenz write that ancient Egyptian literature—narrowly defined as "belles-lettres" ("beautiful writing")—were not recorded in written form until the early Twelfth Dynasty. Old Kingdom texts served mainly to maintain the divine cults, preserve souls in the afterlife, and document accounts for practical uses in daily life. It was not until the Middle Kingdom that texts were written for the purpose of entertainment and intellectual curiosity. Parkinson and Morenz also speculate that written works of the Middle Kingdom were transcriptions of the oral literature of the Old Kingdom. It is known that some oral poetry was preserved in later writing; for example, litter-bearers' songs were preserved as written verses in tomb inscriptions of the Old Kingdom.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: It is also thought that the growth of the middle class and a growth in the number of scribes needed for the expanded bureaucracy under Senusret II helped spur the development of Middle Kingdom literature. Later ancient Egyptians considered the literature from this time as "classic". Stories such as the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor and the Story of Sinuhe were composed during this period, and were popular enough to be widely copied afterwards. Many philosophical works were also created at this time, including the Dispute between a man and his Ba where an unhappy man converses with his soul, The Satire of the Trades in which the role of the scribe is praised above all other jobs, and the magic tales supposedly told to the Old Kingdom pharaoh Khufu in the Westcar Papyrus.


title: Middle Kingdom of Egypt

text: Pharaohs of the Twelfth through Eighteenth Dynasty are credited with preserving some of the most interesting of Egyptian papyri:


title: Venomous snake

text: Venomous snakes are species of the suborder Serpentes that are capable of producing venom, which they use for killing prey, for defense, and to assist with digestion of their prey. The venom is typically delivered by injection using hollow or grooved fangs, although some venomous snakes lack well-developed fangs. Common venomous snakes include the families Elapidae, Viperidae, Atractaspididae, and some of the Colubridae. The toxicity of venom is mainly indicated by murine , while multiple factors are considered to judge the potential danger to humans. Other important factors for risk assessment include the likelihood that a snake will bite, the quantity of venom delivered with the bite, the efficiency of the delivery mechanism, and the location of a bite on the body of the victim. Snake venom may have both neurotoxic and hemotoxic properties. There are about 600 venomous snake species in the world.


title: Venomous snake

text: The evolutionary history of venomous snakes can be traced back to as far as 28 million years ago. Snake venom is modified saliva used for prey immobilization and self-defense and is usually delivered through highly specialized teeth, hollow fangs, directly into the bloodstream or tissue of the target. Evidence has recently been presented for the Toxicofera hypothesis, that venom was present (in small amounts) in the ancestors of all snakes (as well as several lizard#Venom families) as "toxic saliva" and evolved to extremes in those snake families normally classified as venomous by parallel evolution. The Toxicofera hypothesis further implies that "nonvenomous" snake lineages have either lost the ability to produce venom (but may still have lingering venom pseudogenes), or actually do produce venom in small quantities, likely sufficient to help capture small prey but causing no harm to humans when bitten.


title: Venomous snake

text: There is not a single or special taxonomic group for venomous snakes. Venom is known in several families. This has been interpreted to mean venom in snakes originated more than once as the result of convergent evolution. Around a quarter of all snake species are identified as being venomous.


title: Venomous snake

text: Venomous snakes are often said to be poisonous, but poison and venom are not the same thing. Poisons must be ingested, inhaled or absorbed, while venom must be injected into the body by mechanical means. While unusual, there are a few species of snake that are actually poisonous. Keelback snakes are both venomous and poisonous – their poisons are stored in nuchal glands and are acquired by sequestering toxins from poisonous toads the snakes eat. Similarly, certain garter snakes from Oregon can retain toxins in their livers from ingesting rough-skinned newts.


title: Venomous snake

text: Venom toxicities are compared by looking at the median lethal dose (usually using rodents as test animals and termed the murine LD), which is the dose of venom per unit body mass that kills half of the test animals that receive it. The result obtained depends on which of the four delivery sites is used for the injection: subcutis (SC), vein (IV), muscle or peritoneum (IP). Smaller murine LD values indicate venoms that are more toxic, and there have been numerous studies on snake venom with a variability of potency estimates. SC LD is considered the most applicable to actual bites as only vipers with large fangs (such as large specimens from the genera "Bitis", "Bothrops", "Crotalus", or "Daboia") are capable of a truly intramuscular bite, snakebites rarely cause IV envenomation, and IP envenomation is even rarer. Measurements of LD using dry venom mixed with 0.1% bovine serum albumin in saline are more consistent than the results obtained using saline alone. As an example, the venom of the eastern brown snake has a murine LD (SC) of when measured in 0.1% bovine serum albumin in saline; when saline alone is used, the value is .


title: Venomous snake

text: Belcher's sea snake, which sometimes is mistakenly called the hook-nosed sea snake, has been erroneously popularized as the most venomous snake in the world, due to the first edition of Ernst and Zug's book, "Snakes in Question: The Smithsonian Answer Book", published in 1996. Prominent venom expert Associate Professor Bryan Grieg Fry has clarified the error: "The hook nosed myth was due to a fundamental error in a book called "Snakes in Question". In there, all the toxicity testing results were lumped in together, regardless of the mode of testing (e.g., subcutaneous vs. intramuscular vs. intravenous vs. intraperitoneal). As the mode can influence the relative number, venoms can only be compared within a mode. Otherwise, it's apples and rocks." Belcher's sea snake's actual LD (IM) is 0.24 mg/kg and 0.155 mg/kg. Studies on mice and human cardiac cell culture show that venom of the inland taipan is the most toxic among all snakes.


title: Venomous snake

text: The toxicity of snake venom, based on laboratory tests conducted on mice, is sometimes used to gauge the extent of danger to humans, but this is not enough. Many venomous snakes are specialized predators whose venom may be adapted specifically to incapacitate their preferred prey. A number of other factors are also critical in determining the potential hazard of any given venomous snake to humans, including their distribution and behavior. For example, while the inland taipan is regarded as the world's most venomous snake based on LD tests on mice, it is a shy species and rarely strikes, and has not caused any known human fatalities. On the other hand, India's Big Four (Indian cobra, common krait, Russell's viper, and saw-scaled viper), while less venomous than the inland taipan, are found in closer proximity to human settlements and are more confrontational, thus leading to more deaths from snakebite. In addition, some species, such as the black mamba and coastal taipan, occasionally show some aggression, generally when alarmed or in self-defence, and then may deliver fatal doses of venom, resulting in high human mortality rates.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: Geraldine McEwan (born Geraldine McKeown; 9 May 1932 – 30 January 2015) was an English actress, who had a long career in film, theatre and television. Michael Coveney described her, in a tribute article, as "a great comic stylist, with a syrupy, seductive voice and a forthright, sparkling manner".


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: McEwan was a five-time Olivier Award nominee, and twice won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress; for "The Rivals" (1983) and "The Way of the World" (1995). She was also nominated for the 1998 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for "The Chairs". She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for the 1990 television serial "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit", and from 2004 to 2009, she starred as the Agatha Christie sleuth Miss Marple, in the ITV series "Marple".


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: She was born Geraldine McKeown on 9 May 1932 in Old Windsor, Berkshire, England, to Donald and Norah (née Burns) McKeown. She had Irish ancestors; her maternal grandfather came from Kilkenny while her paternal grandfather came from Belfast. Her father, a printers' compositor, ran the Labour Party branch in Old Windsor, a safe Conservative seat.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: McEwan won a scholarship to attend Windsor County Girls' School, then a private school where she felt completely out of place, and took elocution lessons. However, in later life she said she had loved English and the teaching of Miss Meech in particular. In an interview with Cassandra Jardine of "The Daily Telegraph" in 2004, she said of herself around this time: "I was very shy, very private", but after reading a poem (apparently Lady Macbeth's speech "Glamis thou art and Cawdor...") at a Brownie concert: "I realised it was going to be a way in which I could manage the world. I could protect myself by losing myself in other people."


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: As a teenager, McEwan became interested in theatre and her theatrical career began at 14 as assistant stage manager at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. She made her first appearance on the Windsor stage in October 1946 as an attendant of Hippolyta in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and played many parts with the Windsor Repertory Company from March 1949 to March 1951, including a role in the Ruth Gordon biographical play "Years Ago" opposite guest player John Clark.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: McEwan made her first West End appearance at the Vaudeville Theatre on 4 April 1951 as Christina Deed in "Who Goes There!" McEwan first appeared on television in a BBC series, "Crime on Our Hands" (1954), with Jack Watling, Dennis Price and Sonia Dresdel. In 1957, she took over from Joan Plowright in the Royal Court production of John Osborne's play "The Entertainer" during its West End run at the Palace Theatre.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: McEwan appeared at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon during the late 1950s and early 1960s, during the period when it was evolving into the Stratford venue for the new Royal Shakespeare Company formed in 1960, and at The Aldwych, the RSC's original London home.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: During the 1958 season in Stratford, she played Olivia in "Twelfth Night" in a production directed by Peter Hall. After McEwan died, "The Guardian"s Michael Billington wrote of this performance: "At the time Olivia tended to be played as a figure of mature grief: McEwan was young, sparky, witty and clearly brimming with desire for Dorothy Tutin's pageboy Viola." McEwan's performance, according to Dominic Shellard, split contemporary critical opinion between those observers who considered it "heretical" and others who thought it "revolutionary".


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: In the same season at Stratford, McEwan portrayed Marina in "Pericles" and Hero in "Much Ado About Nothing". She returned to the theatre in 1961 to portray Ophelia in "Hamlet", opposite Ian Bannen as the Prince, and Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing" with Christopher Plummer as Benedict.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: In a production of Sheridan's "The School for Scandal", directed by Sir John Gielgud in 1962, McEwan replaced Anna Massey as Mrs Teazle during the run at the Haymarket Theatre, London; her husband was played by Sir Ralph Richardson. After an American tour, this production was staged at the Majestic in New York in early 1963, and was McEwan's debut on Broadway. Back in England, she appeared with Kenneth Williams in the original unsuccessful 1965 production of "Loot" by Joe Orton, which closed at the Wimbledon Theatre before reaching London.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: After this debacle, she joined the National Theatre Company, then based at the Old Vic, following the suggestion of Sir Laurence Olivier, then its artistic director, and performed in 11 productions over the next 5 years. She appeared with Olivier in "Dance of Death", staged by Glen Byam Shaw and first performed in February 1967.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: Olivier asserted, according to his biographer Philip Ziegler, that he had chosen August Strindberg's play partly because it had a good part for McEwan: "I didn't give a damn if I made a success, I really didn't; it was her success I was after". The notices though concentrated on his role as the Captain rather than McEwan's as Alice, the Captain's wife. A film version, with the same two leads, was released in 1969.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: During her first period at the National, she also portrayed Angelica in William Congreve's "Love for Love", Raymonde Chandebise in Georges Feydeau's "A Flea in Her Ear", Millamant in "The Way of the World" and Vittoria Corombona in John Webster's "The White Devil". Until her roles in the plays by Strindberg and Webster, McEwan was viewed mainly as a comedian, but these parts were thought to have extended her range.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: McEwan took the lead role in an adaptation for Scottish Television of Muriel Spark's "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1978). She was Spark's favourite in the role and came the closest to the character as Spark had imagined it; Brodie has also been portrayed on stage and screen by Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith. Her other work for television in this period included roles in "The Barchester Chronicles" (1982) and "Mapp and Lucia" (1985–86) with Prunella Scales as Mapp and McEwan as Lucia.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: In 1983, McEwan played Mrs Malaprop in a production of Sheridan's "The Rivals" at the National Theatre by Peter Wood which also featured Michael Hordern as Sir Anthony Absolute. Michael Billington wrote of this performance in 2015: "It is easy to play the word-mangling Mrs Malaprop as a comic buffoon. But the whole point of McEwan's performance was that she took language with fastidious seriousness, fractionally pausing before each misplaced epithet as if ransacking her private lexicography. As I said at the time, it was like watching a demolition expert trying to construct a cathedral." For this role, McEwan won the "Evening Standard" Award for Best Actress.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: She made her directorial debut, in 1988, with the Renaissance Theatre Company's touring season, "Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road", co-produced with the Birmingham Rep, and ending with a three-month repertory programme at the Phoenix Theatre in London. McEwan's contribution was a light romantic staging of "As You Like It", with Kenneth Branagh playing Touchstone as an Edwardian music hall comedian.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: McEwan won another "Evening Standard" Best Actress Award in 1995 for her role as Lady Wishfort in a revival of Congreve's "The Way of the World", again at the National Theatre. Sheridan Morley, then theatre critic of "The Spectator", wrote, "Geraldine McEwan (in the performance of the night and her career) comes on looking like an ostrich which has mysteriously been crammed into a tambourine lined with fresh flowers."


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: With Richard Briers, she starred from November 1997 in a revival of Eugène Ionesco's absurdist play "The Chairs" in a co-production between Simon McBurney's Théâtre de Complicité and London's Royal Court Theatre (then temporarily based at the Duke of York's) who had staged the British premiere 40 years earlier. This production had a brief run on Broadway between April and June 1998; McEwan was nominated for a Tony Award.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: Her later television credits include "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" (1990), for which she won the British Academy Television Award as Best Actress in 1991, and "Mulberry" (1992–93). She was also in the "Cassandra" episode of "Red Dwarf" (1999), playing a prescient computer. McEwan played the demented witch Mortianna in the film "" (1991). In Peter Mullan's "The Magdalene Sisters", (2002), she played the role of Sister Bridget. In 2001, she voiced Margaret in the audio book "Richard III".


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: McEwan was selected by Granada Television for "Marple" (2004–07), a new series featuring the Agatha Christie sleuth Miss Marple. She told "The New York Times" in a 2005 interview when the series was first being screened by PBS, "I do enjoy playing very original and slightly eccentric characters. It is very amusing that Agatha Christie should have created this older woman who lives a very conventional life in a little country village and yet spends all her time solving violent crimes." She announced her retirement from the role in 2008 after appearing in 12 films. She was succeeded as Miss Marple in the series by Julia McKenzie.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: In 2005, she provided the voice of Miss Thripp in the film "" and again in "A Matter of Loaf and Death" in 2008.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: In 1953, McEwan married Hugh Cruttwell, whom she had first met when she was aged 14 while working at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. Cruttwell was the Principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1965 to 1984. They had a son Greg, who is an actor and screenwriter, and a daughter Claudia.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: McEwan was reported to have declined an OBE, and later, a DBE (in 2002), but she did not respond to these claims. "I will never speak of that", she said of the matter to Cassandra Jardine in 2004.


title: Geraldine McEwan

text: McEwan died on 30 January 2015 at the Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith after suffering a stroke three months earlier.


title: Vir Das

text: Vir Das (born 31 May 1979) is a Indian-comedian, actor and musician. After beginning a career in standup comedy, Das moved to Hindi cinema starring in films like "Badmaash Company" (2010), "Delhi Belly" (2011), and "Go Goa Gone" (2013) in supporting roles. In 2017, he acted in the Netflix special "Abroad Understanding". Das has performed in approximately 35 plays, over 100 stand-up comedy shows, 18 films, eight TV shows and six comedy specials. He has written comedic columns for "Femina", "Maxim", "Exotica", "DNA" and "Tehelka". In 2019, he made his debut in American television with the television series, "Whiskey Cavalier".


title: Vir Das

text: Vir Das was born to Ranu Das and Madhur Das in Dehradun on 31 May 1979. He was raised in Nigeria and India. In Nigeria, he attended the Indian Language School in Lagos, Nigeria. In India, he attended The Lawrence School, Sanawar and Delhi Public School, Noida. After 18 months at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi he went to the United States. There he obtained a bachelor's degree from Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois in Economics and Theatre with a concentration in performance. After graduating from Knox, Das was accepted into the Harvard University's and Moscow Arts Theatre for their joint Stanislavsky Program. He has a sister Trisha, who is four years elder to him and is a published author and a documentary filmmaker. He has claimed in one of his shows that his grandfather was a Padma Shri awardee from Bengal.


title: Vir Das

text: He began his career with a gig at one of the premier hotel in New Delhi with a performance titled "Walking on Broken Das".


title: Vir Das

text: Das started his career on TV when he hosted two TV shows on Zoom. The first one was "Is Route Ki Sabhin Linein Maast Hain" where he was an agony uncle. The second was his own stand-up comedy late night show "Ek Rahin Vir". Das also hosted "Top Drive - Getaway" for Star World.


title: Vir Das

text: Das has appeared on a variety of comedic television programs. He hosted "Cricket Firsts", a sports comedy show on Zee Sports (now TEN Action+). He did improvisational comedy on SAB TV's "Lo Kar Lo Baat". He was an addition to the cast of "The Great Indian Comedy Show" on STAR One. He can be seen anchoring "Now Not Showing" on CNN-IBN.


title: Vir Das

text: Das is the host of "News on the Loose", his own news comedy show on CNBC-TV18. "News on the Loose" was given its own weekly half-hour special "News On The Loose — Weekend" on CNBC-TV18.


title: Vir Das

text: Das was cast as the comic relief in "The Curse of King Tut's Tomb", a Hallmark mini-series filmed in India. He began filming for his first two Bollywood roles in early 2006. He played a small role Vipul Shah's 2007 movie "Namastey London".


title: Vir Das

text: Vir Das has also worked with Ashvin Gidwani Productions-AGP on stand-up shows like "Walking on Broken Das", "Battle of Da Sexes", and "History of India: VIRitten", which he wrote and directed.


title: Vir Das

text: On 25 April 2017, Das's Netflix special "Abroad Understanding" was released, in the process becoming the first Indian comedian with a comedy special on the platform.


title: Vir Das

text: In 2019, Das released his travel-cum-comedy show "Jestination Unknown" where he explores how Indians see humour along with a couple of other stand-up comedians and celebrities.


title: Vir Das

text: He starred opposite Preity Zinta in a "Fresh Off the Boat" episode titled "The Magic Motor Inn". He plays the patriarch of an Indian family. Das's onscreen family will be at the center of the plot of the official spin-off of the same show.


title: Vir Das

text: His latest endeavor was on Netflix during the lockdown in 2020, in a one-hour special called "Vir Das: Outside In".


title: Vir Das

text: On 12 November 2021, Das performed a monologue titled "Two Indias" at the Kennedy Center in Washington.


title: Aesop Rock

text: Ian Matthias Bavitz (born June 5, 1976), better known by his stage name Aesop Rock, is an American rapper and producer from Long Island, New York. He was at the forefront of the new wave of underground and alternative hip hop acts that emerged during the late 1990s and early 2000s. He was signed to El-P's Definitive Jux label until it went on hiatus in 2010. In a 2010 retrospective, betterPropaganda ranked him at number 19 at the "Top 100 Artists of the Decade".


title: Aesop Rock

text: He released his first album, "Music for Earthworms", in 1997, with "Float" following 3 years later. "Labor Days", his third studio album, was released on September 18, 2001. His next release came two years later, titled "Bazooka Tooth", released on September 23, 2003. His fourth studio album, "None Shall Pass", was released on August 28, 2007. Its titular song became one of Ian's most popular and well-known songs. His seventh record, "Skelethon", was released on July 10, 2012. His seventh release, "The Impossible Kid", came out on April 29, 2016. His eighth and most recent album, "Spirit World Field Guide", came out on November 13, 2020.


title: Aesop Rock

text: He is a member of the groups The Weathermen, Hail Mary Mallon (with Rob Sonic & DJ Big Wiz), The Uncluded (with Kimya Dawson) and Malibu Ken (with Tobacco).


title: Aesop Rock

text: Regarding his name, he said: "I acquired the name Aesop from a movie I had acted in with some friends. It was my character's name and it sort of stuck. The rock part came later just from throwing it in rhymes."


title: Aesop Rock

text: Bavitz was born at Syosset Hospital in Syosset, New York, and raised in Northport, Long Island, New York to his father Paul and mother Jameija. Ian has two brothers: Christopher T. Bavitz (born 1973), a clinical professor at Harvard Law School and director of Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, and Graham J. Bavitz (born 1978). Along with his siblings, Ian was raised Catholic, but he later became agnostic. Bavitz attended Northport High School in 1990 and graduated in 1994. In 2005, he married Allyson Baker, guitarist and vocalist of rock band Dirty Ghosts; they resided in San Francisco, but have since divorced.


title: Aesop Rock

text: After graduating from high school, Bavitz attended Boston University in Massachusetts where he studied visual arts. He acquired his bachelor's in 1998. He met his future collaborator, Blockhead, in 1994 during the latter's only year at the school. After hearing Aesop Rock freestyle, Blockhead decided to forgo his own dreams of rapping in favor of focusing on production. Blockhead was involved with a crew in New York called The Overground that included Dub-L. During his early adulthood, Aesop Rock held various odd jobs including positions answering phones for clothing catalogs, packaging artwork in art gallery storerooms and working for one-hour photo developers.


title: Aesop Rock

text: As a youth, Bavitz and his family would usually commute to New York City. This had a great impact on him and the way he viewed the hip hop culture. Bavitz began rapping in the early 1990s. He cites Public Enemy, BDP, KMD, and Run DMC as early influences. Bavitz also listened to rock acts such as Dead Kennedys, Fugazi, and Ministry; he was introduced to these groups by his older brother Chris. Bavitz started to play the piano and bass at an early age and eventually acquired a sampler.


title: Aesop Rock

text: While attending college, Bavitz initially recorded and released two self-financed efforts, "Music for Earthworms" (1997), a full-length featuring underground artist Percee P on two tracks. Bavitz also released a music video for "Abandon All Hope", which was one of the tracks on the CD. The album sold over 300 copies, largely from a grassroots internet-based promotion at his website AesopRock.com and then-popular web portal, MP3.com. With the money he made from his previous release, he then released his "Appleseed" EP in 1999 which received critical acclaim in the underground hip-hop circuit. His early records were mostly produced by his long-time friend Blockhead and underground producer Dub-L.


title: Aesop Rock

text: After his breakthrough success in the underground hip hop and indie rap community, he was eventually noticed by the Mush label and obtained his first record deal in 1999, just a year after he graduated from college. Aesop released his first major album, "Float" (2000), with guest appearances from Vast Aire, Slug, and Dose One. Production was split between Blockhead and Aesop himself, with one track by Omega One. During this time, Aesop worked at a photography gallery. In August 2001, Bavitz had a nervous breakdown. The song "One of Four" on his "Daylight" EP documents his struggles.


title: Aesop Rock

text: Shortly after releasing "Float", Aesop Rock signed to Manhattan-based label Definitive Jux (commonly shortened to Def Jux), where he released "Labor Days" (2001), an album dedicated to the discussion of labor in American society and the concept of "wage slaves". This album was most well known for its single "Daylight". Because of its popularity, "Daylight" was re-released in 2002 as a seven-track EP, including an "alternative" new version of the song "Night Light", whose paraphrased lyrics simultaneously refer back to, and stand in stark opposition to, the original's. The song "Labor" (from "Labor Days") was featured in "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4"; it also was the first album in his catalog to break through the "Billboard" charts, peaking at number 15 at the United States Independent Charts.


title: Aesop Rock

text: "Labor Days" was followed by "Bazooka Tooth" in 2003. For the first time, production was mostly handled by Bavitz himself, with three tracks from longtime collaborator Blockhead and one from close friend and Definitive Jux label CEO El-P. Guest appearances include Party Fun Action Committee, El-P, and Mr. Lif (all Definitive Jux labelmates) and Camp Lo. With this release Aesop hit a higher level of recognition, releasing "No Jumper Cables" as a single and music video, then another single, "Freeze", shortly after. A remix of "No Jumper Cables" was featured on "Tony Hawk's Underground 2", furthering Aesop's recognition. In 2004, he released "Build Your Own Bazooka Tooth" and created a contest in which contestants had to create a remix of an Aesop Rock song using the a cappellas and instrumentals.