title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: After being charged with murder, a man named David Braganza flees from authorities on the night of October 4, 2014. While hiding behind an under-construction police station, he sees Vijay exiting it. He then attempts to apologise to his wife, but ends up getting arrested.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: Vijay and his family are now living contentedly. Vijay has achieved his dream of opening a movie theatre and still operates a cable company. He aspires to make a film of his own and is in frequent contact with screenwriter Murad Ali to develop the script. On the other hand, Vijay's elder daughter Anju suffers from PTSD and epilepsy as a result of her involvement in Sam's death. Jealous of the family, many locals have resorted to spreading false rumours about Anju being in a relationship with Sam, much to Nandini's distress. Nandini's only confidante is her friendly neighbour Jenny, who is often abused by her alcoholic husband Shiv.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: On Sam's death anniversary, Vijay has an encounter with Sam's father Mahesh, who vainly begs him to hand over Sam's remains. Meanwhile, Nandini spends more time with Jenny and inadvertently reveals that Anju murdered Sam. Unknown to her, Jenny and Shiv are married undercover cops, assigned by newly-appointed Inspector General Tarun Ahlawat who happens to be a close friend and colleague of Meera.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: Around the same time, David is released from prison. After struggling to make amends with his now-estranged wife, he yearns to find employment. While coming to know that Vijay’s case is still ongoing, he recalls the latter's presence at the then-under-construction police station and realises Vijay was indeed complicit in the murder. He tips Tarun, who in turn summons Meera and Mahesh from London. After the trio bribes him with a sum of Rs. 25,00,000, David divulges what he saw, leading to the newly-built police station being excavated. The police eventually discover a human skeleton. Vijay, having learned of this through his CCTV cameras (which he had set up around the police station), supposedly gives up.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: Tarun summons Vijay's family for questioning. Vijay, Nandini, Anu, and Anju manage to maintain their alibi; however, Meera reveals a voice recording of Nandini's earlier confession to Jenny; the police bugged the family residence earlier, exposing the family. Tarun allows Gaitonde to use brute force against Vijay's family, causing Anju to have one of her fits. Distraught, Vijay falsely confesses that he killed Sam. With the police satisfied, the family is let go, and Vijay ends up getting arrested, although Meera isn't satisfied and demands that Vijay's family be punished as well.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: Vijay is put on trial for Sam's murder. Coincidentally, Murad, having learned of Vijay's arrest, pays a visit to Tarun, Meera, and Mahesh. He reveals that during one of his business collisions with Vijay, the latter had fabricated a script for a future crime thriller, loosely based on Sam's murder. He further reveals that Vijay had published a novel, titled "Drishyam", based on the film script (although it was published under Murad's name for copyright protection). Vijay pleads not guilty, with his lawyer claiming that the police used Drishyam's plot as a means to frame him. Tarun deduces that Vijay created the confession as a scheme to avoid punishment. Furthermore, the judge reveals the DNA tests conducted on the skeleton do not match Sam's DNA, much to everyone's shock. Murad discloses that Vijay had fabricated an alternate climax for his film in which the hero (Vijay), knowing his original plan might fail, would procure the remains of another person of the same age and sex who had died of similar injuries to those of the villain, by befriending a gravedigger at the local cemetery. The hero would keep the skeletal remains with him for three years before befriending the security guard of the district medical college morgue under the pretext of promising him a chance in the film industry. The same night that the remains that were excavated from the police station arrived at the morgue, the hero would swap the bodies before the DNA analysis took place.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: Vijay is released on bail due to a lack of evidence, and the police are temporarily prohibited from investigating the family. The judge calls Tarun to his chambers and tells him to stop all proceedings against Vijay and his family, as he believes both families deserve justice but the legal system is unable to provide it to them. The judge also tells him that such cases are not new to the system. Outside the courthouse, Murad discloses to Meera and Mahesh that Vijay's alternative climax had a twist in which the hero would hand over the villain's cremated remains to the bereaved parents. Simultaneously, Vijay has Sam's cremated remains anonymously handed over to Meera and Mahesh.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: Mahesh immerses Sam's ashes in the river and persuades Meera to let go of her enmity towards Vijay and his family, as he believes they have found closure and that they thought they were keeping an eye on him, but it was Vijay who was watching their every move the entire time. Vijay, who was watching from afar, solemnly leaves.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: The sequel to "Drishyam" was announced after the success of "Drishyam 2" (2021), the sequel to the original 2013 Malayalam film "Drishyam" (2013), which released in February 2021. It was decided that Abhishek Pathak will direct the film. The film is produced by Panorama Studios and distributed by Yash Raj Films.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: Principal photography of the remake sequel commenced on 17 February 2022 in Mumbai and was extensively shot in Goa with Ajay Devgn and Shriya Saran. Tabu joined the sets on 26 April, and later on, Akshaye Khanna joined on 30 April. The film was wrapped up on 21 June 2022 in Hyderabad.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: The film's music is composed by Devi Sri Prasad and lyrics are written by Amitabh Bhattacharya. The first single, "Saath Hum Rahein," was released on 1 November 2022.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: "Drishyam 2" earned crore at the domestic box office on its opening day. On the second day the film collected crore, while on the third day it collected crore taking the domestic weekend collection to crore. Drishyam 2 had a superb hold on Monday with collections dropping just 20% from the Friday and the Friday itself was a very good 15.38 crore nett. The Monday collections of the film are in the 11.75 crore nett range which is simply outstanding and in four days since release the film has collected almost 75 crore nett. Drishyam 2 continues with fantastic collections on Tuesday as it collected 10.50 crore nett. The five day business of the film has reached 85 crore nett.


title: Drishyam 2 (2022 film)

text: "Drishyam 2" received positive reviews from critics. "Bollywood Hungama" rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and termed the film a "paisavasool experience" and also praised the performances and climax. Archika Khurana of "The Times of India" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote: ""Drishyam 2" dishes out plenty of twists and turns to keep you hooked throughout, just like its predecessor. And the story of the Salgaokars will continue to remain in public memory". Anna M.M. Vetticad of "Firstpost" rated the film 3.25 out of 5 stars. Offering a detailed comparison between the original Malayalam Drishyam 2 starring Mohanlal and this Hindi remake, she wrote: "This is an adaptation that, while faithfully reproducing Jeethu Joseph’s story, gives us a flavour of the cultural setting to which it has been transplanted from Kerala and does things with the new location that mark a refreshing change from the resurgence of prejudice and community stereotyping witnessed in Bollywood in the last decade." Rohit Bhatnagar of "The Free Press Journal" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote: ""Drishyam 2" ticks almost every box on the checklist of a Bollywood film lover and makes it a great watch for massy cinephiles". Devesh Sharma of "Filmfare" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote: "Everything hinges on the performances and the entire cast has chipped in with their best efforts. Tabu looks the very picture of grief and angst. Akshaye Khanna is the new player in the field and his quirks and punch dialogue make you smile. The film rests squarely on Ajay Devgn’s able shoulders". Shalini Langer of "The Indian Express" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote: "The Ajay Devgn-Akshaye Khanna-Tabu starrer very deftly picks up from where the two main protagonists, both fierce parents, left off in Drishyam. Its execution is not as smooth as the last time though". Sonil Dedhia of "News 18" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote: ""Drishyam 2" doesn’t feel nearly as tense or urgent as it ought to, and its plot simply isn’t as deliciously complex as it could’ve been. As a result, it’s a watchable film, but not an unforgettable one". Anindita Mukherjee of "India Today" rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote: "Ajay Devgn's "Drishyam 2" has plenty of nail-biting moments but it will somewhere leave you missing 2015 film, "Drishyam"".


title: London System

text: The London System, also known as the Mason Variation, is an in chess where White opens with 1.d4 but does not play the Queen's Gambit, instead opting to rapidly develop the . This often results in a . The London System can be used against virtually any Black defense and thus comprises a smaller body of opening theory than many other openings. Although it has a reputation as a opening, the London System has faced criticism for its lack of .


title: London System

text: The rapid of the dark-squared bishop in the London System can be contrasted to the Colle System, in which the queen's bishop often remains on c1 during the opening phase of the game.


title: London System

text: British player James Mason was the first well-known proponent of the London System. His contemporaries include Johannes Zukertort, Adolf Anderssen, and William Steinitz. The London System came to prominence in an international tournament held in Central Hall, Westminster from July 31 to August 19, 1922, which would later be known as the 1922 London tournament.


title: London System

text: The London System came into fashion as a way of countering the and the hypermodern setups that began rising in popularity during the 1920s, such as the King's Indian Defense. Many of the games in the 1922 London tournament featured the Queen's Indian Defense, Rubinstein Variation, where White plays Bg5 to pin the knight, Nc3 and c4, arguably overextending pieces too early in the game. Later on in the tournament, players began playing Bf4 and c3. The line gives White a position, and critics of the line referred to it as the "old man’s variation" or the "boring system". Even so, the opening can lead to attacks. Vlatko Kovačević and David Bronstein are among the sharp tactical players who have played the London System.


title: London System

text: Sverre Johnsen and Vlatko Kovačević, in the introduction to their 2005 book "Win with the London System", state:


title: London System

text: Essentially, the London is a set of solid lines where after 1.d4 White quickly develops their dark-squared bishop to f4 and normally bolsters their centre with [pawns on] c3 and e3 rather than expanding. Although it has the potential for a quick kingside attack, the white forces are generally flexible enough to engage in a battle anywhere on the board. Historically it developed into a system mainly from three variations:


title: London System

text: White should ideally develop their knights to f3 and d2, bishops to f4 and d3, and solidify the position with pawns on d4, e3, and c3.


title: London System

text: Traditionally, the London System is played 1.d4 and 2.Nf3, bringing out the knight first and delaying the development of the bishop. In essence, 2.Nf3 develops the king's knight to a natural square while also waiting to see how Black will react. This grants White flexibility to potentially transpose into other openings, including the Queen's Gambit with 3.c4, or the Colle System with 3.e3. Modern play has often stressed the immediate 2.Bf4, however, forcing Black to play the London System.


title: London System

text: Instead of developing 2.Nf3, White can opt to immediately play 2.Bf4. Much like the Bishop's opening, White develops the bishop before the knight, ignoring the opening principle of "knights before bishops".


title: London System

text: Named after grandmasters Richárd Rapport and Baadur Jobava, this system can be a surprise against Black, who will expect typical development and may have overinvested in an attack on the kingside.


title: London System

text: This position can also be reached via 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Bf4. Black usually plays either 3...c5, 3...e6, 3...Bf5, 3...c6, 3...g6, 3...Nc6, or 3...a6.


title: London System

text: Play often goes 3...Bg7 4.e3 d6 5.Be2 0-0 6.0-0. As is usual in the King's Indian, Black can strike in the centre with ...c5 or ...e5. After 6...c5 7.c3, Black often plays either 7...b6, 7...Qb6, 7...Nc6, 7...Be6, or 7...cxd4. Black can prepare ...e5 in a number of ways, usually starting with either 6...Nbd7, 6...Nc6, or 6...Nfd7.


title: London System

text: Afterwards, if unimpeded by Black's moves, White ideally would like to build a pyramid of pawns centered on d4 and develop all minor pieces. This could be achieved in various orders, for example, 1.d4, 2.Bf4, 3.Nf3, 4.e3, 5.c3, 6.Nbd2, 7.Bd3.


title: Acid house

text: Acid house (also simply known as just "acid") is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthesizer-sequencer, an innovation attributed to Chicago producers DJ Pierre of Phuture and Sleezy D.


title: Acid house

text: Acid house soon became popular in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, where it was played by DJs in the acid house and later rave scenes. By the late 1980s, acid house had moved into the British mainstream, where it had some influence on pop and dance styles.


title: Acid house

text: Acid house brought house music to a worldwide audience. The influence of acid house can be heard in later styles of dance music including trance, hardcore, jungle, big beat, techno and trip hop.


title: Acid house

text: Acid house's minimalist sound combined house music's ubiquitous programmed four-on-the-floor 4/4 beat with the electronic squelch sound produced by the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer. The sound is commonly produced by raising the filter resonance and lowering the cutoff frequency of the synthesizer, along with programming the 303's accent, slide, and octave parameters, to create variation in otherwise simple bass patterns. "Exploration of texture" is preferred over melody; "a refusal of the metaphysical priorities of western music discourse." Other elements, such as synthetic strings and stabs, were usually minimal. Sometimes tracks were instrumentals such as Phuture's "Acid Tracks", or contained full vocal performances such as Pierre's Pfantasy Club's "Fantasy Girl", while others were essentially instrumentals complemented by the odd spoken word 'drop-in', such as Phuture's "Slam".


title: Acid house

text: There are conflicting accounts about the origin of the term "acid". One account ties it to Phuture's "Acid Tracks". Before the song was given a title for commercial release, it was played by DJ Ron Hardy at a nightclub where psychedelic drugs were reportedly used. The club's patrons called the song "Ron Hardy's Acid Track" (or "Ron Hardy's Acid Trax"). The song was released with the title "Acid Tracks" on Larry Sherman's label Trax Records in 1987. Sources differ on whether it was Phuture or Sherman who chose the title; Phuture's DJ Pierre says the group did because the song was already known by that title, but DJ Pierre says he chose the title because the song reminded him of acid rock. Regardless, after the release of Phuture's song, the term acid house came into common parlance.


title: Acid house

text: Some accounts say the reference to "acid" may be a celebratory reference to psychedelic drugs in general, such as LSD, as well as the popular club drug Ecstasy (MDMA). According to Rietveld, it was the house sensibility of Chicago, in a club like Hardy's "The Music Box", that afforded it its initial meaning. In her view ""acid" connotes the fragmentation of experience and dislocation of meaning due to the unstructuring effects on thought patterns which the psychedelic drug LSD or 'Acid' can bring about. In the context of the creation of "Acid Tracks" it indicated a concept rather than the use of psychedelic drugs in itself.


title: Acid house

text: Some accounts disavow psychedelic connotations. One theory, holding that "acid" was a derogatory reference towards the use of samples in acid house music, was repeated in the press and in the British House of Commons. In this theory, the term "acid" came from the slang term "acid burning," which the "Oxford Dictionary of New Words" calls "a term for stealing." In 1991, UK Libertarian advocate Paul Staines claimed that he had coined this theory to discourage the government from adopting anti-rave party legislation.


title: Acid house

text: The name of acid jazz is derived from that of acid house, which served as one of the inspirations for the genre's development.


title: Acid house

text: Before the term "acid house" was introduced, rawer early acid house was "hi-NRG", a type of bassline-driven electronic music that began with disco music that discarded its funk element, starting with Giorgio Moroder productions for Donna Summer. However, the earliest recorded examples of acid house are a matter of debate.


title: Acid house

text: At least one historian considers Phuture's "Acid Trax" to be the genre's earliest example; DJ Pierre says it may have been composed as early as 1985, but it was not released until 1987. Another points out Sleezy D's "I've Lost Control" (1986) was the first to be released on vinyl, but it is impossible to know which track was created first.


title: Acid house

text: In the 21st century, attention was drawn to Charanjit Singh's album "," featuring Indian ragas fused with disco. The album released as early as 1982, featured a TB-303 prominently, Singh being one of the earliest musicians to use it on a commercial release. The record predates the famously known "Acid Trax" by 5 years. It was initially a commercial failure in India and eventually forgotten. Following its rediscovery and eventual re-release in early 2010 some music journalists compared the music to that of acid house music, even suggesting it might be the first example of the style.


title: Acid house

text: The first acid house records were produced in Chicago, Illinois. Phuture, a group founded by Nathan "DJ Pierre" Jones, Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr., and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson, is credited with having been the first to use the TB-303 in house music (the instrument had been used earlier in disco records by the earlier mentioned Charanjit Singh in 1982, in hi-NRG, Alexander Robotnick in 1983). The group's 12-minute "Acid Tracks" was recorded to tape and was played by DJ Ron Hardy at the Music Box, where Hardy was resident DJ. Hardy once played it four times over the course of an evening until the crowd responded favorably.


title: Acid house

text: Chicago's house music scene suffered a crackdown on parties and events by the police. Sales of house records dwindled and, by 1988, the genre was selling less than a tenth as many records as at the height of the style's popularity. However, house and especially acid house was beginning to experience a surge in popularity in Britain.


title: Acid house

text: London's club Shoom opened in November 1987 and was one of the first clubs to introduce acid house to the clubbing public of the UK. It was opened by Danny Rampling and his wife, Jenny. The club was extremely exclusive and featured thick fog, a dreamy atmosphere and acid house. This period began what some call the Second Summer of Love, a movement credited with a reduction in football hooliganism: instead of fights, football fans were listening to music, taking ecstasy, and joining the other club attendees in a peaceful movement that has been compared to the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967.


title: Acid house

text: Another club called Trip was opened in June 1988 by Nicky Holloway at the Astoria in London's West End. Trip was geared directly towards the acid house music scene. It was known for its intensity and stayed open until 3 AM. The patrons would spill into the streets chanting and drew the police on regular occasions. The reputation that occurrences like this created along with the UK's strong anti-club laws started to make it increasingly difficult to offer events in the conventional club atmosphere. Considered illegal in London during the late '80s, after-hour clubbing was against the law. However, this did not stop the club-goers from continuing after-hours dancing. Police raided the after-hour parties, so the groups began to assemble inside warehouses and other inconspicuous venues in secret, hence also marking the first developments of the rave. Raves were well attended at this time and consisted of single events or moving series of parties thrown by production companies or unlicensed clubs. Two well-known groups at this point were Sunrise, who held particularly massive outdoor events, and Revolution in Progress (RIP), known for the dark atmosphere and hard music at events which were usually thrown in warehouses or at Clink Street, a South East London nightclub housed in a former jail. Promoters like (The Big Lad) Shane McKenzie and the gang back in 1987 were doing small parties in NW London, moving raves from the streets and the fields to the clubs of London 1990–2005 which saw the future of raves in clubs all over the UK and Spain.


title: Acid house

text: The Sunrise group threw several large acid house raves in Britain which gathered serious press attention. In 1988 they threw "Burn It Up", 1989 brought "Early Summer Madness", "Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Back to the Future". They advertised huge sound systems, fairground rides, foreign DJs, and other attractions. Many articles were written sensationalizing these parties and the results of them, focusing especially on the drug use and out-of-control nature that the media perceived.


title: Acid house

text: Once the term "acid house" became more widely used, participants at acid house-themed events in the UK and Ibiza made the psychedelic drug connotations a reality by using club drugs such as ecstasy and LSD. The association of acid house, MDMA, and smiley faces was observed in New York City by late 1988. This coincided with an increasing level of scrutiny and sensationalism in the mainstream press, although conflicting accounts about the degree of connection between acid house music and drugs continued to surface.


title: Acid house

text: Acid house was also popular in Manchester. The Thunderdome (which was generally advertised as a techno night) in Miles Platting was at the epicenter of the scene and gave rise to acts like A Guy Called Gerald, 808 State, Jam MC's, Steve Williams and Jay Wearden. A Greater Manchester-based producer called Peter Ford teamed up with Richard Salt and recorded a record called "Oochy Koochy", regarded as the first British acid house track. Released by dance indie Rhythm King Records as "Oochy Koochy (FU Baby Yeah Yeah)" under the name Baby Ford, the record peaked at number 58 on the UK Singles Chart on 24 September 1988 and was followed by Baby Ford's "Chikki Chikki Ahh Ahh" hit.


title: Acid house

text: The genre was extremely popular with the city's football hooligans. According to Manchester United football hooligan Colin Blaney in "Hotshot: The Story of a Little Red Devil", the acid house venues were the only place where rival hooligan gangs would mix, without coming to blows with one another.


title: Acid house

text: The Madchester and baggy movements saw acid house influences bleed into the Mancunian rock scene. Prominent Madchester bands include the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, the Charlatans and Inspiral Carpets.


title: Acid house

text: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, British news media and tabloids devoted an increasing amount of coverage to the hedonistic acid house/rave scene, focusing increasingly on its association with psychedelic drugs and club drugs. At first, promoters like Tony Colston-Hayter tried to monetize the scene by promoting his Apocalypse Now parties (organised with Roger Goodman) on the ITV News (ITN) in the same way that a latter-day popstar such as Gary Barlow would promote his album on the news (generally in the "...And Finally" part of the programme).


title: Acid house

text: However, these reports soon changed from positive promotion to a negative viewpoint, with the sensationalist nature of the coverage contributing to the banning of acid house during its heyday from radio, television, and retail outlets in the United Kingdom. The moral panic of the press began in late 1988, when a UK 'red-top' tabloid called "The Sun", which only days earlier on 12 October had promoted acid house as "cool and groovy" while running an offer on acid smiley face t-shirts, abruptly turned on the scene. On October 19, "The Sun" ran with the headline "Evils of Ecstasy", linking the acid house scene with the newly popular and relatively unknown drug. The resultant panic incited by the tabloids eventually led to a crackdown on clubs and venues that played acid house and had a profound negative impact on the scene. Any records that mentioned the word acid, such as Dancin' Danny D's record with scene promoter Gary Haisman (D Mob's "We Call It Acieed"), were taken off radio and television playlists just as they were climbing towards the top of the UK chart. By the time Colston-Hayter had invited another ITV news team down to promote his latest party (this time from Granada's current affairs show "World in Action"), acid house was being described as a "sinister and evil cult" that was just encouraging people to take drugs.


title: Acid house

text: Despite this, one tune broke through into the mainstream in November 1988. "Stakker Humanoid", produced by Brian Dougans (later of Future Sound of London), was a hit not just at influential clubs like The Haçienda in Manchester or Shoom in London, but was championed by mainstream stalwarts such as BBC Radio DJ Bruno Brookes and record producer, Pete Waterman. It went on to reach number 17 in the UK in November 1988, leading to Dougans' appearance on "Top of the Pops" on 1 December 1988.


title: Prairie

text: Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the steppe of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. Lands typically referred to as "prairie" tend to be in North America. The term encompasses the area referred to as the Interior Lowlands of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, which includes all of the Great Plains as well as the wetter, hillier land to the east.


title: Prairie

text: In the U.S., the area is constituted by most or all of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and sizable parts of the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and western and southern Minnesota. The Palouse of Washington and the Central Valley of California are also prairies. The Canadian Prairies occupy vast areas of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Prairies contain various lush flora and fauna, often contain rich soil maintained by biodiversity, with a temperate climate and a varied view.


title: Prairie

text: According to Theodore Roosevelt: "Prairie" () is the French word for "meadow" formed ultimately from the Latin root word "pratum" (same meaning).


title: Prairie

text: The formation of the North American Prairies started with the uplift of the Rocky Mountains near Alberta. The mountains created a rain shadow that resulted in lower precipitation rates downwind.


title: Prairie

text: The parent material of most prairie soil was distributed during the last glacial advance that began about 110,000 years ago. The glaciers expanding southward scraped the landscape, picking up geologic material and leveling the terrain. As the glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago, they deposited this material in the form of till. Wind based loess deposits also form an important parent material for prairie soils.


title: Prairie

text: Tallgrass prairie evolved over tens of thousands of years with the disturbances of grazing and fire. Native ungulates such as bison, elk, and white-tailed deer roamed the expansive, diverse grasslands before European colonization of the Americas. For 10,000-20,000 years, native people used fire annually as a tool to assist in hunting, transportation, and safety. Evidence of ignition sources of fire in the tall grass prairie are overwhelmingly human as opposed to lightning. Humans, and grazing animals, were active participants in the process of prairie formation and the establishment of the diversity of graminoid and forbs species. Fire has the effect on prairies of removing trees, clearing dead plant matter, and changing the availability of certain nutrients in the soil from the ash produced. Fire kills the vascular tissue of trees, but not prairie species, as up to 75% (depending on the species) of the total plant biomass is below the soil surface and will re-grow from its deep (upwards of 20 feet) roots. Without disturbance, trees will encroach on a grassland and cast shade, which suppresses the understory. Prairie and widely spaced oak trees evolved to coexist in the oak savanna ecosystem.


title: Prairie

text: In spite of long recurrent droughts and occasional torrential rains, the grasslands of the Great Plains were not subject to great soil erosion. The root systems of native prairie grasses firmly held the soil in place to prevent run-off of soil. When the plant died, the fungi and bacteria returned its nutrients to the soil. These deep roots also helped native prairie plants reach water in even the driest conditions. Native grasses suffer much less damage from dry conditions than many farm crops currently grown.


title: Prairie

text: Prairie in North America is usually split into three groups: wet, mesic, and dry. They are generally characterized by tallgrass prairie, mixed, or shortgrass prairie, depending on the quality of soil and rainfall.


title: Prairie

text: In wet prairies the soil is usually very moist, including during most of the growing season, because of poor water drainage. The resulting stagnant water is conducive to the formation of bogs and fens. Wet prairies have excellent farming soil. The average precipitation is a year.


title: Prairie

text: Mesic prairie has good drainage, but good soil during the growing season. This type of prairie is the most often converted for agricultural usage; consequently, it is one of the most endangered types of prairie.


title: Prairie

text: Dry prairie has somewhat wet to very dry soil during the growing season because of good drainage in the soil. Often, this type of prairie can be found on uplands or slopes. Dry soil usually doesn't get much vegetation due to lack of rain. This is the dominant biome in the Southern Canadian agricultural and climatic region known as Palliser's Triangle. Once thought to be completely unarable, the Triangle is now one of the most important agricultural regions in Canada thanks to advances in irrigation technology. In addition to its very high local importance to Canada, Palliser's Triangle is now also one of the most important sources of wheat in the world as a result of these improved methods of watering wheat fields (along with the rest of the Southern prairie provinces which also grow wheat, canola and many other grains). Despite these advances in farming technology, the area is still very prone to extended periods of drought, which can be disastrous for the industry if it is significantly prolonged. An infamous example of this is the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, which also hit much of the United States Great Plains ecoregion, contributing greatly to the Great Depression.


title: Prairie

text: Nomadic hunting has been the main human activity on the prairies for the majority of the archaeological record. This once included many now-extinct species of megafauna.


title: Prairie

text: After the other extinctions, the main hunted animal on the prairies was the plains bison. Using loud noises and waving large signals, Native peoples would drive bison into fenced pens called buffalo pounds to be killed with bows and arrows or spears, or drive them off a cliff (called a buffalo jump), to kill or injure the bison "en masse". The introduction of the horse and the gun greatly expanded the killing power of the plains Natives. This was followed by the policy of indiscriminate killing by European Americans and Canadians for both commercial reasons and to weaken the independence of plains Natives, and caused a dramatic drop in bison numbers from millions to a few hundred in a century's time, and almost caused their extinction.


title: Prairie

text: The very dense soil plagued the first European settlers who were using wooden plows, which were more suitable for loose forest soil. On the prairie, the plows bounced around, and the soil stuck to them. This problem was solved in 1837 by an Illinois blacksmith named John Deere who developed a steel moldboard plow that was stronger and cut the roots, making the fertile soils ready for farming. Former grasslands are now among the most productive agricultural lands on Earth.


title: Prairie

text: The tallgrass prairie has been converted into one of the most intensive crop producing areas in North America. Less than one tenth of one percent (<0.09%) of the original landcover of the tallgrass prairie biome remains. States formerly with landcover in native tallgrass prairie such as Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Missouri have become valued for their highly productive soils and are included in the Corn Belt. As an example of this land use intensity, Illinois and Iowa rank 49th and 50th, out of 50 US states, in total uncultivated land remaining.


title: Prairie

text: Drier shortgrass prairies were once used mostly for open-range ranching. With the development of barbed wire in the 1870s and improved irrigation techniques, this region has mostly been converted to cropland and small fenced pastures.


title: Prairie

text: Research by David Tilman, ecologist at the University of Minnesota, suggests that "Biofuels made from high-diversity mixtures of prairie plants can reduce global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Even when grown on infertile soils, they can provide a substantial portion of global energy needs, and leave fertile land for food production." Unlike corn and soybeans, which are both directly and indirectly major food crops, including livestock feed, prairie grasses are not used for human consumption. Prairie grasses can be grown in infertile soil, eliminating the cost of adding nutrients to the soil. Tilman and his colleagues estimate that prairie grass biofuels would yield 51 percent more energy per acre than ethanol from corn grown on fertile land. Some plants commonly used are lupine, big bluestem (turkey foot), blazing star, switchgrass, and prairie clover.


title: Prairie

text: Because rich and thick topsoil made the land well suited for agricultural use, only 1% of tallgrass prairie remains in the U.S. today. Shortgrass prairie is more abundant.


title: Prairie

text: "Virgin prairie" refers to prairie land that has never been plowed. Small virgin prairies exist in the American Midwestern states and in Canada. Restored prairie refers to a prairie that has been reseeded after plowing or other disturbance.


title: Prairie

text: The originally treeless prairies of the upper Mississippi basin began in Indiana, and extended westward and north-westward, until they merged with the drier region known as the Great Plains. An eastward extension of the same region, originally tree-covered, extended to central Ohio. Thus, the prairies generally lie between the Ohio and Missouri rivers on the south and the Great Lakes on the north. The prairies are a contribution of the glacial period. They consist for the most part of glacial drift, deposited unconformably on an underlying rock surface of moderate or small relief. Here, the rocks are an extension of the same stratified Palaeozoic formations already described as occurring in the Appalachian region and around the Great Lakes. They are usually fine-textured limestones and shales, lying horizontal. The moderate or small relief that they were given by mature preglacial erosion is now buried under the drift.


title: Prairie

text: The greatest area of the prairies, from Indiana to North Dakota, consists of till plains, that is, sheets of unstratified drift. These plains are 30, 50 or even 100 ft (up to 30 m) thick covering the underlying rock surface for thousands of square miles except where postglacial stream erosion has locally laid it bare. The plains have an extraordinarily even surface. The till is presumably made in part of preglacial soils, but it is more largely composed of rock waste mechanically transported by the creeping ice sheets. Although the crystalline rocks from Canada and some of the more resistant stratified rocks south of the Great Lakes occur as boulders and stones, a great part of the till has been crushed and ground to a clayey texture. The till plains, although sweeping in broad swells of slowly changing altitude, often appear level to the eye with a view stretching to the horizon. Here and there, faint depressions occur, occupied by marshy sloughs, or floored with a rich black soil of postglacial origin. It is thus by sub-glacial aggradation that the prairies have been levelled up to a smooth surface, in contrast to the higher and non-glaciated hilly country just to the south.


title: Prairie

text: The great ice sheets formed terminal moraines around their border at various end stages. However, the morainic belts are of small relief in comparison to the great area of the ice. They rise gently from the till plains to a height of 50, 100 or more feet. They may be one, two or three miles (5 km) wide and their hilly surface, dotted over with boulders, contains many small lakes in basins or hollows, instead of streams in valleys. The morainic belts are arranged in groups of concentric loops, convex southward, because the ice sheets advanced in lobes along the lowlands of the Great Lakes. Neighboring morainic loops join each other in re-entrants (north-pointing cusps), where two adjacent glacial lobes came together and formed their moraines in largest volume. The moraines are of too small relief to be shown on any maps except of the largest scale. Small as they are, they are the chief relief of the prairie states, and, in association with the nearly imperceptible slopes of the till plains, they determine the course of many streams and rivers, which as a whole are consequent upon the surface form of the glacial deposits.


title: Prairie

text: The complexity of the glacial period and its subdivision into several glacial epochs, separated by interglacial epochs of considerable length (certainly longer than the postglacial epoch) has a structural consequence in the superposition of successive till sheets, alternating with non-glacial deposits. It also has a physiographic consequence in the very different amount of normal postglacial erosion suffered by the different parts of the glacial deposits. The southernmost drift sheets, as in southern Iowa and northern Missouri, have lost their initially plain surface and are now maturely dissected into gracefully rolling forms. Here, the valleys of even the small streams are well opened and graded, and marshes and lakes are rare. These sheets are of early Pleistocene origin. Nearer the Great Lakes, the till sheets are trenched only by the narrow valleys of the large streams. Marshy sloughs still occupy the faint depressions in the till plains and the associated moraines have abundant small lakes in their undrained hollows. These drift sheets are of late Pleistocene origin.


title: Prairie

text: When the ice sheets extended to the land sloping southward to the Ohio River, Mississippi River and Missouri River, the drift-laden streams flowed freely away from the ice border. As the streams escaped from their subglacial channels, they spread into broader channels and deposited some of their load, and thus aggraded their courses. Local sheets or aprons of gravel and sand are spread more or less abundantly along the outer side of the morainic belts. Long trains of gravel and sands clog the valleys that lead southward from the glaciated to the non-glaciated area. Later, when the ice retreated farther and the unloaded streams returned to their earlier degrading habit, they more or less completely scoured out the valley deposits, the remains of which are now seen in terraces on either side of the present flood plains.


title: Prairie

text: When the ice of the last glacial epoch had retreated so far that its front border lay on a northward slope, belonging to the drainage area of the Great Lakes, bodies of water accumulated in front of the ice margin, forming glacio-marginal lakes. The lakes were small at first, and each had its own outlet at the lowest depression of land to the south. As the ice melted further back, neighboring lakes became confluent at the level of the lowest outlet of the group. The outflowing streams grew in the same proportion and eroded a broad channel across the height of land and far down stream, while the lake waters built sand reefs or carved shore cliffs along their margin, and laid down sheets of clay on their floors. All of these features are easily recognized in the prairie region. The present site of Chicago was determined by an Indian portage or carry across the low divide between Lake Michigan and the headwaters of the Illinois River. This divide lies on the floor of the former outlet channel of the glacial Lake Michigan. Corresponding outlets are known for Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Superior. A very large sheet of water, named Lake Agassiz, once overspread a broad till plain in northern Minnesota and North Dakota. The outlet of this glacial lake, called river Warren, eroded a large channel in which the Minnesota River evident today. The Red River of the North flows northward through a plain formerly covered by Lake Agassiz.


title: Prairie

text: Certain extraordinary features were produced when the retreat of the ice sheet had progressed so far as to open an eastward outlet for the marginal lakes. This outlet occurred along the depression between the northward slope of the Appalachian plateau in west-central New York and the southward slope of the melting ice sheet. When this eastward outlet came to be lower than the south-westward outlet across the height of land to the Ohio or Mississippi river, the discharge of the marginal lakes was changed from the Mississippi system to the Hudson system. Many well-defined channels, cutting across the north-sloping spurs of the plateau in the neighborhood of Syracuse, New York, mark the temporary paths of the ice-bordered outlet river. Successive channels are found at lower and lower levels on the plateau slope, indicating the successive courses taken by the lake outlet as the ice melted farther and farther back. On some of these channels, deep gorges were eroded heading in temporary cataracts which exceeded Niagara in height but not in breadth. The pools excavated by the plunging waters at the head of the gorges are now occupied by little lakes. The most significant stage in this series of changes occurred when the glacio-marginal lake waters were lowered so that the long escarpment of Niagara limestone was laid bare in western New York. The previously confluent waters were then divided into two lakes. The higher one, Lake Erie, supplied the outflowing Niagara River, which poured its waters down the escarpment to the lower, Lake Ontario. This gave rise to Niagara Falls. Lake Ontario's outlet for a time ran down the Mohawk Valley to the Hudson River. At this higher elevation, it was known as Lake Iroquois. When the ice melted from the northeastern end of the lake, it dropped to a lower level, and drained through the St. Lawrence area. This created a lower base level for the Niagara River, increasing its erosive capacity.


title: Prairie

text: In certain districts, the subglacial till was not spread out in a smooth plain, but accumulated in elliptical mounds, 100–200 feet. high and long with axes parallel to the direction of the ice motion as indicated by striae on the underlying rock floor. These hills are known by the Irish name, drumlins, used for similar hills in north-western Ireland. The most remarkable groups of drumlins occur in western New York, where their number is estimated at over 6,000, and in southern Wisconsin, where it is placed at 5,000. They completely dominate the topography of their districts.


title: Prairie

text: A curious deposit of an impalpably fine and unstratified silt, known by the German name bess (or loess), lies on the older drift sheets near the larger river courses of the upper Mississippi basin. It attains a thickness of or more near the rivers and gradually fades away at a distance of ten or more miles (16 or more km) on either side. It contains land shells, and hence cannot be attributed to marine or lacustrine submergence. The best explanation is that, during certain phases of the glacial period, it was carried as dust by the winds from the flood plains of aggrading rivers, and slowly deposited on the neighboring grass-covered plains. The glacial and eolian origin of this sediment is evidenced by the angularity of its grains (a bank of it will stand without slumping for years), whereas, if it had been transported significantly by water, the grains would have been rounded and polished. Loess is parent material for an extremely fertile, but droughty soil.


title: Prairie

text: Southwestern Wisconsin and parts of the adjacent states of Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota are known as the driftless zone, because, although bordered by drift sheets and moraines, it is free from glacial deposits. It must therefore have been a sort of oasis, when the ice sheets from the north advanced past it on the east and west, and joined around its southern border. The reason for this exemption from glaciation is the converse of that for the southward convexity of the morainic loops. For while they mark the paths of greatest glacial advance along lowland troughs (lake basins), the driftless zone is a district protected from ice invasion by reason of the obstruction which the highlands of northern Wisconsin and Michigan (part of the Superior upland) offered to glacial advance.


title: Prairie

text: The course of the upper Mississippi River is largely consequent upon glacial deposits. Its sources are in the morainic lakes in northern Minnesota. The drift deposits thereabouts are so heavy that the present divides between the drainage basins of Hudson Bay, Lake Superior, and the Gulf of Mexico evidently stand in no very definite relation to the preglacial divides. The course of the Mississippi through Minnesota is largely guided by the form of the drift cover. Several rapids and the Saint Anthony Falls (determining the site of Minneapolis) are signs of immaturity, resulting from superposition through the drift on the under rock. Farther south, as far as the entrance of the Ohio River, the Mississippi follows a rock-walled valley deep, with a flood-plain wide. This valley seems to represent the path of an enlarged early-glacial Mississippi, when much precipitation that is today discharged to Hudson Bay and the Gulf of St Lawrence was delivered to the Gulf of Mexico, for the curves of the present river are of distinctly smaller radii than the curves of the valley. Lake Pepin ( below St. Paul), a picturesque expansion of the river across its flood-plain, is due to the aggradation of the valley floor where the Chippewa River, coming from the northeast, brought an overload of fluvio-glacial drift. Hence, even the father of waters, like so many other rivers in the Northern states, owes many of its features more or less directly to glacial action.


title: Prairie

text: The fertility of the prairies is a natural consequence of their origin. During the mechanical transportation of the till, no vegetation was present to remove the minerals essential to plant growth, as is the case in the soils of normally weathered and dissected peneplains. The soil is similar to the Appalachian piedmont which though not exhausted by the primeval forest cover, are by no means so rich as the till sheets of the prairies. Moreover, whatever the rocky understructure, the till soil has been averaged by a thorough mechanical mixture of rock grindings. Hence, the prairies are continuously fertile for scores of miles together. The true prairies were once covered with a rich growth of natural grass and annual flowering plants, but today, they are covered with farms.


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) is the most widespread species of swallow in the world. In fact, it appears to have the largest natural distribution of any of the world's passerines, ranging over 251 million square kilometres globally. It is a distinctive passerine bird with blue upperparts and a long, deeply forked tail. It is found in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. In Anglophone Europe it is just called the swallow; in northern Europe it is the only common species called a "swallow" rather than a "martin".


title: Barn swallow

text: There are six subspecies of barn swallow, which breed across the Northern Hemisphere. Four are strongly migratory, and their wintering grounds cover much of the Southern Hemisphere as far south as central Argentina, the Cape Province of South Africa, and northern Australia. Its huge range means that the barn swallow is not endangered, although there may be local population declines due to specific threats.


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow is a bird of open country that normally uses man-made structures to breed and consequently has spread with human expansion. It builds a cup nest from mud pellets in barns or similar structures and feeds on insects caught in flight. This species lives in close association with humans, and its insect-eating habits mean that it is tolerated by humans; this acceptance was reinforced in the past by superstitions regarding the bird and its nest. There are frequent cultural references to the barn swallow in literary and religious works due to both its living in close proximity to humans and its annual migration. The barn swallow is the national bird of Austria and Estonia.


title: Barn swallow

text: The adult male barn swallow of the nominate subspecies "H. r. rustica" is long including of elongated outer tail feathers. It has a wingspan of and weighs . It has steel blue upperparts and a rufous forehead, chin and throat, which are separated from the off-white underparts by a broad dark blue breast band. The outer tail feathers are elongated, giving the distinctive deeply forked "swallow tail". There is a line of white spots across the outer end of the upper tail. The female is similar in appearance to the male, but the tail streamers are shorter, the blue of the upperparts and breast band is less glossy, and the underparts paler. The juvenile is browner and has a paler rufous face and whiter underparts. It also lacks the long tail streamers of the adult.


title: Barn swallow

text: Although both sexes sing, female song was only recently described. (See below for details about song.) Calls include "witt" or "witt-witt" and a loud "splee-plink" when excited (or trying to chase intruders away from the nest). The alarm calls include a sharp "siflitt" for predators like cats and a "flitt-flitt" for birds of prey like the hobby. This species is fairly quiet on the wintering grounds.


title: Barn swallow

text: The distinctive combination of a red face and blue breast band renders the adult barn swallow easy to distinguish from the African "Hirundo" species and from the welcome swallow ("Hirundo neoxena") with which its range overlaps in Australasia. In Africa the short tail streamers of the juvenile barn swallow invite confusion with juvenile red-chested swallow ("Hirundo lucida"), but the latter has a narrower breast band and more white in the tail.


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow was described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of "Systema Naturae" as "Hirundo rustica", characterised as ""H. rectricibus, exceptis duabus intermediis, macula alba notatîs"". "Hirundo" is the Latin word for "swallow"; "rusticus" means "of the country". This species is the only one of that genus to have a range extending into the Americas, with the majority of "Hirundo" species being native to Africa. This genus of blue-backed swallows is sometimes called the "barn swallows".


title: Barn swallow

text: The "Oxford English Dictionary" dates the English common name "barn swallow" to 1851, though an earlier instance of the collocation in an English-language context is in Gilbert White's popular book "The Natural History of Selborne", originally published in 1789:


title: Barn swallow

text: The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds altogether in chimnies , but often within barns and out-houses against the rafters ... In "Sweden" she builds in barns, and is called "ladusvala", the barn-swallow.


title: Barn swallow

text: There are few taxonomic problems within the genus, but the red-chested swallow—a resident of West Africa, the Congo Basin, and Ethiopia—was formerly treated as a subspecies of barn swallow. The red-chested swallow is slightly smaller than its migratory relative, has a narrower blue breast-band, and (in the adult) has shorter tail streamers. In flight, it looks paler underneath than barn swallow.


title: Barn swallow

text: Six subspecies of barn swallow are generally recognised. In eastern Asia, a number of additional or alternative forms have been proposed, including "saturata" by Robert Ridgway in 1883, "kamtschatica" by Benedykt Dybowski in 1883, "ambigua" by Erwin Stresemann and "mandschurica" by Wilhelm Meise in 1934. Given the uncertainties over the validity of these forms, this article follows the treatment of Turner and Rose.


title: Barn swallow

text: The short wings, red belly and incomplete breast band of "H. r. tytleri" are also found in "H. r. erythrogaster", and DNA analyses show that barn swallows from North America colonised the Baikal region of Siberia, a dispersal direction opposite to that for most changes in distribution between North America and Eurasia.


title: Barn swallow

text: The preferred habitat of the barn swallow is open country with low vegetation, such as pasture, meadows and farmland, preferably with nearby water. This swallow avoids heavily wooded or precipitous areas and densely built-up locations. The presence of accessible open structures such as barns, stables, or culverts to provide nesting sites, and exposed locations such as wires, roof ridges or bare branches for perching, are also important in the bird's selection of its breeding range.


title: Barn swallow

text: Barn swallows are semi-colonial, settling in groups from a single pair to a few dozen pairs, particularly in larger wooden structures housing animals. The same individuals often breed at the same site year after year, although settlement choices have been experimentally shown to be predicted by nest availability rather than any characteristics of available mates. Because it takes around 2 weeks for a pair to build a nest from mud, hair, and other materials, old nests are highly prized.


title: Barn swallow

text: This species breeds across the Northern Hemisphere from sea level to , but to in the Caucasus and North America, and it is absent only from deserts and the cold northernmost parts of the continents. Over much of its range, it avoids towns, and in Europe is replaced in urban areas by the house martin. However, in Honshū, Japan, the barn swallow is a more urban bird, with the red-rumped swallow ("Cecropis daurica") replacing it as the rural species.


title: Barn swallow

text: In winter, the barn swallow is cosmopolitan in its choice of habitat, avoiding only dense forests and deserts. It is most common in open, low vegetation habitats, such as savanna and ranch land, and in Venezuela, South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago it is described as being particularly attracted to burnt or harvested sugarcane fields and the waste from the cane. In the absence of suitable roost sites, they may sometimes roost on wires where they are more exposed to predators. Individual birds tend to return to the same wintering locality each year and congregate from a large area to roost in reed beds. These roosts can be extremely large; one in Nigeria had an estimated 1.5 million birds. These roosts are thought to be a protection from predators, and the arrival of roosting birds is synchronised in order to overwhelm predators like African hobbies. The barn swallow has been recorded as breeding in the more temperate parts of its winter range, such as the mountains of Thailand and in central Argentina.


title: Barn swallow

text: Migration of barn swallows between Britain and South Africa was first established on 23 December 1912 when a bird that had been ringed by James Masefield at a nest in Staffordshire, was found in Natal. As would be expected for a long-distance migrant, this bird has occurred as a vagrant to such distant areas as Hawaii, Bermuda, Greenland, Tristan da Cunha, the Falkland Islands, and even Antarctica.


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow is similar in its habits to other aerial insectivores, including other swallow species and the unrelated swifts. It is not a particularly fast flier, with a speed estimated at about , up to and a wing beat rate of approximately 5, up to 7–9 times each second.


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow typically feeds in open areas above shallow water or the ground often following animals, humans or farm machinery to catch disturbed insects, but it will occasionally pick prey items from the water surface, walls and plants. In the breeding areas, large flies make up around 70% of the diet, with aphids also a significant component. However, in Europe, the barn swallow consumes fewer aphids than the house or sand martins. On the wintering grounds, Hymenoptera, especially flying ants, are important food items. Grasshoppers, crickets, dragonflies, beetles and moths are also preyed upon. When egg-laying, barn swallows hunt in pairs, but otherwise will form often large flocks.


title: Barn swallow

text: The amount of food a clutch will get depends on the size of the clutch, with larger clutches getting more food on average. The timing of a clutch also determines the food given; later broods get food that is smaller in size compared to earlier broods. This is because larger insects are too far away from the nest to be profitable in terms of energy expenditure.


title: Barn swallow

text: Isotope studies have shown that wintering populations may utilise different feeding habitats, with British breeders feeding mostly over grassland, whereas Swiss birds utilised woodland more. Another study showed that a single population breeding in Denmark actually wintered in two separate areas.


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow drinks by skimming low over lakes or rivers and scooping up water with its open mouth. This bird bathes in a similar fashion, dipping into the water for an instant while in flight.


title: Barn swallow

text: Swallows gather in communal roosts after breeding, sometimes thousands strong. Reed beds are regularly favoured, with the birds swirling "en masse" before swooping low over the reeds. Reed beds are an important source of food prior to and whilst on migration; although the barn swallow is a diurnal migrant that can feed on the wing whilst it travels low over ground or water, the reed beds enable fat deposits to be established or replenished.


title: Barn swallow

text: Males sing to defend small territories (when living in colonies, less so in solitary pairs) and to attract mates. Males sing throughout the breeding season, from late April into August in many parts of the range. Their song is made up of a "twitter warble," followed by a rising "P-syllable" in European "H. r. rustica" and the North American "H. r. erythrogaster." In all subspecies, this is followed by a short "Q-syllable" and a trilled series of pulses, termed the "rattle." The rattle is sometimes followed by a terminal "Ω-Note" in some subspecies' populations, and always at the end of "H. r. tytleri" song.


title: Barn swallow

text: Female songs are much shorter than male songs, and are only produced during the early part of the breeding season. Females sing spontaneously, though infrequently, and will also countersing in response to each other.


title: Barn swallow

text: The male barn swallow returns to the breeding grounds before the females and selects a nest site, which is then advertised to females with a circling flight and song. Plumage may be used to advertise: in some populations, like in the subspecies "H. r. gutturalis", darker ventral plumage in males is associated with higher breeding success. In other populations, the breeding success of the male is related to the length of the tail streamers, with longer streamers being more attractive to the female. Males with longer tail feathers are generally longer-lived and more disease resistant, females thus gaining an indirect fitness benefit from this form of selection, since longer tail feathers indicate a genetically stronger individual which will produce offspring with enhanced vitality. Males in northern Europe have longer tails than those further south; whereas in Spain the male's tail streamers are only 5% longer than the female's, in Finland the difference is 20%. In Denmark, the average male tail length increased by 9% between 1984 and 2004, but it is possible that climatic changes may lead in the future to shorter tails if summers become hot and dry.


title: Barn swallow

text: Males with long streamers also have larger white tail spots, and since feather-eating bird lice prefer white feathers, large white tail spots without parasite damage again demonstrate breeding quality; there is a positive association between spot size and the number of offspring produced each season.


title: Barn swallow

text: The breeding season of the barn swallow is variable; in the southern part of the range, the breeding season usually is from February or March to early to mid September, although some late second and third broods finish in October. In the northern part of the range, it usually starts late May to early June and ends the same time as the breeding season of the southernmost birds.


title: Barn swallow

text: Both sexes defend the nest, but the male is particularly aggressive and territorial. Once established, pairs stay together to breed for life, but extra-pair copulation is common, making this species genetically polygamous, despite being socially monogamous. Males guard females actively to avoid being cuckolded. Males may use deceptive alarm calls to disrupt extrapair copulation attempts toward their mates.


title: Barn swallow

text: As its name implies, the barn swallow typically nests inside accessible buildings such as barns and stables, or under bridges and wharves. Before man-made sites became common, it nested on cliff faces or in caves, but this is now rare. The neat cup-shaped nest is placed on a beam or against a suitable vertical projection. It is constructed by both sexes, although more often by the female, with mud pellets collected in their beaks and lined with grasses, feathers, algae or other soft materials. The nest building ability of the male is also sexually selected; females will lay more eggs and at an earlier date with males who are better at nest construction, with the opposite being true with males that are not. After building the nest, barn swallows may nest colonially where sufficient high-quality nest sites are available, and within a colony, each pair defends a territory around the nest which, for the European subspecies, is in size. Colony size tends to be larger in North America.


title: Barn swallow

text: In North America at least, barn swallows frequently engage in a mutualist relationship with ospreys. Barn swallows will build their nest below an osprey nest, receiving protection from other birds of prey that are repelled by the exclusively fish-eating ospreys. The ospreys are alerted to the presence of these predators by the alarm calls of the swallows.


title: Barn swallow

text: There are normally two broods, with the original nest being reused for the second brood and being repaired and reused in subsequent years. The female lays two to seven, but typically four or five, reddish-spotted white eggs. The clutch size is influenced by latitude, with clutch sizes of northern populations being higher on average than southern populations. The eggs are in size, and weigh , of which 5% is shell. In Europe, the female does almost all the incubation, but in North America the male may incubate up to 25% of the time. The incubation period is normally 14–19 days, with another 18–23 days before the altricial chicks fledge. The fledged young stay with, and are fed by, the parents for about a week after leaving the nest. Occasionally, first-year birds from the first brood will assist in feeding the second brood. Compared to those from early broods, juvenile barn swallows from late broods have been found to migrate at a younger age, fuel less efficiently during migration and have lower return rates the following year.


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow will mob intruders such as cats or accipiters that venture too close to their nest, often flying very close to the threat. Adult barn swallows have few predators, but some are taken by accipiters, falcons, and owls. Brood parasitism by cowbirds in North America or cuckoos in Eurasia is rare.


title: Barn swallow

text: Hatching success is 90% and the fledging survival rate is 70–90%. Average mortality is 70–80% in the first year and 40–70% for the adult. Although the record age is more than 11 years, most survive less than four years. Barn swallow nestlings have prominent red gapes, a feature shown to induce feeding by parent birds. An experiment in manipulating brood size and immune system showed the vividness of the gape was positively correlated with T-cell–mediated immunocompetence, and that larger brood size and injection with an antigen led to a less vivid gape.


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow has been recorded as hybridising with the cliff swallow ("Petrochelidon pyrrhonota") and the cave swallow ("P. fulva") in North America, and the house martin ("Delichon urbicum") in Eurasia, the cross with the latter being one of the most common passerine hybrids.


title: Barn swallow

text: Barn swallows (and other small passerines) often have characteristic feather holes on their wing and tail feathers. These holes were suggested as being caused by avian lice such as "Machaerilaemus malleus" and "Myrsidea rustica", although other studies suggest that they are mainly caused by species of "Brueelia". Several other species of lice have been described from barn swallow hosts, including "Brueelia domestica" and "Philopterus microsomaticus". The avian lice prefer to feed on white tail spots, and they are generally found more numerously on short-tailed males, indicating the function of unbroken white tail spots as a measure of quality. In Texas, the swallow bug ("Oeciacus vicarius"), which is common on species such as the cliff swallow, is also known to infest barn swallows.


title: Barn swallow

text: Predatory bats such as the greater false vampire bat are known to prey on barn swallows. Swallows at their communal roosts attract predators and several falcon species make use of these opportunities. Falcon species confirmed as predators include the peregrine falcon and the African hobby.


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow has an enormous range, with an estimated global extent of about and a population of 190 million individuals. The species is evaluated as least concern on the 2019 IUCN Red List, and has no special status under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants.


title: Barn swallow

text: This is a species that has greatly benefited historically from forest clearance, which has created the open habitats it prefers, and from human habitation, which have given it an abundance of safe man-made nest sites. There have been local declines due to the use of DDT in Israel in the 1950s, competition for nest sites with house sparrows in the US in the 19th century, and an ongoing gradual decline in numbers in parts of Europe and Asia due to agricultural intensification, reducing the availability of insect food. However, there has been an increase in the population in North America during the 20th century with the greater availability of nesting sites and subsequent range expansion, including the colonisation of northern Alberta.


title: Barn swallow

text: A specific threat to wintering birds from the European populations is the transformation by the South African government of a light aircraft runway near Durban into an international airport for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The roughly square Mount Moreland reed bed is a night roost for more than three million barn swallows, which represent 1% of the global population and 8% of the European breeding population. The reed bed lies on the flight path of aircraft using the proposed La Mercy airport, and there were fears that it would be cleared because the birds could threaten aircraft safety. However, following detailed evaluation, advanced radar technology will be installed to enable planes using the airport to be warned of bird movements and, if necessary, take appropriate measures to avoid the flocks.


title: Barn swallow

text: Climate change may affect the barn swallow; drought causes weight loss and slow feather regrowth, and the expansion of the Sahara will make it a more formidable obstacle for migrating European birds. Hot dry summers will reduce the availability of insect food for chicks. Conversely, warmer springs may lengthen the breeding season and result in more chicks, and the opportunity to use nest sites outside buildings in the north of the range might also lead to more offspring.


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow is an attractive bird that feeds on flying insects and has therefore been tolerated by humans when it shares their buildings for nesting. As one of the earlier migrants, this conspicuous species is also seen as an early sign of summer's approach.


title: Barn swallow

text: In the Old World, the barn swallow appears to have used man-made structures and bridges since time immemorial. An early reference is in Virgil's "Georgics" (29 BC), ""Ante garrula quam tignis nidum suspendat hirundo"" (Before the twittering swallow hangs its nest from the rafters).


title: Barn swallow

text: Many cattle farmers believed that swallows spread "Salmonella" infections; however, a study in Sweden showed no evidence of the birds being reservoirs of the bacteria.


title: Barn swallow

text: Many literary references are based on the barn swallow's northward migration as a symbol of spring or summer. The proverb about the necessity for more than one piece of evidence goes back at least to Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics": "For as one swallow or one day does not make a spring, so one day or a short time does not make a fortunate or happy man."


title: Barn swallow

text: The barn swallow symbolises the coming of spring and thus love in the "Pervigilium Veneris", a late Latin poem. In his poem "The Waste Land", T. S. Eliot quoted the line ""Quando fiam uti chelidon [ut tacere desinam]?"" ("When will I be like the swallow, so that I can stop being silent?") This refers to the myth of Philomela in which she turns into a nightingale, and her sister Procne into a swallow.


title: Barn swallow

text: Gilbert White studied the barn swallow in detail in his pioneering work "The Natural History of Selborne", but even this careful observer was uncertain whether it migrated or hibernated in winter. Elsewhere, its long journeys were well observed, and a swallow tattoo is traditional among sailors as a symbol of a safe return; the tradition was that a mariner had a tattoo of this fellow wanderer after sailing . A second swallow would be added after at sea.


title: Barn swallow

text: In the past, the tolerance for this beneficial insectivore was reinforced by superstitions regarding damage to the barn swallow's nest. Such an act might lead to cows giving bloody milk, or no milk at all, or to hens ceasing to lay. This may be a factor in the longevity of swallows' nests. Survival, with suitable annual refurbishment, for 10–15 years is regular, and one nest was reported to have been occupied for 48 years.


title: Barn swallow

text: It is depicted as the "martlet", "merlette" or "merlot" in heraldry, where it represents younger sons who have no lands. It is also represented as lacking feet as this was a common belief at the time. As a result of a campaign by ornithologists, the barn swallow has been the national bird of Estonia since 23 June 1960, and is also the national bird of Austria.


title: Walter Mitty

text: Walter Jackson Mitty is a fictional character in James Thurber's first short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", first published in "The New Yorker" on March 18, 1939, and in book form in "My World—and Welcome to It" in 1942. Thurber loosely based the character, a daydreamer, on himself. It was made into a film in 1947 starring Danny Kaye, with a remake in 2013 directed by, and starring Ben Stiller.


title: Walter Mitty

text: Mitty is a meek, mild man with a vivid fantasy life. In a few dozen paragraphs, he imagines himself a wartime pilot, an emergency-room surgeon, and a devil-may-care killer. Although the story has humorous elements, there is a darker and more significant message underlying the text, leading to a more tragic interpretation of the Mitty character. Even in his heroic daydreams, Mitty does not triumph, several fantasies being interrupted before the final one sees Mitty dying bravely in front of a firing squad. In the brief snatches of reality that punctuate Mitty's fantasies, the reader meets well-meaning but insensitive strangers who inadvertently rob Mitty of some of his remaining dignity.


title: Walter Mitty

text: The character's name has come into more general use to refer to an ineffectual dreamer and appears in several dictionaries. "The American Heritage Dictionary" defines a Walter Mitty as "an ordinary often ineffectual person who indulges in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs". The most famous of Thurber's inept male protagonists, the character is considered "the archetype for dreamy, hapless, Thurber Man".


title: Walter Mitty

text: When referencing actor Errol Flynn, Warner Brothers studio head, Jack L. Warner, noted in his autobiography, "My First Hundred Years in Hollywood", "To the Walter Mittys of the world he [Flynn] was all the heroes in one magnificent, sexy, animal package".


title: Walter Mitty

text: In the song Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Ian Dury refers to the clothes of Mr. Walter Mitty as a better alternative to wearing grey. So the character is set as an example to be unconventional.


title: Walter Mitty

text: In his of Henry Kissinger, Walter Isaacson records that on October 6, 1973, during the 1973 Arab Israeli War, Kissinger urged President Richard Nixon's Chief of Staff General Alexander Haig to keep Nixon in Florida in order to avoid any "hysterical" moves and to keep any "Walter Mitty tendencies" under control.


title: Walter Mitty

text: In the 1997 book "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer—a personal account of the events of the 1996 Everest disaster—Krakauer states: "Walter Mittys with Everest dreams need to bear in mind that when things go wrong up in the death zone (above 26,000 feet)—and sooner or later they always do—the strongest guides in the world may be powerless to save a client's life; indeed as the events of 1996 demonstrated, the strongest guides in the world are sometimes powerless to save even their own lives."


title: Walter Mitty

text: In the 1999 autobiography "John Glenn: A Memoir by Mercury" by astronaut and US Senator John Glenn, he states, "The average person could Walter Mitty him- or herself into winning the Indianapolis 500, since everybody drove a car; all you had to do was imagine yourself going faster and making nothing but left turns. But space was so new nobody had a way to relate to it realistically."


title: Walter Mitty

text: In 2007, automaker Ford stated that it had to exclude from the list of potential bidders "Walter Mitty" types who had dreams but no experience, prior to the sale of their Aston Martin British GT car brand to a consortium of business interests from America and the Middle East, headed by Prodrive founder and world rally championship owner David Richards.


title: Walter Mitty

text: "The Guardian" reported on April 20, 2009 that a leaked British National Party training manual described some members as "liars, oddballs, and Walter Mitty types".


title: Walter Mitty

text: "The Guardian" reported on January 23, 2016 that up to 10% of servicemen and ex-servicemen who made use of the services of military psychiatrists for PTSD were "Walter Mitty" characters who fabricated or exaggerated their experiences in combat.


title: Walter Mitty

text: In his January 20, 2021 column "Witless Ape Rides Helicopter" in National Review magazine, Kevin D. Williamson criticized the US Republican Party for the legacy of Donald Trump's presidency, saying "maybe turning your party over to Generalissimo Walter Mitty, his hideous scheming spawn, and the studio audience from "Hee-Haw" was not just absolutely "aces" as a political strategy."


title: Walter Mitty

text: Individuals who impersonate serving or retired members of the armed forces are known as "Walts" in the British Armed Forces, a shortened form of "Walter Mitty". In the United Kingdom, it is an offence under the Armed Forces Act 2006 to wear real or replica military decorations to pretend to be a member of the armed forces. Such an example of this is Alan Mcilwraith, who falsely claimed to be a highly decorated British Army officer.


title: Walter Mitty

text: In his book on selection for the SAS, Andy McNab wrote that soldiers from other units who were applying to join and who gave away the fact they were motivated by reasons of personal vanity were labelled as "Walter Mitties" and quietly sent home.


title: Walter Mitty

text: The character was first played by Danny Kaye in the 1947 film version. Thurber opposed this 1947 production.


title: Walter Mitty

text: A 2013 re-make of the film starred, and was directed by, Ben Stiller. This too bore little resemblance to Thurber's vision of the character.


title: Daniel Maslany

text: Daniel Joseph Maslany () is a Canadian actor, producer and composer. He is known for playing Bondurant Smit in CBC's offbeat and absurd comedy series "Four in the Morning", Llewelynn Watts in the series "Murdoch Mysteries" and Townes Linderman in the series "Impulse" on YouTube Premium.


title: Daniel Maslany

text: Daniel Joseph Maslany was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, son of Daniel Maslany, a woodworker, and Renate (born Kratz), a French/English translator and interpreter. His older sister, Tatiana Gabriele, is an actress, and his younger brother, Michael is an animator. He has Austrian, German, Polish, Romanian, and Ukrainian ancestry. As a child he participated in drawing, dance, acting, and film-making classes. He is a graduate of the Globe Theatre Conservatory.


title: Daniel Maslany

text: The solo show, "O.C.Dean", written and performed by Maslany, premiered at Globe Theatre in Regina in 2013 (Globe Theatre Shumiatcher Sandbox Series), then toured to Uno Fest in Victoria in 2014.


title: Daniel Maslany

text: Maslany performed in the play "Stupid Fucking Bird" by Aaron Posner, and in particular for the Canadian premiere in 2013. He also produced the Video Trailer. He also worked as sound, music, projection designer and co-creator of "A Date with the Night" at Globe Theatre in 2015.


title: Daniel Maslany

text: As an actor, Maslany has played parts in "Robin Hood", "Peter Pan", "The Alice Nocturne", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "George Dandin", and "Pride and Prejudice" at the Globe Theatre in Regina; "Rage", "The Alice Nocturne", and "The Story of Mr. Wright" in the Globe Theatre Shumiatcher Sandbox Series; as well as "Wrecked", and "The Secret Life of the Octopus", as part of the Persephone Youth Tour. He also directed "The Fusion Project: By Candlelight" for the Globe Theatre Shumiatcher Sandbox Series.


title: Daniel Maslany

text: Maslany designed the sound and music for Robin Hood and Metamorphoses at the Globe Theatre, as well as "Trout Stanley" at The Storefront Theatre and "Shannon 10:40" for Videofag.


title: Daniel Maslany

text: Maslany made his on-screen debut in the 2000 film "Skipped Parts", playing character Petey Pierce. He later appeared in several television series and films, including "Renegadepress.com", "Corner Gas", and "Chained".


title: Daniel Maslany

text: Joining the cast of the series "Murdoch Mysteries" in 2017, Maslany took on the character of Llewellyn Watts, a police detective.


title: Daniel Maslany

text: Daniel Maslany worked as executive producer, second assistant director and composer for the short film, "Shut Up" (2019). He also composed the music of the short film, "90/91" (post-production).


title: Daniel Maslany

text: Maslany lives in Toronto, Ontario with his wife, Lucy Adele Hill, actress and writer. He is allergic to almost all animals. During a game of broomball with his wife's family in Bladworth, Saskatchewan, Maslany injured his knee.


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: Gabriel Michael Bateman (born September 10, 2004) is an American actor. He is best known for starring in numerous horror films, including as Robert in "Annabelle" (2014), Martin Wells in "Lights Out" (2016), Andy Barclay in "Child's Play" (2019), and Kyle Hunter in "Unhinged" (2020).


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: Bateman also had roles in family films, such as Carter Hughes in "Benji" (2018) and Oliver Reed in "Think Like a Dog" (2020). On television, he starred as Ethan Taylor in the CBS crime drama series "Stalker" (2014–2015) and Jack Hawthorne in the CBS mystery drama series "American Gothic" (2016).


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: Bateman was raised in Turlock, California, but his family moved to southern California when he started his career in acting. His sister is actress Talitha Bateman.


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: Bateman made his acting debut in 2012, appearing in the film "George Biddle, CPA". In 2014, he had a supporting role as Robert in the supernatural horror film "Annabelle", a spin-off of the acclaimed horror film "The Conjuring". From 2014 to 2015, he starred as Ethan Taylor in the CBS drama thriller series "Stalker".


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: In November 2014, he was cast in Robert Kirkman's Cinemax horror drama series "Outcast". He appears in the series as Joshua Austin from 2016 to 2017.


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: In 2015, he had guest roles in various television series, including "Your Family or Mine", "Wicked City", and "Code Black".


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: In 2016, Bateman played a leading role, alongside Teresa Palmer, in the supernatural horror film "Lights Out", which was produced by James Wan. Also that year, he starred as Jack Hawthorne in the CBS mystery drama series "American Gothic", which ran for one season.


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: In 2018, he starred as Carter Hughes in the Netflix family comedy film "Benji". He also starred as Wyatt McKenna in the Amazon Prime Video comedy drama series "The Dangerous Book for Boys".


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: Bateman has been in commercials for Staples, Frigidaire, Energizer EcoAdvanced Recycled Batteries, Iams, and the Cadillac CTS Sedan. He also appeared in two music videos ("It's a Job" and "A New Beginning") for the album "I Remembered But Then I Forgot" by Wolfie's Just Fine, a folk music side project of Jon Lajoie.


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: In 2019, Bateman received further recognition for starring as Andy Barclay in the horror film "Child's Play", alongside Aubrey Plaza. The film was a critical and commercial success. Also that year, he starred as Charlie Brenner in the musical adventure film "" and as Scott in the historical war film "Robert the Bruce".


title: Gabriel Bateman

text: In 2020, he starred as Oliver Reed in the family film "Think Like a Dog" and as Kyle Hunter in the thriller film "Unhinged", alongside Russell Crowe.


title: Maari 2

text: Maari 2 is a 2018 Indian Tamil-language action comedy film written and directed by Balaji Mohan. It is a sequel to his 2015 film "Maari". Dhanush, besides producing the film under his company Wunderbar Films, also stars as the title character, reprising his role from the first film. The film also stars Sai Pallavi, Tovino Thomas, Krishna, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar in the prominent roles. The music was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja with cinematography by Om Prakash and editing by Prasanna GK. The film released on 21 December 2018 to mixed reviews from critics.


title: Maari 2

text: Maariyappan aka Maari is a fun-loving gangster whose sidekicks are Sanikkizhamai and Robert aka Adithangi (punching bag). Maari is chased around by Araathu Aanandi, an auto rickshaw driver who is head over heels in love with him. However, try as she might, Maari does not give her a second glance and constantly shows his annoyance to her.


title: Maari 2

text: Meanwhile, Beeja aka "Thanathos" has escaped from prison, after killing two officers, with the cell walls scrawled with the words "Kill Maari". He is out for vengeance as his brother, who was a defence lawyer, promised to get Beeja released from jail. Unfortunately, his brother is killed at the hands of Maari as the former tried to molest Aanandi's elder sister. This is also the reason why Aanandi loves Maari. While coming back after a party, Maari gets attacked, Aanandi takes him to the hospital and takes care of him. Kalai's brother Vallavan is shown to be hand-in-glove with Singayya, who has formed an alliance with Beeja to overthrow Maari. As per Beeja's plan, Vallavan asks Sani to send Aanandi for a job, which turns out to be drug smuggling. Aanandi unknowingly goes to do the job and gets caught by Kalai. On confronting Aanandi, she tells him that Maari asked her to do it. This sparks a doubt for Kalai. Vallavan is caught by Maari carrying drugs, and when Maari confronts Kalai, a fight erupts. Maari and his sidekicks set fire to all the drugs, and Beeja kills Vallavan to make it look as Maari killed him. Kalai gets enraged and orders his men to kill Maari. Maari is injured in the battle, and Beeja reveals himself as the perpetrator and shoots Maari, but Maari is saved by Aanandi, who took the bullet for him, which ended up in her spinal cord, paralysing her for life.


title: Maari 2

text: The new District collector, Vijaya Chamundeshwari, comes out to restore order and stop all gang violence. Maari goes into hiding with Aanandi, whose legs are paralysed. Eight years pass, Beeja and Kalai have grown to become rich dons, but when Kalai has a clear chance to become the MLA candidate of the ruling party, Beeja usurps that chance by threatening Kalai and his family. Vijaya, now the Deputy-Home secretary, in an effort to find Maari, posts his picture along with Aanandi's on newspapers. Maari meets Vijaya, requesting her to remove the photos. Maari then reveals that he was living in Tenkasi with an elderly couple. Aanandi got pregnant, and a healthy baby boy was born. However, due to complications by the paralysis, Aanandi dies minutes after childbirth. Maari then raises the boy, called Kaali with help from the old couple, Sani and Robert. Kaali is shown to have inherited Maari's behaviour and keeps picking fights in school. Maari then requests Vijaya to stop coming after him as he changed his ways. When Kaali sees some students teasing a teacher, he complains about them to the principal. In retribution, the boys chase and attack him, only to get thrashed by Kaali. The council's area member, who is also father of one of the boys, calls Kaali to hit him, but Maari goes and begs for forgiveness.


title: Maari 2

text: Meanwhile, the city police commissioner mentions to the media that there is an informer within Beeja's gang. Using his moles in the police department, Beeja tries to figure out who the mole is but fails. It is then revealed that there was not any mole and that the whole story was fabricated to identify the corrupt policemen in the department, including the commissioner. Also, Beeja has been in ties with the commissioner and was the mole himself. He had been leaking info about his men so that he may come out clear to become an MLA candidate. It is also revealed that despite begging for forgiveness, the counsellor insisted on his son beating up Kaali, and so, Maari beats up the counsellor and his henchmen. In a final encounter, the police turns against Beeja. Maari fights Beeja and paralyses him for revenge for Aanandi and reveals to him that Maari killed his brother because Beeja could be killed by his own brother for wealth. Soon Beeja gets sentenced to life term prison. Maari is then shown with his sidekicks continuing his old life and also reunites with Kalai.


title: Maari 2

text: Following the release of "Maari", director Balaji Mohan announced the sequel of the film in November 2015, with Dhanush again in the lead, and also hinted that the film will kickstart shooting from January 2016. In an interaction with the media, the director stated that the film will have more depth to Dhanush's character. The film's shoot was expected to take place in early 2017, and the film's script was finalised in December 2016. However, the film's first schedule was rescheduled to take place in August 2017, because of Dhanush's commitments with other projects. In September 2017, Balaji Mohan said via tweet that the film will be a bilingual film in Tamil and Telugu; however, the Telugu version was dropped.


title: Maari 2

text: On 24 September 2017, it was announced that Tovino Thomas joined the cast, portraying the antagonist. A few days later, Sai Pallavi was finalised as the heroine. Later actor Krishna, joined the cast on 7 October 2017. Varalaxmi Sarathkumar joined the cast in December 2017.


title: Maari 2

text: Anirudh Ravichander who composed for the film's first part was expected to join its successor. However, Balaji Mohan announced in December 2017 that Yuvan Shankar Raja was the composer of "Maari 2". Om Prakash and Prasanna GK are retained as the cinematographer and editor respectively, following their work in the film's predecessor before. A. Amaran was signed as the art director respectively, replacing R. K. Vijaimurugan, who earlier handled art direction for the previous film.


title: Maari 2

text: The film's "puja" ceremony took place on 14 December 2017, but principal photography began on 22 January 2018. The first schedule of the film took place in Tenkasi. Varalaxmi began shooting for her portions in mid-February. The makers completed 40% of the film's shoot before the strike announced by Tamil Film Producers Council on 16 March 2018, and resumed shooting in April after the strike called off. The song sequence for "Rowdy Baby" was filmed on 2 August, under the supervision of dance choreographer Prabhu Deva. After the song sequence filmed, the makers wrapped principal photography on 24 August 2018.


title: Maari 2

text: Yuvan Shankar Raja composed the soundtrack album and background score for "Maari 2", collaborating with Dhanush once again after a 10-year hiatus, since their last film "Yaaradi Nee Mohini" (2008). It also marks the composer's first collaboration with Balaji Mohan. The audio rights of the film are secured by the production house's subsidiary audio label Wunderbar Studios, with Divo as their digital partner. The album features three tracks written by Dhanush and Yuvan Shankar Raja himself, and was released on 5 November 2018, except one track which was released as a single.


title: Maari 2

text: "Rowdy Baby", sung by Dhanush and Dhee, was released as the first single on 25 October 2018. The video song which was released on YouTube in January 2019, received positive reviews for the choreography as well as its picturisation. On 16 November 2020, it became the first south Indian song to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. The other two songs "Maari Gethu" sung by Dhanush, Chinnaponnu, V. M. Mahalingam and Yuvan Shankar Raja, with lyrics penned by the latter and "Maari's Anandhi", written by Dhanush, and sung by Ilaiyaraaja and M. M. Manasi, was released as a part of the soundtrack album.


title: Maari 2

text: "Maari 2" was released on 21 December 2018. The film was later dubbed and released in Hindi as "Maari" on YouTube on 15 July 2019 by Goldmines Telefilms. The Hindi dubbed version crossed more than 150 million views.


title: Overtime (sports)

text: Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required to have a clear winner, as in single-elimination tournaments where only one team or players can advance to the next round or win the tournament.


title: Overtime (sports)

text: The rules of overtime or extra time vary between sports and even different competitions. Some may employ "sudden death", where the first player or team who scores immediately wins the game. In others, play continues until a specified time has elapsed, and only then is the winner declared. If the contest remains tied after the extra session, depending on the rules, the match may immediately end as a draw, additional periods may be played, or a different tiebreaking procedure such as a penalty shootout may be used instead.


title: Overtime (sports)

text: The terms "overtime" and "in overtime" (abbreviated "OT" or "IOT") are primarily used in North America, whereas the terms "extra time" and "after extra time" (abbreviated "a.e.t.") are usually used in other continents.


title: Overtime (sports)

text: In association football knockout competitions or competition stages, teams play an extra 30 minutes, called extra time, when the deciding leg (or replay of a tie) has not produced a winner by the end of normal or full-time. It follows a short break (traditionally 5 minutes) where players remain on or around the field of play and comprises two 15-minute periods, with teams changing ends in between. Although the Laws of the Game state that extra time is one of the approved methods to decide a winner, competitions are not bound to adopt extra time, and each competition is free to choose any method designated in the Laws of the Game to decide a winner.


title: Overtime (sports)

text: In a one-off tie or deciding replay, level scores nearly always go to extra time but this only applies to the FIFA competitions and the first-tier continental national team competitions. In games played over two legs at the continental levels (such as the three–tier men's continental club competitions and the women's continental club competitions), domestic levels (such as Copa del Rey, DFB-Pokal and the Coppa Italia semi-finals or Bundesliga relegation and promotion play-offs) or even at lower levels (such as the English Football League play-offs), teams only play extra time in the second leg where the aggregate score – then normally followed by an away goals rule – has not produced a winner first, however starting the 2021–22 season, UEFA decided to abolish it for all club competitions and changed with the penalty shootout if the aggregate is still tied after the extra time. Ties in the FA Cup used to be decided by as many replays as necessary until one produces a winner within normal time rather than have any extra time or shootouts though, nowadays, replays are limited to just the one with the second going to extra time if teams are still level. Equally, CONMEBOL has historically never used extra time in any of the competitions it directly organises, such as the Copa Libertadores. Today, it uses extra time only in the final match of a competition. The score in games or ties resorting to extra time are often recorded with the abbreviation a.e.t. (after extra time) usually accompanying the earlier score after regulation time. The two-legged format for the club competition finals with this rule is still used in AFC and CONCACAF club competitions with a away goals rule still takes place.


title: Overtime (sports)

text: Ties that are still without a winner after extra time are usually broken by kicks from the penalty spot, commonly called a penalty shootout. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many international matches tried to reduce this by employing the golden goal (also called "sudden death") or silver goal rules (the game ending if a team has the lead after the first 15-minute period of extra time), but competitions have not retained these. The term "asdet" refers to the result of a penalty shootout "after sudden death extra time" and after the away goal rules abolished by UEFA, all sanctioned club competitions decide the knockout ties with the penalty shoot-out in the 2021-22 season if the aggregate remains unchanged after the 15-minute extra time.