title: Children's television series

text: The BBC and ITV plc both operate children's oriented television networks on digital terrestrial television: the BBC runs CBBC as well as the preschool-oriented CBeebies, while ITV runs CITV as well as the preschool-oriented LittleBe, as a programming block on ITVBe. Both channels were spun off from children's television strands on their respective flagship channels (BBC One, BBC Two, and ITV). The BBC and ITV have largely phased out children's programming from their main channels in order to focus on the dedicated services; in 2012, as part of the "Delivering Quality First" initiative, the BBC announced that it would end the broadcast of CBBC programmes on BBC One following the completion of the transition to digital terrestrial television, citing low viewership in comparison to broadcasts of the programmes on the CBBC channel. Channel 5 also broadcasts a preschool-oriented block known as "Milkshake!", while its owner, Paramount Networks International, also runs versions of Nickelodeon and its sister networks Nicktoons and Nick Jr.


title: Children's television series

text: Narrative Capital operate a number of children's channels under the Pop and Tiny Pop brands. British versions of Cartoon Network and its sister channels Boomerang and Cartoonito also operate in the country. some 25 years after the initial launch.


title: Children's television series

text: Ireland has one dedicated children's TV service RTÉjr. Since 1998 RTÉ2 has provided children's programming from 07:00 to 17:30 each weekday, original titled The Den, the service was renamed TRTÉ and RTÉjr in 2010. Irish-language service TG4 provide two strands of children's programming Cúla 4 Na nÓg and Cúla 4 during the day. Commercial broadcaster TV3 broadcast a children's strand called "Gimme 3" from 1998 - 1999. And then broadcast a new strand called 3Kids.


title: Children's television series

text: Children's channels that exist in Australia are ABC Me, ABC Kids, KidsCo, Disney Channel and its spin-off Disney Junior, CBeebies, Nickelodeon and its spin-off Nick Jr., and Cartoon Network and its spin-off Boomerang.


title: Children's television series

text: Children's channels that exist in Japan are NHK Educational TV, Kids Station, Disney Channel, , Nickelodeon (also under a block on Animax, known as "Nick Time") and Cartoon Network (Cartoon Network's age demographic is moving towards older viewers with shows such as "Hello Kitty", "Regular Show" and "Adventure Time")


title: Children's television series

text: One of the most well-known children's TV programmes comes from Iceland, LazyTown, was created by Magnus Scheving, European Gymnastics Champion and CEO of LazyTown Entertainment. The show has aired in over 180 countries, been dubbed into more than 32 languages and is the most expensive children's show of all time.


title: Children's television series

text: In 1995, Cartoon Network became the first children's channel to be launched in India. Subsequently, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon arrived. Hungama TV (2004) was the first children's channel that had local content. Pogo and BabyTV came later in 2006. By 2018, 23 channels have aired in India.


title: Children's television series

text: Nickelodeon was the first children's channel in Romania, launched in December 1998. Afterwards, Minimax became the first Romanian children's channel to air locally produced content, launched on Children's Day in 2001. Since then, channels like BabyTV and Disney Channel have arrived.


title: Children's television series

text: Children's channels that exist in Turkey are Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, TRT Çocuk, , and Zarok TV.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: Muhammad (), also spelled Muhammed or Muhamad or Mohammad or Mohammed or Mohamed or in a variety of other ways, is an Arabic given male name literally meaning 'Praiseworthy'. The name comes from the passive participle of the Arabic verb (حَمَّدَ), meaning 'to praise', which itself comes from the triconsonantal Semitic root Ḥ-M-D. Believed to be the most popular name in the world, by 2014 it was estimated to have been given to 150 million men and boys.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: The name is banned for newborn children, in the Xinjiang region of China since 2017, as well as for the Ahmadi community in Pakistan.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: The name "" is the standard, primary transliteration of the Arabic given name, , that comes from the Arabic passive participle of "ḥammada" (), "praise", and further from triconsonantal Semitic root Ḥ-M-D ("praise"); hence "praised, or praiseworthy". However, its actual pronunciation differs colloquially, for example, in Egyptian Arabic: , while in exclusively religious contexts, talking about Islam: .


title: Muhammad (name)

text: The name has one of the highest numbers of English spelling variants in the world. Other Arabic names from the same root include Mahmud, Ahmed, Hamed, Tahmid and Hamid.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: The name may be abbreviated to "Md.", "Mohd.", "Muhd.", "Mhd.", or simply "M." because of its utmost meaning, its popularity has meant that it can become hard to distinguish people when there is a multitude with the same name. In some cases it may be to keep a personal name less tied to a religious context. This is only done if the person has a second given name. Some men who have "Muhammad" (or variant) as a first name choose not to use it, as it is such a common name. Instead they use another given name. For example, Anwar Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, Siad Barre, Zia-ul-Haq, Ayub Khan , Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif use their second given name.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: According to the sixth edition of "The Columbia Encyclopedia" (2000), "Muhammad" is probably the most common given name in the world, including variations. "The Independent" reported in 2014 that more than 150 million men and boys in the world bear the name "Muhammad", which would make it the most popular name in the world.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: It is sometimes reported that "Muhammad" is the most popular boy’s name in all of Britain; however, this is based on combining multiple spelling variations such as "Mohammed", but not combining spelling variants of popular British names such as Ollie and Olly. Based on statistics for the 100 most popular boys' names in England and Wales, the combined count for Muhammad and Mohammed (6233) was higher than Oliver and Olly (6049), but lower than the combined count for Harry and Henry (7684).


title: Muhammad (name)

text: "Mohammed" and "Mohamed" were the most popular baby name in "département" Seine-Saint-Denis (2002, 2008) and in Marseilles (2007, 2009), France.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: Similarly, since 2008 it has been the most popular baby boy name in Brussels and Antwerp, Belgium's most Muslim-populated cities.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: In May 2006, it was reported that statistics indicate that some 8,928 Danish Muslims carry the name "Muhammad" and that in 2004 alone, 167 new-born babies were registered.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: In 2009 "Muhammad", the most common spelling variant, was ranked 430th in the US. According to the Social Security Administration, "Mohammad" was ranked 589th, "Mohammed" 633rd, and "Muhammad" the 639th most popular first name for newborns in 2006. In the 1990 United States census, the Muhammad variant of the spelling was ranked 4,194 out of 88,799 for people of all ages.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: In April 2017, the Chinese government prohibited parents from choosing the name Muhammad as the given name for a child. The list included more than two dozen names and was targeted at the 10 million Uighurs in the western region of Xinjiang.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: If all variants of Muhammad are counted, there are 15,723 people in Finland named Muhammad, accounting for 0.7% of the Finnish male population. The most common spelling is Mohamed, accounting for 38% of the Muhammad name carriers.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: it is worth noticing that approximately 60% of people named Muhammad live in Pakistan, Middle East and North Africa.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: In 2017 legislation made it illegal in China to give children names that the Chinese government deemed to "exaggerate religious fervor”. This prohibition included a ban on naming children Muhammad. The legislation was officially intended to prevent "religious extremism" among the country's Uighur minority, but appears to have been a possible act of persecution against the Uighur community.


title: Muhammad (name)

text: The government of Pakistan forbids members of its Ahmadi community from naming their children Muhammad. Al Jazeera reported in 2021 that blasphemy charges had been filed against Ahmadis who wrote "Mohammed" on a wedding invitation in an unspecified amount of instances.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The Jaguar XJ220 is a two-seat sports car produced by British luxury car manufacturer Jaguar from 1992 until 1994, in collaboration with the specialist automotive and race engineering company Tom Walkinshaw Racing. The XJ220 recorded a top speed of during testing by Jaguar at the Nardo test track in Italy. This made it the fastest production car from 1992 to 1993. According to Jaguar, an XJ220 prototype managed a Nürburgring lap time of 7:46.36 in 1991 which was faster than any production car lap time before it.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The XJ220 was developed from a V12-engined 4-wheel drive concept car designed by an informal group of Jaguar employees working in their spare time. The group wished to create a modern version of the successful Jaguar 24 Hours of Le Mans racing cars of the 1950s and 1960s that could be entered into FIA Group B competitions. The XJ220 made use of engineering work undertaken for Jaguar's then current racing car family.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The initial XJ220 concept car was unveiled to the public at the 1988 British International Motor Show, held in Birmingham, England. Its positive reception prompted Jaguar to put the car into production. Approximately 1,500 deposits of £50,000 each were taken and deliveries were planned for 1992.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Engineering and emissions requirements resulted in significant changes to the specification of the XJ220, most notably the replacement of the Jaguar V12 engine by a turbocharged V6 engine. The changes to the specification and a collapse in the demand of high performance cars brought about by the early 1990s recession resulted in many buyers choosing not to exercise their purchase options. A total of just 275 cars were produced by the time production ended, each with a retail price of £470,000 in 1992, making it one of the most expensive cars at that time.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Racing team owner Tom Walkinshaw approached Jaguar executives and encouraged the company to enter the XJS into the 1981 European Touring Car Championship. The partnership succeeded in winning the competition in 1983. Jaguar had started to provide factory support to racing team Group 44 Racing, who were using the Jaguar-engined XJR-5 in the IMSA GT Championship, supplying V12 engines from 1983 onwards and supporting a Le Mans entry in 1984. Tom Walkinshaw and Jaguar agreed to enter the FIA Group C World Sportscar Championship and developed the XJR-6, which was powered by the same Jaguar V12 engine used by Group 44 Racing. The car was launched during the 1985 season.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: TWR took over the IMSA GT Championship operation in 1988 and one model – XJR-9 – was launched to compete in both series. The XJR-9, which retained the Jaguar V12 engine, went on to win the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans and World Sportscar Championship in the same year. The poor fuel consumption of the Jaguar V12 combined with new rules restricting refueling during races, forced the replacement of the V12 engine in the successors to the XJR-9, the XJR-10 and XJR-11. The normally-aspirated Austin Rover V64V engine, designed for the MG Metro 6R4 had recently been made redundant due to the Group B rally ban in 1987 and the design rights were for sale. The compact, lightweight and fuel efficient nature of the small-displacement, turbocharged engine was investigated by TWR, as considered it an ideal basis for a new engine to power the XJR-10 and purchased the design rights from Austin Rover Group.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Jaguar and their Director of Engineering, Jim Randle, felt these racing cars were too far removed from the product available to the general public, especially with the rule changes that mandated the replacement of the Jaguar V12 engine in the forthcoming XJR-10 and XJR-11 racing cars. Therefore, a project was initiated to design and build a car capable of winning Le Mans "in house", just as the C-Type and D-Type had done. The groundwork for the project was undertaken by Randle over Christmas 1987, when he produced a 1:4 scale cardboard model of a potential Group B racing car.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The cardboard model was taken into the Jaguar styling studio and two mock-ups were produced. One was said to be reminiscent of the Porsche 956, the other took elements of the then current XJ41 project and Malcolm Sayer's work on the stillborn XJ13 racing car. The second design, by Keith Helfet, was chosen as it was "more obviously Jaguar in its look".


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The project still had no official support, leaving Randle no option but to put together a team of volunteers to work evenings and weekends in their own time. The team came to be known as "The Saturday Club" and consisted of twelve volunteers. To justify the resources consumed by the project, the XJ220 needed to provide meaningful data to the engineers on handling, aerodynamics – particularly at high speeds – and aluminium structures. These requirements, together with FIA racing regulations and various government regulations governing car design and safety, influenced the overall design and engineering direction of the car.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The FIA Group B regulations steered the concept towards a mid-engine, all-wheel-drive layout, with a Jaguar V12 engine as the power source. The concept car was designed and built at very little cost to Jaguar, as Randle called in favours from component suppliers and engineering companies he and Jaguar had worked with in the past. In return he offered public recognition for their assistance and dangled the possibility of future contracts from Jaguar.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The name XJ220 was chosen as a continuation of the naming of the XK120, which referred to the top speed of the model in miles per hour. The concept car had a targeted top speed of so the name became XJ220. The XK120, like the XJ220, was an aluminium-bodied sports car and when launched was the fastest production car in the world.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Jaguar's engine designer Walter Hassan had previously developed a 48-valve variant of their V12 engine specifically for motorsport use. It featured a double overhead camshaft layout with four valves per cylinder, compared with the single overhead camshaft and two valves per cylinder of the production engine, which was used in the XJ and XJS models at the time.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: TWR had manufactured a number of these racing V12 engines during the 1980s and they had been raced competitively, with a 7-litre version of this engine featuring in the Le Mans-winning XJR-9. Five of these engines still existed, all of which were fitted with dry sump lubrication. One of five of these engines was chosen and considered to be especially useful as the dry sump would lower the vehicle's centre of gravity. The displacement of the V12 was set at 6.2 litres (6,222 cc) for the XJ220. The engine fitted to the XJ220 concept had titanium connecting rods.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Jaguar had little experience with four-wheel drive systems at the time, having previously only produced rear-wheel drive cars. Randle approached Tony Rolt's company, FF Developments to design the transmission and four-wheel drive system for the XJ220, with Rolt's son Stuart running the project. Tony Rolt was the Technical Director of Ferguson Research, where he was heavily involved in the design of the four-wheel drive system used in the Jensen FF, the first sports car to be fitted with such a system. Tony Rolt also had a long involvement with Jaguar, winning the 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans with the factory works team driving the C-Type.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The mid-mounted engine complicated the design of the four-wheel drive system and an innovative solution was needed to get power from the mid-mounted rear engine to the front wheels. The chosen design took the front-wheel drive from the central differential on the rear transaxle and sent it through the V in the centre of the engine using a quill drive, before joining an inverted differential. The clutch was a twin-plate unit designed by AP Racing.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The design brief for the exterior restricted the use of aerodynamic aids and aimed for a simple yet clean and functional body similar to classic Jaguar sports cars, such as the D-Type and E-Type. Drag and lift were limited at the envisioned ground clearance for road use, but the design allowed for additional downforce when the car was set up for racing. The body produced around of downforce at . The design was also intended to have a variable rear wing that folded into the bodywork at lower speeds. Aerodynamic work was undertaken at the Motor Industry Research Association wind tunnel using a 1:4 scale model, as the project was unable to budget for a full-scale mock-up.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The bodywork for the concept car displayed in 1988 was hand built from aluminium by Park Sheet Metal, a specialist automotive engineering company that manufactures concept cars and low-volume niche models for various manufacturers, including Bentley. QCR Motors LTD undertook final painting of the body in silver. The concept also featured electrically operated scissor doors and a transparent engine cover to show off the V12 engine.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The concept car had a Connolly Leather-trimmed interior trimmed by Callow & Maddox and was fitted with front and rear heated windscreens, electric windows, air conditioning, heated electrically adjustable seats and an Alpine CD player. The dashboard was supplied by Veglia.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The chassis was manufactured from aluminium using Alcan's bonded aluminium structure vehicle technology (ASVT) and had a wheelbase of . The design for the chassis featured rear wheel steering and packaged the fuel tank behind the centre bulkhead. Suspension design largely focused on road use, but a good compromise for racing use was achieved and the suspension height was adjustable. The concept car was fitted with a four-channel anti-lock braking system.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The concept car was completed in the early hours of 18 October 1988, the day it was due to be unveiled at the British International Motor Show, being held at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham. The vehicle was completed at 03:00 GMT, moved to Jaguar's stand at 06:00 GMT and unveiled at 11:00 GMT.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Jaguar's marketing department had allocated space on their stand at the motor show for the XJ220, but had not seen the vehicle until its arrival. Jaguar chairman John Egan and Roger Putnam, who was in charge of Jaguar's racing activities, were shown the vehicle the week before the motor show and signed off on the concept, allowing its unveiling. The car received an overwhelmingly positive reception by public and press and a number of wealthy Jaguar enthusiasts handed over blank cheques to secure a purchase option should the XJ220 concept go into production. Ferrari's display of their F40 flagship model at the same event was overshadowed, as an estimated 90,000 additional visitors came to see the XJ220.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The XJ220 was not initially intended to be a production car, but following the reception of the concept and financial interest from serious buyers, a feasibility study was carried out by teams from TWR and Jaguar. The conclusion was that such a car would be technically feasible (subject to engineering changes) and that it would be financially viable. The announcement of a limited production run of 220 to 350 cars was made on 20 December 1989. The list price on 1 January 1990 was £290,000 exclusive of value-added tax (VAT), options and delivery charges, but by 1992 that had increased considerably owing to indexation of contracts. The offer was four times oversubscribed and deposits of £50,000 exclusive of (VAT) were taken from around 1,400 customers. First deliveries were planned for mid-1992.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Jaguar were unable to develop the XJ220 in-house as the available engineering resources were committed to working on the XJ and XJS models. Jaguar and TWR had an existing joint venture, JaguarSport Ltd. formed in 1987 to produce racing cars. Jaguar's board made the decision that subject to contractual agreement, TWR and JaguarSport would be responsible for the XJ220. JaguarSport formed a new company, Project XJ220 Ltd., specifically to develop and build the XJ220.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The team that would determine the necessary engineering work and assess the car's financial viability was put in place during mid-1989, working from the TWR workshops. Mike Moreton headed the team, joining TWR to run the XJ220 project. Moreton came from Ford Motorsport where he led the team responsible for the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth, and was a project manager for the Ford RS200 Group B rally car program. Richard Owen was appointed chief designer and the remainder of the team was made up of Jaguar and TWR staff, including Pete Dodd, the only member of the group of twelve responsible for the XJ220 concept. The exterior and interior designers who had worked on the XJ220 prototype, Keith Helfet and Nick Hull, rejoined the project when it became clear that more design work would be needed.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The development team looked at the two principal competitors, the Ferrari F40 and the Porsche 959. These were powered by compact, lightweight engines; both the Ferrari and the Porsche used forced induction to obtain high power outputs from small-displacement engines. Ferrari used a twin-turbocharged V8 engine that was rated at whilst Porsche used a twin-turbocharged flat-six engine rated at , resulting in cars that were significantly lighter and smaller than the XJ220 concept: the Ferrari was lighter by and shorter, whilst the Porsche was lighter and shorter. The Porsche's specifications were closer to the Jaguar's, with all-wheel drive and a luxurious interior. By comparison, the rear-wheel drive Ferrari had a very basic interior, with no carpets, door handles or a stereo.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The production version of the XJ220 used a twin-turbocharged V6 engine, which was given the designation "Jaguar/TWR JV6". This engine, which replaced the Jaguar V12 engine featured in the concept car, was a heavily redesigned and significantly altered version of the Austin Rover V64V V6 engine. The decision to change the engine was based on engine weight and dimensions, as well as environmental emission considerations. Use of the shorter V6 engine design allowed the wheelbase of the XJ220 to be shortened and its weight to be reduced; the V12 engine was definitively ruled out when it was determined it would have difficulty at simultaneously meeting emissions legislations.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: TWR purchased the rights to the V64V engine from Austin Rover in 1989 and developed a completely new turbocharged engine, codenamed JV6, under the auspices of Allan Scott, with proportions roughly similar to the V64V, and suitable for sports car racing. As the V64V was originally naturally aspirated, it was necessary to redesign all parts of the engine to accommodate forced induction. A few of the changes included increasing the displacement to 3.5 litres, strengthening the internals and adding two Garrett TO3 turbochargers. The JV6 engine would first be used in the JaguarSport XJR-10 and XJR-11 racing cars; its compact dimensions and low weight made it an ideal candidate for the XJ220. The engine had a 90° bank angle, four valves per cylinder and belt-driven double overhead camshafts.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The V64V engine chosen had a short but successful career as a purpose-designed racing car engine. It was designed by Cosworth engine designer David Wood for Austin Rover Group's Metro derived Group B rally car, the MG Metro 6R4. The redesign work necessary to create the Jaguar/TWR JV6 engine was undertaken by Andrew Barnes, TWR's Powertrain Manager, and also involved Swiss engine builder Max Heidegger, who had designed and built the race engines used in the XJR-10 and XJR-11 racing cars.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The XJ220's engine had a bore x stroke of , dry sump lubrication, multi point fuel injection with dual injectors and Zytek electronic engine management. The engine was manufactured with an aluminium cylinder block and aluminium cylinder heads with steel connecting rods and crankshaft. In the standard state of tune, it was rated at a power output of at 7,200 rpm and torque of at 4,500 rpm. The XJ220 could accelerate from 0– in 3.6 seconds and could attain a top speed of . "Road & Track" tested a top speed of , 0– acceleration in 4.8 seconds and 12.4 seconds for the standing .


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The XJ220's exhaust system consists of two catalytic converters, which reduce the power output of the engine. During testing at the Nardò Ring in Italy, one XJ220 had its catalytic converters removed and its rev limit increased to 7,900 rpm; these modifications increased the car's power output by and the car was then driven by 1990 Le Mans Winner Martin Brundle to a top speed of . Owing to the circular nature of the track, some (including the British car magazines Top Gear and Autocar) say a speed of is equivalent to on a straight, level road. However, on other tracks it performed differently; when top speed was tested on a straight level road by "Road & Track" it only amounted to , it was slower than the Bugatti EB 110 at the same event and the Ruf CTR tested there in 1987. The V64V engine had the additional benefit of being very economical for such a powerful petrol engine, according to Jaguar it was capable of achieving . In contrast, the Jaguar saloon having the smallest engine of the time, the XJ6 3.2 could only achieve around .


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The Engine was manufactured and built at the new purpose built facility in Kidlington, Oxfordshire. TWR invested heavily in a state of the art machining facility capable of servicing all of its race and road car projects. The facility was initially setup to produce the XJ220's engine under Simon Lockwood, an ex-March Engineering suspension specialist.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: All-wheel drive was decided against early in the development process, for a number of reasons. It was thought rear-wheel drive would be adequate in the majority of situations, that the additional complexity of the four-wheel drive system would hinder the development process and potentially be problematic for the customer. FF Developments were contracted to provide the gearbox/transaxle assembly, modifying their all-wheel drive transaxle assembly from the XJ220 concept into a pure rear-wheel drive design for the production car. The transaxle featured a viscous coupling limited slip differential to improve traction.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The transmission featured triple-cone synchromeshing on first and second gears to handle rapid starts, whilst remaining relatively easy for the driver to engage and providing positive feel.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The exterior retained the aluminium body panels of the XJ220 concept, but for the production cars Abbey Panels of Coventry were contracted to manufacture the body shells. The scissor doors were dropped for the production model and significant redesign work was carried out on the design when the wheelbase and overall length of the car was altered. Geoff Lawson, Design Director at Jaguar at the time, took a greater interest in the car and insisted the design had to be seen to be as a Jaguar if it were to be successful in promoting the company. Keith Helfet returned to undertake the necessary redesign work mandated by the change in the wheelbase, which was reduced by .


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The turbocharged engine required larger air intakes to feed the two intercoolers. Situated between the doors and the rear wheels, the air intakes were larger on the production version of the XJ220 than on the concept car. A number of small design changes for the body were tested in the wind tunnel; the final version had a drag coefficient of with downforce of at . The XJ220 was one of the first road cars to intentionally use underbody airflow and the venturi effect to generate downforce. Additionally, the XJ220 could be ordered with optional BBS wheels for improved brake ventilation and aesthetics.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The production model utilised the same Alcan bonded honeycomb aluminium structure vehicle technology (ASVT) as the concept car for the chassis. The chassis design featured two box section rails which acted as the suspension mounting points and would provide an energy absorbing structure in the event of a frontal impact; these were successfully tested at speeds up to . An integral roll cage formed part of the chassis and monocoque, providing additional structural rigidity for the car and allowing the XJ220 to easily pass stringent crash testing.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The rear-wheel steering was dropped from the production car to save weight and reduce complexity, as was the height adjustable suspension and active aerodynamic technology. The suspension fitted to the production model consisted of front and rear independent suspension, double unequal length wishbones, inboard coil springs and anti-roll bars, with Bilstein gas-filled dampers.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The braking system was designed by AP Racing and featured ventilated and cross-drilled discs of diameter at the front and diameter at the rear. The calipers were four-piston aluminium units. JaguarSport designed the handbrake, which has separate calipers acting on the rear brake discs. Feedback from enthusiasts and racing drivers resulted in the decision to drop the anti-lock braking system from the production car. The braking system was installed without a servo, but a number of owners found the brakes to be difficult to operate when cold and subsequently requested a servo to be fitted.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: A rack and pinion steering was fitted, with 2.5 turns lock to lock; the steering had power assistance. The Bridgestone Expedia S.01 asymmetric uni-directional tyres were specially developed for the XJ220. Rally alloy wheel specialists Speedline Corse designed the alloy wheels, these are both wider and have a larger diameter on the rear wheels; wheels are fitted to the front and are fitted at the rear, with 255/55 ZR17 tyres at the front and 345/35 ZR18 tyres at the rear.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The interior was designed for two passengers and trimmed in leather. Leather trimmed sports seats were fitted together with electric windows and electrically adjustable heated mirrors. The dashboard unusually curves round and carries onto the drivers door, with a secondary instrument binnacle containing four analogue gauges, including a clock and voltmeter fitted on the front of the drivers door. Air conditioning and green tinted glazing was also fitted.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The luggage space consists of a small boot directly behind and above the rear portion of the engine, also trimmed in leather.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The car was assembled in a purpose-built factory at Wykham Mill, Bloxham near Banbury in Oxfordshire. Diana, Princess of Wales officially opened the factory and unveiled the first production XJ220 in October, 1991.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The JV6 engines used in the Jaguar racing cars were produced by Swiss engineer Max Heidegger, but delivering the number of engines required for the XJ220 program was considered beyond his capacity. TWR formed a division, TWR Road Engines, to manage the design, development, construction and testing of the engines for the production cars. The JV6 engine used in the XJ220 featured little commonality with the engines Heidegger built for use in the XJR racing cars, being specifically engineered to meet performance and in particular, the European emissions requirements, which the race engines didn't have to meet.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: FF Developments, in addition to the design work undertaken on the gearbox and rear axle assembly, was given responsibility for the manufacture of these components. The aluminium chassis components and body panels were manufactured and assembled at the Abbey Panels factory in Coventry, before the body in white was delivered to the assembly plant at Bloxham. The car, including chassis and body components, consists of approximately 3,000 unique parts.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The first customer delivery occurred in June 1992 and production rates averaged one car per day. The last XJ220 rolled off the production line in April 1994; the factory was then transferred to Aston Martin and used for the assembly of the Aston Martin DB7 until 2004.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Jaguar had performed high speed testing of the pre-production XJ220 with chassis number 004 at Fort Stockton, Texas in 1991 and recorded a maximum speed of , which was faster than any production car at the time.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: According to "Car" magazine, Jaguar hoped to attain with the XJ220, mainly for promotional reasons. The decision was made to undertake further high speed testing in June 1992 at the Nardò Ring in Italy, with one journalist from "Road & Track" and one from the "Car" magazine together with a photographer and a BBC cameraman recording for BBC "Top Gear" as independent witnesses. None of the independent witnesses understood how Jaguar's testing equipment worked. The pre-production XJ220 with chassis number 009 would be driven by Martin Brundle, who had won the 1990 24 Hours of Le Mans driving the XJR-12.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The initial high speed runs, with the car configured in standard trim (catalytic converters connected, lower rev-limit of 7,400 rpm) achieved a maximum recorded speed of , the same speed as previously reached at Fort Stockton during testing. Brundle reported that the car was hitting the rev limiter during the run.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The rev limiter was increased to 7,900 rpm and the catalytic converters were removed in favour of installing straight-through exhaust pipes for a second series of runs, and it was this attempt which resulted in the maximum recorded speed of .. It was estimated that the removal of the catalytic converters, which were not mandated in Europe at the time, increased the power output by around .


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Guinness Book of World Records recorded the 217.1 mph run as the official fastest speed ever attained by a standard production car, this figure was reported in the 1994 to 1999 editions of the Guinness Book of World Records. Guinness World Records then recognised the McLaren F1 driven by Andy Wallace which achieved a maximum recorded speed of in March 1998 (also with rev-limiter increased) as the fastest standard production car in the world.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Press coverage of the XJ220 concept in 1988 was overwhelmingly positive and contributed to the decision in 1989 to put the XJ220 into limited production. The production version of the car was first shown to the public in October 1991, at the Tokyo Motor Show. The first car was launched for press review in Autumn 1991.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: "Autocar"s Andrew Frankel was the first journalist to road-test the car and reported: "Savage acceleration really is a given here. What's really incredible about the XJ220 is its ability to provide such performance in a way that never, ever intimidates." He was particularly impressed with the throttle response, the driver's ability to control the performance of the car very precisely, and the way in which the engine delivers its power progressively rather than in one short burst.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: "Performance Car" reviewer John Barker was also impressed with the performance as well as the ride and stability of the car, writing "The V6 has a rumbly, loping note which, in league with a remarkably supple ride, belies the speed we are travelling at. I glance to the speedo and have trouble believing that it is indicating 170 mph." Barker was also impressed with the engineering, saying "this car is catalysed, fully homologated and has passed the same tests that a Volvo needs before going on sale", going on to discuss how the vehicle looked at home on the racetrack thanks to the design. "Autocar"s verdict was "Right now, the XJ220 gives us a standard by which all other fast cars can be compared. For the few who will actually own and, hopefully, use their XJ220s, the fact that they are in command of the most accomplished supercar ever made should suffice."


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Ergonomics and ride were also praised by Gavin Green in "Car" August 1992: "you sit straight ahead, pedals and four-spoked Nardi wheel beautifully positioned. There's none of the askew nonsense that plagues Italian supercars...forward visibility is panoramic and side vision is good. Rear vision is better than on some other mid-engined monsters." He went on to describe the ride: "The XJ220 rides over knobbly tarmac with extraordinary dexterity...the big Jag rides urban blacktop better than many sports saloons, never mind supercars."


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: In a comparison test published in the "Car" March 1994 issue, the testers liked the "sheer blistering pace, looks and a superb cabin" but its size, the doors not opening far enough and handling were criticised: "If there's a more evil device on our roads, I wouldn't like to find it, for the XJ220 suffers from immense initial understeer followed by violent and snappy pendulous oversteer."


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Most disappointing was the engine, at idle it sounded "like someone's clanking a bucket of rusty nails together".


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: While its rival, the Bugatti EB 110, impressed the testers, the XJ220 disappointed: "The Jaguar is outmoded and lacks soul: it looks like a cynical marketing exercise and feels it in its lack of purity and coherence."


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Motoring journalists have been critical of its size, being too big for a two-seater with virtually no luggage space, too wide to fit through traffic restrictors or to drive comfortably on most roads. The very heavy unassisted steering and pedals, underwhelming brakes without ABS, poor directional stability and "terrible visibility" were also disliked.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Most criticised was the behavior at low revs, the engine sound was described with words like "a pail of nuts and bolts being poured through a Magimix", rattling clutch, grinding transmission, crackling chassis, rumbling and groaning body contributing to the impression of imminent breakdown. Driving in the city was sheer torture, worsened by the first gear being far too tall for stop-and-go traffic according to Auto Motor und Sport.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Sales performance was disappointing. Jaguar had intended to produce up to 350 cars, but production ceased in 1994 with 281 production cars produced, not all of which had been sold; some left-hand drive examples were still available in 1997. The recession combined with the drastic changes to the production version left many of those who placed a deposit unable to complete the purchase. The index linking of contracts exacerbated the issue, and added almost £200,000 to the purchase price between early 1990 and mid-1992. The McLaren F1 suffered from similarly poor sales performance, with just 71 cars sold against McLaren's target of 300. McLaren's F1 program eventually turned a small profit due to the sale and servicing of the 28 GTR racing variants produced.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Jaguar customers attempting to withdraw from their contracted purchases were given the option to buy themselves out of their contracts, but by 1995, the issue had resulted in legal action as buyers claimed the specification changes rendered any contracts void. Jaguar produced evidence clearly demonstrating that the vehicle specification shown in the contract matched the vehicle that was delivered and the presiding judge, John Donaldson, quickly ruled in Jaguar's favour. The last of the unsold XJ220s were sold for £127,550 plus VAT in 1997. While never officially approved for sale in the United States, the XJ220 was approved under the Show or Display exemption by 2001.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The XJ220 appeared in later motoring press articles; "Evo" journalist David Vivian, writing a head-to-head test between the XJ220 and the Lamborghini Murciélago in 2009, commented that "going ludicrously fast seems trivially easy" and acknowledged that the decision to change the V12 engine for a turbocharged V6 engine "would garner more acceptance now". The Lamborghini delivered the far better driving experience however: "After the XJ220, it’s almost absurdly agile", "the big difference, and it is massive, is how much more exciting, entertaining and accessible the LP640 is to drive."


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: A racing version was introduced at the 1993 Autosport International motor show; given the model name XJ220-C, it was built to compete in FISA GT racing. The XJ220-C driven by Win Percy won its first race, a round of the BRDC National Sports GT Challenge at Silverstone.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Three works XJ220-Cs were entered in the 1993 24 Hours of Le Mans race, in the newly created Grand Touring Class. John Nielsen, David Brabham and David Coulthard won the GT class, beating Porsche by two laps; the other two cars retired, both through engine failure. However, the class win was revoked when the Jaguar XJ220-C was controversially disqualified for failing to run with catalytic converters. The Jaguars had passed scrutiny and completed the first day of qualifying when senior steward Alain Bertaut complained that Jaguar were not running catalytic converters. The cars had been entered under the IMSA GT category and Bertaut claimed that they needed to run with catalysts. The cars ran in the race under appeal. International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) officials wrote to the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) (English: Automobile Club of the West), organisers of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, confirming that the XJ220-Cs entered had complied with IMSA rules. Jaguar won their appeal (supported by the FIA) but were nevertheless disqualified, as the ACO confirmed that the appeal had not been lodged in time.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: Four cars were entered in the GT1 class for the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, two by PC Automotive Jaguar and two by Chamberlain Engineering, though the latter did not run their cars. Neither team had Jaguar or TWR backing; both of PC Automotive's cars were outpaced by the new McLaren F1 GTR. Richard Piper, Tiff Needell and James Weaver were holding fourth position until an engine failure during the night, ending their race, whilst the second XJ220-C retired after leaving the road.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: A lightly-modified road-going XJ220 was also entered in the Italian GT Championship in 1993, although without factory support; where it raced in Martini livery. This entry predated the factory's Le Mans entry.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The XJ220-C was promoted in the United States in the-made-for-TV "Fast Masters" racing series at Indianapolis Raceway Park, airing on ESPN in the summer of 1993 and featuring invited drivers over 50 years old in an elimination format. The competition became a farce due to the cars' viscous Limited-slip differentials proving ill-suited for the oval track the organizers had chosen, producing strange handling characteristics that resulted in several crashes.


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: TWR developed a further six road cars called the XJ220-S, featuring one-piece carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer front and rear bodywork; the engine was tuned to . The XJ220-S models did away with the hidden headlamps of the original and instead opted for perspex covered lights. The S models were essentially road-going versions of the XJ220-C race car and as a result featured a much simpler race-orientated interior with kevlar seats and the removal of the leather trim. Colin Goodwin, a writer for "Autocar", tested an XJ220-S in June 1995 at Millbrook Proving Ground and set the lap record at an average speed of .


title: Jaguar XJ220

text: The Jaguar XJ220 Pininfarina is a special XJ220 built in 1995 for the Sultan of Brunei and his brother Prince Jefri, who commissioned a number of rare and one-off heavily modified cars based on expensive luxury cars. This car was modified by Pininfarina with the redesigned body being manufactured by coach maker Coggiola with modifications including fixed headlights, new rear lights with a redesigned double-vane rear wing, and a new interior package. The car also comes with dark green exterior paint.


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: Olurotimi Akinosho (born November 30, 1988), known professionally as Rotimi, is an American actor and singer. He is known for his role as Darius Morrison on the Starz series "Boss", and as Andre Coleman on "Power".


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: Rotimi was born in Maplewood, New Jersey, to Nigerian parents; his father an investment banker of Yoruba origin and his mother of Igbo origin, working for the government. He attended Columbia High School, where he was on both the varsity basketball team and the choir. He continued his studies at Northwestern University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Communication with a minor in Business in 2010.


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: At his first trial with acting, Rotimi auditioned and subsequently got his first acting role on "Boss" as drug dealer Darius Morrison. Rotimi also appeared in three episodes of ABC's "Betrayal".


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: Rotimi made his silver screen debut in the film "Black Nativity" (2013). Following this, he starred in "Imperial Dreams" at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, which later won for "Best of NEXT".


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: Rotimi next appeared in the high grossing film, "Divergent" (2014). In 2016 Rotimi also acted in the movie Deuces alongside Lance Gross and Larenz Tate.


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: He was added to the cast of Starz' TV series "Power" as a series regular, in the role of Andre Coleman, the quick-tempered young protégé of the character Ghost. Rotimi was also cast in a recurring role on "Battle Creek" as Danny.


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: A contemporary R&B artist, Rotimi released two digital mixtapes, titled "The Resume" (March 8, 2011) and "While You Wait" (November 30, 2011). His videos have been featured on international and U.S. based entertainment media including MTV, MTV Base, and VH1 Soul.


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: Rotimi has performed on stage, opening for Jennifer Hudson, T.I., Estelle, and NERD; he also performed on BET's show "106 and Park" and appeared in R&B singer Keyshia Cole's music video "Trust and Believe" as Cole's unfaithful boyfriend.


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: Rotimi garnered music placement with "I'm the One" on the first episode of "Boss". In 2015, American rapper and executive producer of "Power", 50 Cent signed Rotimi to his label, G-Unit Records. He also released his first G-Unit single "Lotto" featuring 50 Cent.


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: In 2016, Rotimi released "Doin it", a single from his 5-track project, Summer Bangerz. In 2017 he released his debut EP called "Jeep Music Vol. 1".


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: In 2019 he released a single titled "Love Riddim" which has garnered attention from both old fans and newly made ones.


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: Rotimi is the lead model/spokesperson of rapper T.I.'s AKOO Clothing 2012 Spring/Summer campaign, April 2, 2012.


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: On November 25, 2019, Rotimi shared a picture of him and Tanzanian singer Vanessa Mdee posing in an elevator on date night, with Vanessa also confirming their relationship by posting the same picture with a different caption. Rotimi told the story of how the two met at a party and hit it off and Vanessa also said in an interview how she knew he was her husband, only two days after meeting him. In a video posted on Instagram with Rotimi who was later joined by Vanessa, the pair revealed that they both had tattoos of each other's name on their bodies; her (middle) name, Hau, on his right wrist and his name, Rotimi, on her chest. They also have matching tattoos of the number 1045 on their wrists.


title: Rotimi (actor)

text: In December 2020, Rotimi got engaged to Vanessa. They were expecting their first child together. It was announced with a series of maternity photos. On September 29, 2021, the couple welcomed a boy.


title: Jong Ajax

text: Jong Ajax () ("English: Young Ajax"), also referred to as Ajax II or Ajax 2 is a Dutch association football team, the reserve team of Ajax. It is based in Amsterdam and competes in the Dutch Eerste Divisie.


title: Jong Ajax

text: Jong Ajax ("formerly more commonly known as Ajax 2") is the reserve team of AFC Ajax. The team is composed mostly of professional footballers, who are often recent graduates from the highest youth level (Ajax A1), serving their first professional contract as a reserve, or players who are otherwise unable to play in the first team.


title: Jong Ajax

text: Since 1992 Jong Ajax have competed in the Beloften Eredivisie, competing against other reserve teams such as Jong PSV, Jong FC Groningen or Jong AZ. It has won the Beloften Eredivisie title a record eight times, as well as the KNVB Reserve Cup three times, making it the most successful reserve squad in the Netherlands. By winning the Beloften Eredivisie title, Jong Ajax were able to qualify for the actual KNVB Cup, even advancing to the semi-finals on three occasions. Its best result in the Dutch Cup was under manager Jan Olde Riekerink in 2001–02, when a semi-final loss to FC Utrecht in a Penalty shoot-out after extra time, which saw Utrecht advance, and thus preventing an Ajax vs. Jong Ajax Dutch Cup final.


title: Jong Ajax

text: The 2013–14 season marked the Jupiler League debut of the AFC Ajax reserves' squad Jong Ajax. Previously playing in the Beloften Eredivisie (a separate league for reserve teams, not included in the Dutch professional or amateur league structure) players were allowed to move around freely between the reserve team and the first team during the course of the season. This is no longer the case as Jong Ajax now registers and fields a separate squad from that of Ajax first team for the Eerste Divisie, the second tier of professional football in the Netherlands. Its home matches are played at Sportpark De Toekomst, except for the occasional match in the Amsterdam Arena. The only period in which players are able to move between squads is during the transfer windows, unless the player has made less than 15 appearances for the first team, then he is still eligible to appear in both first team and second team matches during the course of the season. Furthermore, the team is not eligible for promotion to the Eredivisie or to participate in the KNVB Cup. Jong Ajax was joined in the Eerste Divisie by Jong FC Twente and Jong PSV, reserve teams that have also moved from the Beloften Eredivisie to the Eerste Divisie, replacing VV Katwijk, SC Veendam and AGOVV Apeldoorn, and increasing the total number of teams in the league from 16 to 20.


title: Jong Ajax

text: Jong Ajax left the Beloften Eredivisie in 2013, having held a 21-year tenure in the reserves league, and having won the league title a record eight times (1994, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2009).


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Ur Kasdim ( "ʾūr Kaśdīm"), commonly translated as Ur of the Chaldeans, is a city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the birthplace of the Israelite and Ishmaelite patriarch Abraham. In 1862, Henry Rawlinson identified Ur Kaśdim with Tell el-Muqayyar, near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. In 1927, Leonard Woolley excavated the site and identified it as a Sumerian archaeological site where the Chaldeans were to settle around the 9th century BC. Recent archaeology work has continued to focus on the location in Nasiriyah, where the ancient Ziggurat of Ur is located.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Other sites traditionally thought to be Abraham's birthplace are in the vicinity of the city of Edessa (Şanlıurfa in modern south eastern Turkey). Traditional Jewish and Muslim authorities, such as Maimonides and Josephus, placed Ur Kaśdim at various Upper Mesopotamian or at other southeast Anatolian sites such as Urkesh, Urartu, Urfa, or Kutha.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Ur Kaśdim is mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Genesis (, , ), and the Book of Nehemiah ().


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: The distinction "Kaśdim" is usually rendered in English as "of the Chaldees." In Genesis, the name is found in 11:28, 11:31 and 15:7. Although not explicitly stated in the Tanakh, it is generally understood to be the birthplace of Abraham. Genesis 11:27–28 names it as the death place of Abraham's brother Haran, and the point of departure of Terah's household, including his son Abraham.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: In Genesis 12:1, after Abraham and his father Terah have left Ur Kaśdim for the city of Haran (probably Harran), God instructs Abraham to leave his native land (Hebrew "moledet"). The traditional Jewish understanding of the word "moledet" is "birthplace" (e.g. in the Judaica Press translation). Similarly, in Genesis 24:4–10, Abraham instructs his servant to bring a wife for Isaac from his "moledet", and the servant departs for Haran.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: The Septuagint translation of Genesis does not include the term "Ur"; instead it describes the "Land (Chora) of the Chaldees". Some scholars have held that biblical Ur was not a city at all, but simply a word for land. The Septuagint Greek used the word Χαλδαίων, or Chaldaion, from which Chaldees is derived.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: The "Book of Jubilees" states that Ur was founded in 1688 "Anno Mundi" (year of the world) by 'Ur son of Kesed, presumably the offspring of Arphaxad, adding that in this same year wars began on Earth.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: "And 'Ur, the son of Kesed, built the city of 'Ara of the Chaldees, and called its name after his own name and the name of his father." (Jubilees 11:3).


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: In the New Testament, it is described indirectly at Acts 7, as the "land of the Chaldeans". Saint Stephen states that Ur-Kasidim was in Mesopotamia.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: According to Islamic texts, Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic) was thrown into the fire. In the story, the temperature of the king's fire was reduced by God, saving the life of Ibrahim. While the Quran does not mention the king's name, Muslim commentators have assigned Nimrod as the king based on hadiths.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Eusebius in his "Preparation for the Gospel" preserves a fragment of the work "Concerning the Jews" by the 1st century BC historian Alexander Polyhistor, which in turn quotes a passage in "Concerning the Jews of Assyria" by the 2nd century BC historian Eupolemus. The passage claimed that Abraham was born in the Babylonian city Camarina, which it notes was also called "Uria". (Such indirect quotations of Eupolemus via Polyhistor are referred to as "Pseudo-Eupolemus".) This site is identified by modern scholars with the Sumerian city of Ur located at Tell el-Mukayyar, which in ancient texts was named "Uriwa" or "Urima".


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: In 1927 Leonard Woolley identified Ur Kaśdim with the Sumerian city of Ur (founded 3800 BC), in southern Mesopotamia, where the Chaldeans settled much later (around the 9th century BC); Ur lay on the boundary of the region later called "Kaldu" (Chaldea, corresponding to Hebrew "Kaśdim") in the first millennium BCE. It was the sacred city of the moon god and the name "Camarina" is thought to be related to the much later appearing Arabic word for "moon": "qamar". The identification of Sumerian Ur with Ur Kaśdim accords with the view that Abraham's ancestors may have been moon-worshippers, an idea based on the possibility that the name of Abraham's father Terah is related to the Hebrew root for moon ("y-r-h").


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Woolley's identification became the mainstream scholarly opinion on the location of Biblical Ur Kasdim, despite the earlier traditions that Ur Kasdim should lie in Northern Mesopotamia. Woolley's identification was challenged with the discovery of the city of Harran in northern Mesopotamia, near the present-day village of Altınbaşak in modern Turkey (archaeological excavations at Harran began in the 1950s).


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Recent archaeological work focuses on the area of Nasiriyah (in southern Iraq), where the remains of the ancient Ziggurat of Ur stand.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: According to T.G. Pinches and A.T. Clay, some Talmudic and medieval Arabic writers identified Ur of the Chaldees with the Sumerian city of Uruk, called "Erech" in the Bible and "Warka" in Arabic. Both scholars reject the equation. Talmud "Yoma" 10a identifies Erech with a place called "Urichus", and no tradition exists equating Ur Kaśdim with Urichus or Erech/Uruk.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Jewish scholarship identifies Abraham's birthplace as somewhere in Upper Mesopotamia. This view was particularly noted by Nachmanides (Ramban). Nevertheless, this interpretation of "moledet" as meaning "birthplace" is not universal. Many Pentateuchal translations, from the Septuagint to some modern English versions, render "moledet" as "kindred" or "family".


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Writing in the 4th century AD, Ammianus Marcellinus in his "Rerum Gestarum Libri" (chapter VIII) mentions a castle named Ur which lay between Hatra and Nisibis. A. T. Clay understood this as an identification of Ur Kaśdim, although Marcellinus makes no explicit claim in this regard. In her "Travels" (chapter XX), Egeria, recording travels dated to the early 380s AD, mentions "Hur" lying five stations from Nisibis on the way to Persia, apparently the same location, and she does identify it with Ur Kaśdim. However, the castle in question was only founded during the time of the second Persian Empire (224–651).


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Another possible location for Ur of the Chaldees (Ur Kasdim) is the ancient Assyrian and Seleucid city Edessa, now called Şanlıurfa. According to some Jewish traditions, this is the site where Abraham was cast into a furnace by Nimrod as punishment for his monotheistic beliefs, but miraculously escaped unscathed.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: The Turkish name for the city, "Urfa", is derived from the earlier Syriac ܐܘܪܗܝ (Orhāy) and Greek (Orrha), the city being a major centre of Assyrian-Syriac Christianity.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Islamic tradition holds that the site of Abraham's birth is a cave situated near the center of Şanlıurfa. The Halil-Ur Rahman Mosque lies in the vicinity of the cave.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: Rendsburg points out that this location makes better sense of the Biblical references, especially that if Teraḥ and family left Ur-Kasdim to travel to Canaan, but stopped en route in Ḥarran, then the location of Ur-Kasdim should be to the north of Ḥarran. In addition, Abraham's grandfather Nahor and great-grandfather Serug share names with cities located near Ḥarran in northern Mesopotamia ("Til-Nahiri" and Suruç), suggesting that Abraham's clan was well established in this area in the period before the migration from Ur-Kasdim.


title: Ur of the Chaldees

text: According to A.S. Issar, Ur Kasdim is identified with the site of Urkesh – the capital of the Hurrian Kingdom, now in northeastern Syria. It is further hypothesized that the Biblical travel of Abraham's kin from Urkesh to Harran in order to reach Canaan is much more reasonable than a travel from the Sumerian city of Ur.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Foreign exchange reserves (also called forex reserves or FX reserves) are cash and other reserve assets such as gold held by a central bank or other monetary authority that are primarily available to balance payments of the country, influence the foreign exchange rate of its currency, and to maintain confidence in financial markets. Reserves are held in one or more reserve currencies, nowadays mostly the United States dollar and to a lesser extent the euro.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Foreign exchange reserves assets can comprise banknotes, bank deposits, and government securities of the reserve currency, such as bonds and treasury bills. Some countries hold a part of their reserves in gold, and special drawing rights are also considered reserve assets. Often, for convenience, the cash or securities are retained by the central bank of the reserve or other currency and the "holdings" of the foreign country are tagged or otherwise identified as belonging to the other country without them actually leaving the vault of that central bank. From time to time they may be physically moved to the home or another country.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Normally, interest is not paid on foreign cash reserves, nor on gold holdings, but the central bank usually earns interest on government securities. The central bank may, however, profit from a depreciation of the foreign currency or incur a loss on its appreciation. The central bank also incurs opportunity costs from holding the reserve assets (especially cash holdings) and from their storage, security costs, etc.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Foreign exchange reserves are also known as reserve assets and include foreign banknotes, foreign bank deposits, foreign treasury bills, and short and long-term foreign government securities, as well as gold reserves, special drawing rights (SDRs), and International Monetary Fund (IMF) reserve positions.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: In a central bank's accounts, foreign exchange reserves are called reserve assets in the capital account of the balance of payments, and may be labeled as reserve assets under assets by functional category. In terms of financial assets classifications, reserve assets can be classified as gold bullion, unallocated gold accounts, special drawing rights, currency, reserve position in the IMF, interbank position, other transferable deposits, other deposits, debt securities, loans, stocks (listed and unlisted), investment fund shares and financial derivatives, such as forward contracts and options. There is no counterpart for reserve assets in liabilities of the International Investment Position. Usually, when the monetary authority of a country has some kind of liability, this will be included in other categories, such as Other Investments. On a central bank's Balance sheet, foreign exchange reserves are assets, along with domestic credit.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Typically, one of the critical functions of a country's central bank is reserve management, to ensure that the central bank has control over adequate foreign assets to meet national objectives. These objectives may include:


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Reserves assets allow a central bank to purchase the domestic currency, which is considered a liability for the central bank (since it prints the money or fiat currency as IOUs). Thus, the quantity of foreign exchange reserves can change as a central bank implements monetary policy, but this dynamic should be analyzed generally in the context of the level of capital mobility, the exchange rate regime and other factors. This is known as trilemma or impossible trinity. Hence, in a world of perfect capital mobility, a country with fixed exchange rate would not be able to execute an independent monetary policy.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: A central bank which chooses to implement a fixed exchange rate policy may face a situation where supply and demand would tend to push the value of the currency lower or higher (an increase in demand for the currency would tend to push its value higher, and a decrease lower) and thus the central bank would have to use reserves to maintain its fixed exchange rate. Under perfect capital mobility, the change in reserves is a temporary measure, since the fixed exchange rate attaches the domestic monetary policy to that of the country of the base currency. Hence, in the long term, the monetary policy has to be adjusted in order to be compatible with that of the country of the base currency. Without that, the country will experience outflows or inflows of capital.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Fixed pegs were usually used as a form of monetary policy, since attaching the domestic currency to a currency of a country with lower levels of inflation should usually assure convergence of prices.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: In a pure flexible exchange rate regime or floating exchange rate regime, the central bank does not intervene in the exchange rate dynamics; hence the exchange rate is determined by the market. Theoretically, in this case reserves are not necessary. Other instruments of monetary policy are generally used, such as interest rates in the context of an inflation targeting regime. Milton Friedman was a strong advocate of flexible exchange rates, since he considered that independent monetary (and in some cases fiscal) policy and openness of the capital account are more valuable than a fixed exchange rate. Also, he valued the role of exchange rate as a price. As a matter of fact, he believed that sometimes it could be less painful and thus desirable to adjust only one price (the exchange rate) than the whole set of prices of goods and wages of the economy, that are less flexible.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Mixed exchange rate regimes ('dirty floats', target bands or similar variations) may require the use of foreign exchange operations to maintain the targeted exchange rate within the prescribed limits, such as fixed exchange rate regimes.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: As seen above, there is an intimate relation between exchange rate policy (and hence reserves accumulation) and monetary policy. Foreign exchange operations can be sterilized (have their effect on the money supply negated via other financial transactions) or unsterilized.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Non-sterilization will cause an expansion or contraction in the amount of domestic currency in circulation, and hence directly affect inflation and monetary policy. For example, to maintain the same exchange rate if there is increased demand, the central bank can issue more of the domestic currency and purchase foreign currency, which will increase the sum of foreign reserves. Since (if there is no sterilization) the domestic money supply is increasing (money is being 'printed'), this may provoke domestic inflation. Also, some central banks may let the exchange rate appreciate to control inflation, usually by the channel of cheapening tradable goods.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Since the amount of foreign reserves available to defend a weak currency (a currency in low demand) is limited, a currency crisis or devaluation could be the end result. For a currency in very high and rising demand, foreign exchange reserves can theoretically be continuously accumulated, if the intervention is sterilized through open market operations to prevent inflation from rising. On the other hand, this is costly, since the sterilization is usually done by public debt instruments (in some countries Central Banks are not allowed to emit debt by themselves).


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: In practice, few central banks or currency regimes operate on such a simplistic level, and numerous other factors (domestic demand, production and productivity, imports and exports, relative prices of goods and services, etc.) will affect the eventual outcome. Besides that, the hypothesis that the world economy operates under perfect capital mobility is clearly flawed.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: As a consequence, even those central banks that strictly limit foreign exchange interventions often recognize that currency markets can be volatile and may intervene to counter disruptive short-term movements (that may include speculative attacks). Thus, intervention does not mean that they are defending a specific exchange rate level. Hence, the higher the reserves, the higher is the capacity of the central bank to smooth the volatility of the Balance of Payments and assure consumption smoothing in the long term.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: After the end of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, many countries adopted flexible exchange rates. In theory reserves are not needed under this type of exchange rate arrangement; thus the expected trend should be a decline in foreign exchange reserves. However, the opposite happened and foreign reserves present a strong upward trend. Reserves grew more than gross domestic product (GDP) and imports in many countries. The only ratio that is relatively stable is foreign reserves over M2. Below are some theories that can explain this trend.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Credit risk agencies and international organizations use ratios of reserves to other external sector variables to assess a country's external vulnerability. For example, Article IV of 2013 uses total external debt to gross international reserves, gross international reserves in months of prospective goods and nonfactor services imports to broad money, broad money to short-term external debt, and short-term external debt to short-term external debt on residual maturity basis plus current account deficit. Therefore, countries with similar characteristics accumulate reserves to avoid negative assessment by the financial market, especially when compared to members of a peer group.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Reserves are used as savings for potential times of crises, especially balance of payments crises. Original fears were related to the current account, but this gradually changed to also include financial account needs. Furthermore, the creation of the IMF was viewed as a response to the need of countries to accumulate reserves. If a specific country is suffering from a balance of payments crisis, it would be able to borrow from the IMF. However, the process of obtaining resources from the Fund is not automatic, which can cause problematic delays especially when markets are stressed. Therefore, the fund only serves as a provider of resources for longer term adjustments. Also, when the crisis is generalized, the resources of the IMF could prove insufficient. After the 2008 crisis, the members of the Fund had to approve a capital increase, since its resources were strained. Moreover, after the 1997 Asian crisis, reserves in Asian countries increased because of doubt in the IMF reserves. Also, during the 2008 crisis, the Federal Reserve instituted currency swap lines with several countries, alleviating liquidity pressures in dollars, thus reducing the need to use reserves.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Countries engaging in international trade, maintain reserves to ensure no interruption. A rule usually followed by central banks is to hold in reserve at least three months of imports. Also, an increase in reserves occurred when commercial openness increased (part of the process known as globalization). Reserve accumulation was faster than that which would be explained by trade, since the ratio has increased to several months of imports. Furthermore, the ratio of reserves to foreign trade is closely watched by credit risk agencies in months of imports.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: The opening of a financial account of the balance of payments has been important during the last decade. Hence, financial flows such as direct investment and portfolio investment became more important. Usually financial flows are more volatile that enforce the necessity of higher reserves. Moreover, holding reserves, as a consequence of the increasing of financial flows, is known as Guidotti–Greenspan rule that states a country should hold liquid reserves equal to their foreign liabilities coming due within a year. For example, international wholesale financing relied more on Korean banks in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, when the Korean Won depreciated strongly, because the Korean banks' ratio of short-term external debt to reserves was close to 100%, which exacerbated the perception of vulnerability.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Reserve accumulation can be an instrument to interfere with the exchange rate. Since the first General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) of 1948 to the foundation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, the regulation of trade is a major concern for most countries throughout the world. Hence, commercial distortions such as subsidies and taxes are strongly discouraged. However, there is no global framework to regulate financial flows. As an example of regional framework, members of the European Union are prohibited from introducing capital controls, except in an extraordinary situation. The dynamics of China's trade balance and reserve accumulation during the first decade of the 2000 was one of the main reasons for the interest in this topic.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Some economists are trying to explain this behavior. Usually, the explanation is based on a sophisticated variation of mercantilism, such as to protect the take-off in the tradable sector of an economy, by avoiding the real exchange rate appreciation that would naturally arise from this process. One attempt uses a standard model of open economy intertemporal consumption to show that it is possible to replicate a tariff on imports or a subsidy on exports by closing the capital account and accumulating reserves. Another is more related to the economic growth literature. The argument is that the tradable sector of an economy is more capital intense than the non-tradable sector. The private sector invests too little in capital, since it fails to understand the social gains of a higher capital ratio given by externalities (like improvements in human capital, higher competition, technological spillovers and increasing returns to scale). The government could improve the equilibrium by imposing subsidies and tariffs, but the hypothesis is that the government is unable to distinguish between good investment opportunities and rent-seeking schemes. Thus, reserves accumulation would correspond to a loan to foreigners to purchase a quantity of tradable goods from the economy. In this case, the real exchange rate would depreciate and the growth rate would increase. In some cases, this could improve welfare, since the higher growth rate would compensate the loss of the tradable goods that could be consumed or invested. In this context, foreigners have the role to choose only the useful tradable goods sectors.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Reserve accumulation can be seen as a way of "forced savings". The government, by closing the financial account, would force the private sector to buy domestic debt for lack of better alternatives. With these resources, the government buys foreign assets. Thus, the government coordinates the savings accumulation in the form of reserves. Sovereign wealth funds are examples of governments that try to save the windfall of booming exports as long-term assets to be used when the source of the windfall is extinguished.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: There are costs in maintaining large currency reserves. Fluctuations in exchange rates result in gains and losses in the value of reserves. In addition, the purchasing power of fiat money decreases constantly due to devaluation through inflation. Therefore, a central bank must continually increase the amount of its reserves to maintain the same power to manage exchange rates. Reserves of foreign currency may provide a small return in interest. However, this may be less than the reduction in purchasing power of that currency over the same period of time due to inflation, effectively resulting in a negative return known as the "quasi-fiscal cost". In addition, large currency reserves could have been invested in higher yielding assets.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Several calculations have been attempted to measure the cost of reserves. The traditional one is the spread between government debt and the yield on reserves. The caveat is that higher reserves can decrease the perception of risk and thus the government bond interest rate, so this measures can overstate the cost. Alternatively, another measure compares the yield in reserves with the alternative scenario of the resources being invested in capital stock to the economy, which is hard to measure. One interesting measure tries to compare the spread between short term foreign borrowing of the private sector and yields on reserves, recognizing that reserves can correspond to a transfer between the private and the public sectors. By this measure, the cost can reach 1% of GDP to developing countries. While this is high, it should be viewed as an insurance against a crisis that could easily cost 10% of GDP to a country. In the context of theoretical economic models it is possible to simulate economies with different policies (accumulate reserves or not) and directly compare the welfare in terms of consumption. Results are mixed, since they depend on specific features of the models.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: A case to point out is that of the Swiss National Bank, the central bank of Switzerland. The Swiss franc is regarded as a safe haven currency, so it usually appreciates during market's stress. In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis and during the initial stages of the Eurozone crisis, the Swiss franc (CHF) appreciated sharply. The central bank resisted appreciation by buying reserves. After accumulating reserves during 15 months until June 2010, the SNB let the currency appreciate. As a result, the loss with the devaluation of reserves just in 2010 amounted to CHF 27 Billion or 5% of GDP (part of this was compensated by the profit of almost CHF6 Billion due to the surge in the price of gold). In 2011, after the currency appreciated against the Euro from 1.5 to 1.1, the SNB announced a ceiling at the value of CHF 1.2. In the middle of 2012, reserves reached 71% of GDP.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: The modern exchange market as tied to the prices of gold began during 1880. Of this year the countries significant by size of reserves were Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Canadian Confederation, Denmark, Grand Duchy of Finland, German Empire and Sweden-Norway.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Official international reserves, the means of official international payments, formerly consisted only of gold, and occasionally silver. But under the Bretton Woods system, the US dollar functioned as a reserve currency, so it too became part of a nation's official international reserve assets. From 1944–1968, the US dollar was convertible into gold through the Federal Reserve System, but after 1968 only central banks could convert dollars into gold from official gold reserves, and after 1973 no individual or institution could convert US dollars into gold from official gold reserves. Since 1973, no major currencies have been convertible into gold from official gold reserves. Individuals and institutions must now buy gold in private markets, just like other commodities. Even though US dollars and other currencies are no longer convertible into gold from official gold reserves, they still can function as official international reserves.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Central banks throughout the world have sometimes cooperated in buying and selling official international reserves to attempt to influence exchange rates and avert financial crisis. For example, in the Baring crisis (the "Panic of 1890"), the Bank of England borrowed GBP 2 million from the Banque de France. The same was true for the Louvre Accord and the Plaza Accord in the post gold-standard era.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Historically, especially before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, central banks had rather meager reserves (by today's standards) and were therefore subject to the whims of the market, of which there was accusations of hot money manipulation, however Japan was the exception. In the case of Japan, forex reserves began their ascent a decade earlier, shortly after the Plaza Accord in 1985, and were primarily used as a tool to weaken the surging yen. This effectively granted the United States a massive loan as they were almost exclusively invested in US Treasuries, which assisted the US to engage the Soviet Union in an arms race which ended with the latter's bankruptcy, and at the same time, turned Japan into the world's largest creditor and the US the largest debtor, as well as swelled Japan's domestic debt (Japan sold its own currency to fund the buildup of dollar based assets). By end of 1980, foreign assets of Japan were about 13% of GDP but by the end of 1989 had reached an unprecedented 62%. After 1997, nations in East and Southeast Asia began their massive build-up of forex reserves, as their levels were deemed too low and susceptible to the whims of the market credit bubbles and busts. This build-up has major implications for today's developed world economy, by setting aside so much cash that was piled into US and European debt, investment had been crowded out, the developed world economy had effectively slowed to a crawl, giving birth to contemporary negative interest rates.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: By 2007, the world had experienced yet another financial crisis, this time the US Federal Reserve organized central bank liquidity swaps with other institutions. Developed countries authorities adopted extra expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, which led to the appreciation of currencies of some emerging markets. The resistance to appreciation and the fear of lost competitiveness led to policies aiming to prevent inflows of capital and more accumulation of reserves. This pattern was called currency war by an exasperated Brazilian authority, and again in 2016 followed the commodities collapse, Mexico had warned China of triggering currency wars.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: The IMF proposed a new metric to assess reserves adequacy in 2011. The metric was based on the careful analysis of sources of outflow during crisis. Those liquidity needs are calculated taking in consideration the correlation between various components of the balance of payments and the probability of tail events. The higher the ratio of reserves to the developed metric, the lower is the risk of a crisis and the drop in consumption during a crisis. Besides that, the Fund does econometric analysis of several factors listed above and finds those reserves ratios are generally adequate among emerging markets.


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: Reserves that are above the adequacy ratio can be used in other government funds invested in more risky assets such as sovereign wealth funds or as insurance to time of crisis, such as stabilization funds. If those were included, Norway, Singapore and Persian Gulf States would rank higher on these lists, and United Arab Emirates' estimated $627 billion Abu Dhabi Investment Authority would be second after China. Apart from high foreign exchange reserves, Singapore also has significant government and sovereign wealth funds including Temasek Holdings (last valued at US$375 billion) and GIC Private Limited (last valued at US$440 billion).


title: Foreign exchange reserves

text: ECN is a unique electronic communication network that links different participants of the Forex market: banks, centralized exchanges, other brokers and companies and private investors.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Thomas Robert Laughlin Jr. (August 10, 1931 – December 12, 2013) was an American actor, director, screenwriter, author, educator, and activist.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Laughlin was best known for his series of "Billy Jack" films. He was married to actress Delores Taylor from 1954 until his death. Taylor co-produced and acted in all four "Billy Jack" films. His unique promotion of "The Trial of Billy Jack" (TV trailers during national news and an "opening day" nationwide release) was a major influence on the way films are marketed.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: In the early 1960s, Laughlin put his film career on hiatus to start a Montessori preschool in Santa Monica, California; it became the largest school of its kind in the United States. In his later years, he sought the office of President of the United States in 1992, 2004, and 2008. He was involved in psychology and domestic violence counseling, writing several books on Jungian psychology and developing theories on the causes of cancer.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Laughlin was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Margaret and Thomas Laughlin. He attended Washington High School, where he was involved in an athletics controversy that made headlines throughout the city, caused by Laughlin being forced to attend another school for a brief period, making him ineligible to play football at his former school on his return.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Laughlin attended the University of Wisconsin, before transferring to Marquette University; he played football at both. He played safety and halfback at Marquette.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Laughlin decided to become an actor after seeing a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". According to a 1956 newspaper interview, he became involved in the drama program at Marquette after being encouraged by a university professor, Father John J. Walsh.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: While a student, he formed a stock group and directed and starred in a production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons". He finally transferred to the University of South Dakota, where he majored in radio acting, directing, and producing. He met his future wife Delores Taylor in South Dakota.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Laughlin wrote the original screenplay for the film "Billy Jack" in 1954, after witnessing the treatment of Native Americans in his wife's hometown, Winner, South Dakota. The two wed on October 15, 1954.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: He began his screen-acting career in the 1955 television series "Climax!". From there, he went on to appear in several feature films, including: "These Wilder Years," (1956), "Tea and Sympathy" (1956), "Lafayette Escadrille" (1958), and "South Pacific" (1958).


title: Tom Laughlin

text: He appeared in several episodes of various television series throughout the late 1950s. In 1958, Mr. Laughlin appeared in a small but memorable role in "South Pacific", the movie version of the James Michener book and Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as a Navy pilot, Lt. Buzz Adams. In 1959, he was cast as young Tom Fowler in the episode "The Fight Back" of the NBC Western series, "Riverboat". In the story line, Fowler has made himself the boss of Hampton, a corrupt river town near Vicksburg, Mississippi. He blocks farmers from shipping their crops to market. In a dispute over a wedding held on the river vessel, the "Enterprise", a lynch mob led by Fowler comes after Captain Grey Holden (series star Darren McGavin). Also appearing in this episode are John Ireland as Chris Slade and Karl Swenson as Ansel Torgin. That same year, Laughlin starred in the western series "Tales of Wells Fargo", the episode titled "The Quiet Village".


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Also in 1959, Laughlin appeared in the film "Gidget" as Lover Boy. However, he failed to earn a living in the early years, having told "People" magazine in 1975, "We were living on $5 a week and eating Spam. I stole Christmas cards from a church so I could write home saying how well we were, but then I couldn't afford the stamps."


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Laughlin's first starring film role was in Robert Altman's 1957 film "The Delinquents", in which he played Scotty White, a teenager who gets mixed up with a gang when he is told he can no longer see his girlfriend. Despite the film's low budget, it became a cult film, with Alfred Hitchcock reportedly among its fans. However, Laughlin and Altman did not get along well, having sharply differing views on acting; Altman later describing Laughlin as "an unbelievable pain in the ass."


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Laughlin made his directorial debut later that year with "The Proper Time", though the film wasn't released until 1962. The film was a romantic drama set on the campus of UCLA. Laughlin shot the film on the campus in six days working with a $20,000 budget.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Laughlin wrote, directed, and starred in "The Young Sinner". Originally filmed in 1960, and shot in Milwaukee over a period of 14 days, it is the story of a star high-school athlete who falls deeper and deeper into trouble after being caught in bed with his girlfriend. The film was intended to be the first of a trilogy entitled "We Are All Christ". It premiered in 1963 under the original title "Among the Thorns", which was changed to "The Young Sinner" upon its 1965 re-release. In 1960, Laughlin planned to make a film, "Poison in Our Land", based on the true story of a Texas couple affected by atomic radiation, but the project was never realized.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: In 1959, Laughlin and his wife founded a Montessori preschool in Santa Monica, California. By 1961, Laughlin had left the film business to devote all of his time to the school, which by 1964 had become the largest school of its kind in the United States. It was profiled by "Time" in July of that year. However, by 1965, the school had gone bankrupt. One of his students was Christian Brando, son of Laughlin's friend, Marlon Brando.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: In 1965, Laughlin told the "Milwaukee Sentinel" that he planned to make a film on the life of a noted Catholic priest, Father William DuBay. However, the picture did not get past the planning stages. Two years later, in 1967, he wrote, directed (as T. C. Frank), and starred in the motorcycle-gang exploitation film "The Born Losers". This was the first picture in which the character of Billy Jack appeared. It was a surprise box-office hit.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: After "The Born Losers," Laughlin was set to begin a film project with backing from such figures as Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon, Candice Bergen, and director Robert Wise. The movie was to be a documentary on the issues facing African Americans in the 1960s and would have focused greatly on the life of Martin Luther King Jr., followed by a discussion of race. However, the film was never made.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: He followed this up with the sequel to "The Born Losers," "Billy Jack," in 1971. American International Pictures initially agreed to distribute the picture, but after viewing it, the studio refused to release the film unless many of the political references – as well as frontal nudity – were cut. This led the Laughlins to withhold the sound reels of the movie, which in effect made it a silent film. Eventually, Laughlin made a distribution deal with Warner Bros., but he disapproved of the studio's marketing of the film, sued Warner, and re-released the picture himself in 1973. The movie's re-release was successful but controversial. Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, wrote, "Billy Jack seems to be saying that a gun is better than a constitution in the enforcement of justice. Is democracy totally obsolete, then? Is our only hope that the good fascists defeat the bad fascists?"


title: Tom Laughlin

text: However, the picture was embraced by much of America's youth, leading Laughlin to claim in 1975, "The youth of this country have only two heroes, Ralph Nader and Billy Jack." When adjusted for inflation, Billy Jack was, as of 2007, the highest-grossing independent film of all time. The film was among the first to introduce martial arts, especially hapkido, to American audiences and contained elements of Jungian psychology, and fictional depictions of American Indian beliefs, depicting a tribe that does not exist, the "Nishnobie". As part of the film's promotion, Bong Soo Han, who was in charge of the martial arts choreography for the film, toured the United States giving hapkido demonstrations.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: "The Born Losers" was reissued in 1974 and earned more than twice as much as it had in its original release.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: The second sequel, "The Trial of Billy Jack", released in late 1974, was a huge box-office hit, while not registering as quite as big a critical success. It is notable for its casting of notable Native Americans such as Sacheen Littlefeather, and counterculture figures like Rolling Thunder, as well as its strong criticism of the Kent State shootings. However, Laughlin's unique promotion of the film was its real legacy. Unlike most films of the era, which opened in only a few cities before gradually spreading across the country, "The Trial of Billy Jack" opened in cities nationwide on the same day and commercials were broadcast for it during the national news. This promotion forever changed the way films are marketed and has been called "the first blockbuster."


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Laughlin had been in dispute with AIP and reached a settlement in 1974, agreeing to pay them $2 million, including $500,000 from "The Born Losers" reissue and $250,00 for AIP's percentage share of "The Trial of Billy Jack".


title: Tom Laughlin

text: In 1975, Laughlin released "The Master Gunfighter", a Western set in the 1840s, detailing the plight of the Chumash people. Laughlin grew a full beard for the film and his character fought with both a 12-shot revolver and a samurai sword. Although it did reasonably well at the box office, critics were not pleased with the film.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: He returned to the Billy Jack franchise in 1977. However, the fourth entry in the series, "Billy Jack Goes to Washington", was a failure because of distribution problems, and it proved to be Laughlin's final film. Laughlin blamed individuals within the United States government for the failure of the picture, telling CNN's "Showbiz Tonight" in 2005:At a private screening, Senator Vance Hartke [Note: Hartke was not re-elected in 1976] got up, because it was about how the Senate was bought out by the nuclear industry. He got up and charged me. Walter Cronkite's daughter was there, [and] Lucille Ball. And he said, 'You'll never get this released. This house you have, everything will be destroyed.' "


title: Tom Laughlin

text: At the time of the picture's release, Laughlin's company, Billy Jack Enterprises, had plans for a new Montessori school funded by his own foundation, a record label, an investigative magazine, books, a distribution company, and more message-laden movies, including a special subsidiary to produce films for children. He told "People" magazine at the time, "Three years from today, we'll be the new United Artists. Either that, or we'll be out on our butt on the street." In 1976, Laughlin announced that he was more than $7 million in debt and blamed the financial troubles on unethical behavior by Warner Bros. Pictures, which he said had illegally sold the television rights to his films.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: In 1984, he purchased a series of 12 advertisements in "Variety" condemning various aspects of the film industry and its treatment of independent filmmakers. He created a blueprint for taking control of the home video distribution industry as a way for independent films to be seen. In 1985, he began production of a fifth Billy Jack film, "The Return of Billy Jack", which featured the title character fighting child pornographers in New York City. However, he suffered a concussion and neck injury during filming, which led to the production being suspended. During this hiatus, funding for the picture ran out and production was never resumed. In 2009, a few scenes from the unfinished film were released on Laughlin's website. A notable incident occurred while he was filming in New York City, when he broke up a street fight on Manhattan's West Side, threatening to rip a man's arm off. He garnered notoriety at this time for making a citizen's arrest of a man after an argument over Laughlin's driving.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: Laughlin had sought funding to finish the fifth Billy Jack film since at least 1996, when he spoke about it during a lawsuit against a man who had (Laughlin claimed) illegally changed his name to "Billy Jack", and at one point Laughlin had plans to make a Billy Jack television series. In 2004, he announced that the film would be entitled "Billy Jack's Crusade to End the War in Iraq and Restore America to Its Moral Purpose"; this was shortened to "Billy Jack's Moral Revolution" in 2006.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: In 2008, the film's title was changed to "Billy Jack for President". It was retitled "Billy Jack and Jean". Laughlin claimed it would be a "new genre of film" and a great deal of social commentary on politics, religion, and psychology will be discussed, and a debate will take place between Billy Jack and President George W. Bush via computer manipulation of archived speeches.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: In 2009, Laughlin released plot details of this film on a video on his website. The video contained several scenes from the film.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: In 2010, Frank, Chris, and Teresa Laughlin co-founded Billy Jack Rights, LLC, which manages the rights to all of Tom Laughlin's films, including the "Billy Jack" franchise.


title: Tom Laughlin

text: In his later years, Laughlin turned his attention to politics. In 1992, as a protest he sought the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. President. He told the "Milwaukee Sentinel", "I am the least qualified person I know to be President, except George Bush."