title: Alappuzha

text: Nation Highway 66 is one of the longest national highway in India. It connects Panvel to Kanyakumari and crisscrosses through the Alappuzha city centre. The Alappuzha Bypass, to route the national highway around city centers between Kommady and Kalarkode. National Highway 66 connects Alappuzha city to other major cities like Mumbai, Udupi, Mangalore, Kannur, Kozhikode, Ernakulam, Kollam and Trivandrum. There is a plan to upgrade State Highway 11 to a national highway in order to help connect Alappuzha to Kodaikanal as part of promoting the coastal-hill tourism project.


title: Alappuzha

text: There are eight state highways in Alappuzha district, of which three of them originates from Alappuzha town. State Highway 11 starts from Kalarcode and ends at Perunna. This highway is locally known as AC road (Alappuzha-Changanassery road) and it covers a distance of 24.2 km. It is an important road which connects Alappuzha town with Kottayam district. Stateway High 40 is an interstate highway in Alappuzha district which connects Alappuzha town with Madurai in Tamil Nadu. It is the only interstate highway in Alappuzha district. State Highway 66 originates from Alappuzha town and terminates at Thoppumpady.


title: Alappuzha

text: There are two bus terminals are situated in Alappuzha town, one for KSRTC buses (situated near state water transport corporation headquarters, boat jetty road) and the V K soman memorial municipal bus stand for private buses and interstate bound contract carriage buses (situated near Vazhicherry). A temporary KSRTC bus dippo and garage facing National Highway 66 is under construction near valavanadu. KSRTC buses connect Alappuzha with cities like Banglore, Mysore, kollur, manglore, chennai, coimbathore, palani, ooty, Kochi, Trivandrum, Thiruvalla and all other major towns in kerala. The kayamkulam - Ernakulam KSRTC Fast passenger chain service through the National highway 66 is very popular. SETC and TNSTC ply many daily services to the city. Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation have two daily services originating from Alappuzha.City private buses are green and white colored (formally white and brown). City buses connect Alappuzha with places like Mannancherry, Kalavoor, Erattakulangara, Kanjippadam, and Aspinwal. Some buses connects Alappuzha to Cherthala through coastal highway and Kanichukulangara route. Many contract carriage buses originate from Alappuzha to cities like chennai, Banglore, coimbathore, madurai, velankanni and Puducherry


title: Alappuzha

text: The presence of a lot of backwaters and canals makes water transport a popular means of transport. National Waterway-3 passes through Alappuzha. There is a SWTD boat jetty in the city that lies opposite to the KSRTC bus stand. It is served by boat services to Kottayam and Kollam cities besides other small towns and jetties. Availing an SWTD boat is a cheaper alternative to houseboats for visiting tourists.


title: Alappuzha

text: Alappuzha is linked by Ernakulam–Kayamkulam coastal railway line and connects to cities like Trivandrum, Kollam, Cochin, Coimbatore, Chennai, Delhi, Bokaro and Mumbai. The railway station is about from the heart of the city. A total of four trains originate from Alappuzha to cities like Kannur, Chennai, Dhanbad and Tatanagar. There are a lot of local trains running throughout the day, which connect Alappuzha to other towns near by. Since Alappuzha is a prime destination, trains from important cities like Delhi, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mangalore, Kozhikode and Amritsar pass through this station.


title: Alappuzha

text: Cochin International Airport, which is to the North, is the closest airport. Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, to the South, is the other airport that links the district with other countries. International tourists use these airports to reach Alappuzha. The other nearest airports are located at Kozhikode () and Coimbatore (). A helipad in the town is reserved for government uses.


title: Alappuzha

text: The two administrative systems prevailing in the district are revenue and local self-government. Under the revenue system, the district is divided into two revenue divisions, six taluks and 91 villages. The two revenue divisions are Alappuzha division comprising Cherthala, Ambalappuzha and Kuttanad taluks consisting of 47 villages and Chengannur division comprising Karthikapally, Chengannur and Mavelikkara taluks consisting of 44 villages. For census purposes, Aroor, Arookutty, Kodamthuruth, Thanneermukkom Vadakku, Thaneermukkam Thekku, Vayalar East and Kokkothamangalam village, except the portions included in Cherthala municipality are treated in the 1981 census as census towns based on the threefold criteria adopted for treating a place as census town.


title: Alappuzha

text: Under the local self-government system, the district is divided into five statutory towns and development blocks consisting of 71 panchayats. The jurisdiction of a Development Block includes the areas falling in census towns also.


title: Alappuzha

text: There were nine legislative assembly segments in Alappuzha district for the 2011 Assembly elections. They are Aroor, Cherthala, Alappuzha, Kuttanad, Haripad, Kayamkulam, Mavelikkara and Chengannur.


title: Alappuzha

text: Alappuzha assembly constituency is part of Alappuzha (Lok Sabha constituency). The other Lok Sabha constituency of the district is Mavelikkara.


title: Alappuzha

text: There are schools, computer institutes and colleges all over the district, with nine training schools, 405 lower primary schools, 105 high schools and 87 higher secondary schools.


title: Alappuzha

text: The first school in Alappuzha, the Church Missionary Society (CMS) School, was established in 1816. The school was established by the Rev. Thomas Norton, the first CMS missionary to India. The school is run by the CSI Christ Church, Alappuzha. The first higher secondary school in Alappuzha was the Leo XIIIth Higher Secondary School, which was opened on 1 June 1889 by Portuguese Bishop John Gomes Pereira of Cochin. The first polytechnic college in Alappuzha was the Carmel Polytechnic College, established by Fr. Gilbert Palaekunnel and it's managed by CMI Congregation. Carmel is the academically top-ranked polytechnic in the state still.


title: Alappuzha

text: Alappuzha is globally famous for snake boat races, especially the Nehru Trophy Boat Race held in the Punnamada Lake near Alappuzha. In 1952, when Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, visited Kerala, the people of Alleppey decided to give a special entertainment for their prestigious guest and conducted a snake boat race. Nehru got so excited by this event and he jumped into 'Nadubhagam Chundan' (a snake boat), ignoring the security officials. By this excitement of sailing in a snake boat he donated a rolling trophy to be awarded to the winner of the race. Other than this snake boat race cricket, football, basketball and rowing are among the most popular sports in town. In 2015, the Kerala Cricket Association inaugurated the KCA Cricket Stadium Alappuzha, which is an A-class cricket stadium. Another stadium named as EMS Stadium or municipal stadium is under construction as of 2021.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike (; ; 17 April 191610 October 2000), commonly known as Sirimavo Bandaranaike (මැතිනිය), was a Sri Lankan politician. She was the world's first female prime minister when she became Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (then the Dominion of Ceylon) in 1960. She chaired the Sri Lanka Freedom Party from 1960 to 1994 and served three terms as prime minister, two times as the chief executive, 1960 to 1965 and 1970 to 1977, and once again in a presidential system from 1994 to 2000, governing under the presidency of her daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Born into a Sinhalese Kandyan aristocratic family, Bandaranaike was educated in Catholic, English-medium schools, but remained a Buddhist and spoke Sinhala as well as English. On graduating from secondary school, she worked for various social programmes before marrying and raising a family. Playing hostess to her husband S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, who founded the socialist Sri Lanka Freedom Party in 1951 and became prime minister in 1956, she gained his trust as an informal advisor. Her social work focused on improving the lives of women and girls in rural areas of Sri Lanka.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Following her husband's assassination in 1959, Bandaranaike was soon persuaded by the party leadership during a brief time in opposition to enter politics herself and succeed her husband as chairwoman; she returned her party to the government and defeated prime minister Dudley Senanayake's UNP in the July 1960 election. She was then unseated by Senanayake in the 1965 election and became Leader of the Opposition, before winning a large majority in 1970 due to a cleverly structured election alliance with rival Marxist parties.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Bandaranaike attempted to reform the former British colony of Ceylon into a socialist republic by nationalising organisations in the banking, education, industry, media and trade sectors. Changing the administrative language from English to Sinhala and routinely campaigning on Sinhalese nationalist and anti-Tamil policies, which was political mainstream, she exacerbated discontent among the native Tamil population, and with the estate Tamils, who had become stateless under the Citizenship Act of 1948.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: During Bandaranaike's first two terms as prime minister, the country was plagued by high inflation and taxes, a dependence on food imports to feed the populace, high unemployment, and polarisation between the Sinhalese and Tamil populations because of her Sinhalese nationalist policies. Surviving an attempted coup d'état in 1962, as well as a 1971 insurrection of radical youths, in 1972 she oversaw the drafting of a new constitution and the formation of the Sri Lankan republic, separating it from the British Empire and also extending the parliamentary period until 1977. In 1975, Bandaranaike created what would eventually become the Sri Lankan Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, also appointing the first woman to serve in the Sri Lankan Cabinet aside from herself. Bandaranaike's tenure was marked by inadequate economic development at the national level. She played a large role abroad as a negotiator and a leader among the Non-Aligned Nations.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Losing against J. R. Jayewardene in a colossal landslide in the 1977 election and as the UNP government greatly reduced democratic rights, Bandaranaike was stripped of her civil rights in 1980 for claimed abuses of power during her tenure and barred from government for seven years, making her ineligible for the 1982 presidential election in the new presidential system. The new government initially improved the domestic economy, but failed to address social issues, and led the country into a protracted civil war against Tamil militants, which escalated in brutality over the years, especially when the Indian Peace Keeping Force was allowed to intervene. When she was allowed to return as a public figure in 1986, Bandaranaike opposed the Indian intervention, believing it violated Sri Lankan sovereignty.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Failing to win the office of President against new UNP leader Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1988, she restored her party, which had by now developed more centrist policies and advocated for a reconciliatory approach towards Tamils in the civil war, as a relevant force in the first parliamentary election after 12 years and served a second time as Leader of the Opposition from 1989 to 1994. When her daughter, who succeeded her as party leader, won the 1994 presidential election, Bandaranaike was appointed to her third term as prime minister and served until her retirement in 2000, two months prior to her death.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Bandaranaike was born Sirima Ratwatte on 17 April 1916 at Ellawala Walawwa, her aunt's residence in Ratnapura, in British Ceylon. Her mother was Rosalind Hilda Mahawalatenne Kumarihamy, an informal Ayurvedic physician, and her father was Barnes Ratwatte, a native headman and politician. Her maternal grandfather Mahawalatenne, and later her father, served as Rate Mahatmaya, a native headman, of Balangoda. Her father was a member of the Radala Ratwatte family, chieftains of the Kingdom of Kandy. Her paternal ancestry included her uncle Sir Jayatilaka Cudah Ratwatte, the first person from Kandy to receive a British knighthood, as well as courtiers serving Sinhalese monarchs. One of these, Ratwatte, Dissawa of Matale, was a signatory of the 1815 Kandyan Convention.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Sirima was the eldest in a family of six children. She had four brothers, Barnes Jr., Seevali, Mackie, and Clifford, and one sister, Patricia, who married Colonel Edward James Divitotawela, founder of the Central Command of the Ceylon Army. The family resided at the walawwa, or colonial manor house, of Sirima's maternal grandfather Mahawalatenne, and then later at their own walawwa in Balangoda. From a young age, Sirima had access to her grandfather's vast library of literary and scientific works. She first attended a private kindergarten in Balangoda, moved briefly in 1923 to the primary classes of Ferguson High School in Ratnapura, and was then sent to boarding school at St Bridget's Convent, Colombo. Though her education was in the Catholic school system, Sirima remained a practising Buddhist throughout her life and was fluent in both English and Sinhala.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: After completing her schooling at age 19, Sirima Ratwatte became involved in social work, distributing food and medicine to jungle villages, organising clinics and helping create rural industry to improve the living standards of village women. She became the treasurer of the Social Service League, serving in that capacity until 1940. Over the next six years, she lived with her parents while they arranged her marriage. After rejecting two suitors – a relative, and the son of the first family of Ceylon – Ratwatte's parents were contacted by a matchmaker who proposed a union with Solomon West Ridgeway Dias (S.W.R.D.) Bandaranaike, an Oxford-educated lawyer-turned-politician, who was at the time Minister of Local Administration in the State Council of Ceylon. Initially, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was not considered to be from an "acceptable" family, as the Ratwattes were an aristocratic Kandyan family, which had inherited their service to the traditional royal family, while the Bandaranaikes were a wealthy family from the low-country, which had been in service of the colonial rulers for centuries. Astrologers reported their horoscopes were compatible, the benefits of uniting the families was weighed, and approval was given by the Ratwatte family. The couple, who had previously met, were in agreement with the choice.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: On 2 October 1940, Ratwatte and Bandaranaike married at the Mahawelatenne Walawwa in what was dubbed "the wedding of the century" by the press for its grandeur. The newly married couple moved into "Wendtworth" in Colombo's Guildford Crescent, which they rented from Lionel Wendt. Their daughters, Sunethra (1943) and Chandrika (1945), were born at "Wendtworth" where the family lived until 1946, when S.W.R.D.'s father bought them a mansion known as "Tintagel" at Rosmead Place in Colombo.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: From this point onward, the family lived part of the year at "Tintagel" and part of the year at S.W.R.D.'s ancestral manor, Horagolla Walawwa. A son, Anura was born at "Tintagel" in 1949. Over the next 20 years, Sirima Bandaranaike devoted most of her time to raising her family and playing hostess to her husband's many political acquaintances.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: All three of Bandarnaike's children were educated abroad. Sunetra studied at Oxford, Chandrika at the University of Paris, and Anura at the University of London. All would later return and serve in the Sri Lankan government.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In 1941 Bandaranaike joined the "Lanka Mahila Samiti" (Lankan Women's Association), the country's largest women's voluntary organisation. She participated in many of the social projects initiated by the "Mahila Samiti" for the empowerment of rural women and disaster relief. One of her first projects was an agricultural programme to meet food production shortages. Her first office, as secretary of the organisation, involved meeting with farming experts to develop new methods for producing yields of rice crops. Over time, Bandaranaike served as the treasurer, vice-president, and eventually president of "Mahila Samiti", focusing on issues of girls' education, women's political rights, and family planning. She was also a member of the All Ceylon Buddhist Women's Association, the Cancer Society, the Ceylon National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, and the Nurses Welfare Association.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Bandaranaike often accompanied S.W.R.D. on official trips, both locally and abroad. She and her husband were both present after the psychiatric hospital in Angoda was bombed by the Japanese during the Easter Sunday Raid in 1942, killing many. As Ceylon moved toward self-governing status in 1947, S.W.R.D. became more active in the nationalist movement. He ran for – and was elected to – the House of Representatives from the Attanagalla Electoral District. He was appointed Minister of Health and served as Leader of the House, but became increasingly frustrated with the inner workings and policies of the United National Party. Though he did not encourage Bandaranaike to engage on political topics and was dismissive of her in front of colleagues, S.W.R.D. came to respect her judgment.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In 1951, she persuaded him to resign from the United National Party and establish the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (Freedom Party, aka SLFP). Bandaranaike campaigned in S.W.R.D.'s Attanagalla constituency during the 1952 parliamentary election, while he travelled around the country to garner support. Though the Freedom Party won only nine seats during that election, S.W.R.D. was elected to Parliament and became Leader of the Opposition.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: When fresh elections were called in 1956 by Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala, S.W.R.D. sensed an opportunity and formed the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP), a broad four-party coalition, to contest the 1956 elections. Bandaranaike once again campaigned for her husband in Attanagalla, in her home town of Balangoda, and in Ratnapura for the Freedom Party. The Mahajana Eksath Peramuna won a landslide victory and S.W.R.D. became the Prime Minister.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: While on a state visit to Malaysia on its Independence in 1957, the couple had to cut short their stay when they received news that Bandaranaike's father was gravely ill following a heart attack. He died two weeks after their hasty return.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Bandaranaike was at home in Rosmead Place on the morning of 25 September 1959, when S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was shot multiple times by a Buddhist monk, disgruntled over what he believed to be lack of support for traditional medicine. Bandaranaike accompanied her husband to hospital, where he succumbed to his wounds the following day.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In the political chaos that followed under the caretaker government of Wijeyananda Dahanayake, many cabinet ministers were removed, and some were arrested and tried for the assassination. The Mahajana Eksath Peramuna coalition collapsed without S.W.R.D.'s influence, and elections were called for March 1960 to fill the seat for the Attanagalla constituency. Bandaranaike reluctantly agreed to run as an independent candidate, but before the election could be held, Parliament was dissolved, and she decided not to contest the seat. When the election was held in March 1960, the United National Party won a four-seat majority over the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Dudley Senanayake, the new Prime Minister, was defeated within a month in a vote of confidence and a second general election was called for July 1960.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In May 1960, Bandaranaike was unanimously elected party president by the executive committee of the Freedom Party, although at the time she was still undecided about running in the July election. Disavowing former party ties with Communists and Trotskyists, by early June she was campaigning with promises to carry forward the policies of her husband – in particular, establishing a republic, enacting a law to establish Sinhala as the official language of the country, and recognising the predominance of Buddhism, though tolerating the estate Tamils' use of their own language and Hindu faith.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Though there had been Tamil populations in the country for centuries, the majority of the estate Tamils had been brought to Ceylon from India by the British authorities as plantation workers. Many Ceylonese viewed them as temporary immigrants, even though they had lived for generations in Ceylon. With Ceylon's independence, the Citizenship Act of 1948 excluded these Indian Tamils from citizenship, making them stateless. S.W.R.D.'s policy toward the stateless Tamils had been moderate, granting some citizenship and allowing productive workers to remain. His successor, Dudley Senanayake, was the first to recommend compulsory repatriation for the population. Bandaranaike toured the country and made emotional speeches, frequently bursting into tears as she pledged herself to continue her late husband's policies. Her actions earned her the title "The Weeping Widow" from her opponents.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: On 21 July 1960, following a landslide victory for the Freedom Party, Bandaranaike was sworn in as the first female prime minister in the world, as well as Minister of Defence and External Affairs. As she was not an elected member of parliament at the time, but leader of the party holding the majority in parliament, the constitution required her to become a member of Parliament within three months if she was to continue holding office as Prime Minister. To make a place for her, Manameldura Piyadasa de Zoysa resigned his seat in the Senate. On 5 August 1960, Governor General Goonetilleke appointed Bandaranaike to the Senate of Ceylon, the upper house of Parliament.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Initially, she struggled to navigate the issues facing the country, relying on her cabinet member and nephew, Felix Dias Bandaranaike. Opponents made dismissive comments about her "kitchen cabinet": she would continue to face similar sexism while in office.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: To further her husband's policy of nationalising key sectors of the economy, Bandaranaike established a corporation with public-private shareholders, taking control of seven newspapers. She nationalised banking, foreign trade, and insurance, as well as the petroleum industry. In taking over the Bank of Ceylon and establishing branches of the newly created People's Bank, Bandaranaike aimed to provide services to communities with no previous banking facilities, spurring local business development.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In December 1960, Bandaranaike nationalised all the parochial schools that were receiving state funding. In doing so she curtailed the influence of the Catholic minority, who tended to be members of the economic and political elite, and extended the influence of Buddhist groups.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In January 1961, Bandaranaike implemented a law making Sinhala the official language, replacing English. This action caused wide discontent among the more than two million Tamil-speakers. Urged on by members of the Federal Party, a campaign of civil disobedience began in the provinces with Tamil majorities. Bandaranaike's response was to declare a state of emergency and send in troops to restore peace.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Beginning in 1961, trade unions began a series of strikes in protest of high inflation and taxes. One such strike immobilised the transport system, motivating Bandaranaike to nationalise the transport board.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In January 1962, conflicts erupted between the established elites: the predominantly right-wing Westernized urban Christians – including large contingents of Burghers and Tamils – and the emerging native elite, who were predominantly leftist Sinhala-speaking Buddhists. The changes caused by Bandaranaike's policies created an immediate shift away from the Anglophilic class system, power structures, and governance, significantly influencing the composition of the officer corps of the civil service, armed forces, and the police.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Some military officers plotted a coup d'état, which included plans to detain Bandaranaike and her cabinet members at the Army Headquarters. When the police official Stanley Senanayake was taken into the confidence of the coup leadership, his father-in-law Patrick de Silva Kularatne informed the IGP. Immediately calling all service commanders and junior officers to an emergency meeting at Temple Trees, Felix Dias Bandaranaike and members of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) began questioning the military personnel and uncovered the plot.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Because the coup was aborted before it began, the trial process for the 24 accused conspirators was lengthy and complex. The retroactive "Criminal Law Special Provision Act of 1962", which allowed consideration of hearsay evidence, was passed to aid in the conviction of the plotters. Though rumours circulated against Sir Oliver Goonatillake, the governor general, there was no real evidence against him and therefore no means of prosecuting him. He was neither "removed from office nor did he resign". He agreed to answer questions about his suspected involvement once he was replaced. In February Bandaranaike's uncle, William Gopallawa was appointed Governor General. Goonatillake was escorted to the airport, left Ceylon, and went into voluntary exile.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In an attempt to balance east–west interests and maintain neutrality, Bandaranaike strengthened the country's relationship with China, while eliminating ties with Israel. She worked to maintain good relationships with both India and Russia, while keeping ties to British interests through the export of tea and supporting links with the World Bank. Condemning South Africa's apartheid policy, Bandaranaike appointed ambassadors to and sought relationships with other African nations. In 1961, she attended both the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference in London and the Conference on Non-Aligned Nations in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: She was a key player in reducing tensions between India and China after their 1962 border dispute erupted into the Sino-Indian War. In November and December of that year, Bandaranaike called conferences in Colombo with delegates from Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, Ghana and the United Arab Republic to discuss the dispute. She then travelled with Ghanaian Justice Minister Kofi Ofori-Atta to India and Peking, China in an attempt to broker peace. In January 1963, Bandaranaike and Orofi-Atta were rewarded in New Delhi, when Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian Prime Minister, agreed to make a motion in the Indian Parliament recommending the settlement Bandaranaike had advocated for.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: At home, difficulties were mounting. Despite her success abroad, Bandaranaike was criticised for her ties with China and lack of economic development policies. Tensions were still high over the government's apparent favouritism of Sinhala-speaking Ceylonese Buddhists. The import-export imbalance, compounded by inflation, was impacting the buying power of middle- and lower-class citizens. In the mid-year by-election, although Bandaranaike held a majority, the United National Party made gains, indicating that her support was slipping.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Lack of support for austerity measures, specifically the inability to import adequate rice – the main dietary staple – caused the resignation of Minister Felix Dias Bandaranaike. Other cabinet ministers were reassigned in an attempt to stem the drift toward Soviet trade partnerships, which had gained ground after the creation of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. The Petroleum Corporation had been launched in 1961 to bypass the monopolistic pricing imposed on Middle Eastern oil imports, allowing Ceylon to import oil from the United Arab Republic and the Soviet Union. Some of the storage facilities of western oil operatives were co-opted with a compensation agreement, but continuing disputes over non-payment resulted in suspension of foreign aid from the United States in February 1963. In reaction to the suspension of aid, the Parliament passed the "Ceylon Petroleum Corporation Amendment Act" nationalising all distribution, import-export, sales and supply of most oil products in the country, from January 1964.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Also in 1964, Bandaranaike's government abolished the independent Ceylon Civil Service and replaced it with the Ceylon Administrative Service, which was subject to government influence. When the United Left Front coalition between the Communist, Revolutionary Socialist and Trotskyist Parties was formed in late 1963, Bandaranaike moved left to try to gain their support. In February 1964, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai visited Bandaranaike in Ceylon with offers of aid, gifts of rice and textiles, and discussions to extend trade. The two also discussed the Sino-Indian border dispute and nuclear disarmament. The ties with China were attractive, as Bandaranaike's recent formal recognition of East Germany had eliminated incoming aid from West Germany and her nationalisation of the insurance industry had impacted her relationships with Australia, Britain and Canada.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In preparation for the second Non-Aligned Conference, Bandaranaike hosted presidents Tito and Nasser in Colombo in March 1964, but continued domestic unrest caused her to suspend parliamentary sessions until July. In the interim, she entered into a coalition with the United Left Front and was able to shore up her majority, though only by a margin of three seats.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In September 1964 Bandaranaike led a delegation to India to discuss the repatriation of the 975,000 stateless Tamils residing in Ceylon. Along with Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, she ironed out the terms of the Srimavo-Shastri Pact, a landmark agreement for the foreign policy of both nations. Under the agreement, Ceylon was to grant citizenship to 300,000 of the Tamils and their descendants while India was to repatriate 525,000 stateless Tamils. During the 15 years allotted to complete their obligations, the parties agreed to negotiate terms for the remaining 150,000. In October, Bandaranaike attended and co-sponsored the Non-Aligned Conference held in Cairo.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In December 1964, her United Front government put forward the "Press Take Over Bill" in an attempt to nationalise the country's newspapers. The opposition and Bandaranaike's critiques claimed that the move was to muzzle a free press and strike at her major critic, the Lake House Group led by the press baron Esmond Wickremesinghe. Wickremesinghe responded with a campaign to remove her from office to safeguard the freedom of the press. On 3 December 1964, C. P. de Silva, who was at one time S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike's deputy, led thirteen SLFP parliamentarians and crossed over to the opposition citing the Press Take Over Bill. The government of Sirima Bandaranaike lost the throne speech by one vote and a general election was called for in March 1965. Her political coalition was defeated in the 1965 elections, ending her first term as Prime Minister.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In the 1965 elections, Bandaranaike won a seat in the House of Representatives from the Attanagalla Electoral District. With her party gaining 41 seats, she became the Leader of the Opposition, the first woman ever to hold the post. Dudley Senanayake was sworn in as Prime Minister on 25 March 1965.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Soon after, Bandaranaike's position as a member of parliament was challenged, when allegations were made that she had accepted a bribe, in the form of a car, while in office. A committee was appointed to investigate and she was later cleared of the charge.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: During her five-year term in the opposition, she maintained her alliance with leftist parties. Of the seven by-elections held between November 1966 and April 1967, six were won by the opposition under Bandaranaike's leadership. Continued inflation, trade imbalance, unemployment, and the failure of expected foreign aid to materialise led to widespread discontent. This was further fuelled by austerity measures, which reduced the weekly rice stipend. By 1969, Bandaranaike was actively campaigning to return to power. Among other pledges, she promised to give two measures of rice per household, nationalise foreign banks and the import-export industry, establish watchgroups for monitoring business and government corruption, return to a foreign policy which leaned away from "imperialist" partners, and hold a Constituent Assembly charged with drafting a new Constitution.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Bandaranaike regained power after the United Front coalition between the Communist Party, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and her own Freedom Party won the 1970 elections with a large majority in May 1970. By July, she had convened a Constitutional Assembly to replace the British-drafted constitution with one drafted by the Ceylonese. She introduced policies requiring that permanent secretaries in the government ministries have expertise in their division. For example, those serving in the Ministry of Housing had to be trained engineers, and those serving in the Ministry of Health, medical practitioners. All government employees were allowed to join Workers Councils and at the local level and she established People's Committees to allow input from the population at large on government administration. The changes were intended to remove elements of British colonial and foreign influence from the country's institutions.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Facing budget deficits of $195 million – caused by rising energy and food-importation costs and declining revenue from coconut, rubber and tea exports – Bandaranaike attempted to centralise the economy and implement price controls. Pressed by the leftist members of her coalition to nationalise the foreign banks of British, Indian and Pakistani origin, she realised that doing so would impact the need for credit. As she had in her previous regime, she tried to balance the flow of foreign assistance from both capitalist and communist partners.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In September 1970, Bandaranaike attended the third Non-Aligned Conference in Lusaka, Zambia. That month, she also travelled to Paris and London to discuss international trade. Ordering representatives of The Asia Foundation and the Peace Corps to leave the country, Bandaranaike began re-evaluating trade agreements and proposals that had been negotiated by her predecessor. She announced that her government would not recognise Israel until the country peacefully settled its problem with its Arab neighbours. She officially granted recognition to East Germany, North Korea, North Vietnam, and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Bandaranaike opposed the development of an Anglo-US communications centre in the Indian Ocean, maintaining that the area should be a "neutral, nuclear-free zone". In December, the Business Undertaking Acquisition Act was passed, allowing the state to nationalise any business with more than 100 employees. Ostensibly, the move aimed to reduce foreign control of key tea and rubber production, but it stunted both domestic and foreign investment in industry and development.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Despite Bandaranaike's efforts to address the country's economic problems, unemployment and inflation remained unchecked. After just 16 months in power, Bandaranaike's government was almost toppled by the 1971 Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Insurrection of left-wing youths. Though aware of the militant stance of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front), Bandaranaike's administration initially failed to recognise them as an imminent threat, dismissing them as idealists.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: On 6 March, militants attacked the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, leading to the declaration of a state of emergency on 17 March. In early April, attacks on police stations evidenced a well-planned insurgency which Ceylon's small army was ill-equipped to handle. Calling on its allies for assistance, the government was saved largely because of Bandaranaike's neutral foreign policy. The Soviet Union sent aircraft to support the Ceylonese government; arms and equipment came from Britain, the United Arab Republic, the United States and Yugoslavia; medical supplies were provided by East and West Germany, Norway and Poland; patrol boats were sent from India; and both India and Pakistan sent troops. On 1 May, Bandaranaike suspended government offensives and offered an amnesty, which resulted in thousands of surrenders. The following month a second amnesty was offered. Bandaranaike established a National Committee of Reconstruction to re-establish civil authority and provide a strategic plan for dealing with those captured or surrendered insurgents. One of the Bandaranaike's first actions after the conflict was to expel North Korean diplomats, as she suspected they had fomented the radical discontent. The saying ""She was the only man in her cabinet" –" attributed to her political opponents in the 1960s – resurfaced during the height of the insurgency, as Bandaranaike proved that she had become a "formidable political force".


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In May 1972, Ceylon was replaced by the Republic of Sri Lanka after a new Constitution was ratified. Though the country remained within the Commonwealth of Nations, Queen Elizabeth II was no longer recognised as its sovereign. Under its terms, the Senate, suspended since 1971, was officially abolished and the new unicameral National State Assembly was created, combining the powers of the executive, judicial and legislative branches in one authority.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: The constitution recognised the supremacy of Buddhism, though it guaranteed equal protection to Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. It failed to provide a charter of inalienable rights, recognised Sinhala as the only official language, and contained no "elements of federalism".


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: The new constitution also extended Bandaranaike's term by two years, resetting the mandated five-year term of the Prime Minister to the coincide with the creation of the republic. These limits caused concern for various sectors of the population, specifically those who were uneasy about authoritarian rule, and the Tamil-speaking population. Before the month was out, the discontent escalated before leading to the passage of the Justices Commission Bill, establishing separate tribunals to deal with the imprisoned insurgents from the previous year. Those in opposition to the tribunals argued that they were a violation of the principles of human rights. By July, sporadic incidents of violence were resurfacing, and by the end of the year, a second wave of revolt was anticipated. Widespread unemployment fuelled the public's growing disillusionment with the government, in spite of land redistribution programmes enacted to establish farming cooperatives and limit the size of privately held lands.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In 1972, Bandaranaike introduced major land reforms in Sri Lanka, with the enactment of the "Land Reform Act of No. 01 of 1972" which imposed a ceiling of twenty hectares on privately owned land, this was later followed up by the Land Reform (Amendment) Act in 1975 that nationalized plantations owned by public companies. The objective of these land reforms were to grant lands to landless peasants. Critiques claimed that the second wave of reforms were targeted the wealthy landowners that had traditionally supported the United National Party. As a result of these reforms the state became the largest plantation owner and two entities, the Sri Lanka State Plantations Corporation, the Janatha Estate Development Board (People's Estate Development Board) and the USAWASAMA (Upcountry Cooperative Estate Development Board) were established to manage these estates. In the years following these land reforms, the production of the key export crops which Sri Lanka depended on for the in follow of foreign currency dropped.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: The 1973 oil crisis had a traumatic effect on the Sri Lankan economy. Still dependent on foreign assistance, goods and monetary aid from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Hungary, and the World Bank, Bandaranaike eased the austerity programmes that limited importation of consumer goods. The United States terminated aid grants, which required no repayment, and changed to a policy of providing foreign loans. Devaluation of the Sri Lankan currency, coupled with inflation and high taxes, slowed economic growth, consequently creating cyclical pressure to address deficits with even higher taxes and austerity measures. Uncontrolled inflation between 1973 and 1974 led to economic uncertainty and public dissatisfaction.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In 1974, Bandaranaike forced the shut-down of the last independent newspaper group, "The Sun", believing their criticism was fuelling unrest. Fissures appeared in the United Front coalition, largely resulting from the Lanka Sama Samaja Party's continued influence on trade unions and threats of strike actions throughout 1974 and 1975. When newly confiscated estates were placed under the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, controlled by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, fears that they would unionise plantation workers led Bandaranaike to oust them from the government coalition.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In recognition of International Women's Year in 1975, Bandaranaike created an agency to focus on women's issues, which would later become the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs. She appointed the first woman to serve in the Sri Lankan Cabinet, Siva Obeyesekere, first as First State Secretary for Health and later as Minister of Health. She was feted at the UN World Conference on Women hosted in Mexico City, attending as the only woman Prime Minister elected in her own right. Bandaranaike stepped into the one-year term of chair at the 5th Conference of the Non-Aligned Nations in 1976, hosting the meeting in Colombo.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Despite her high regard internationally, she continued to struggle domestically under allegations of corruption and nepotism, while the economy continued to decline. In their struggle for recognition, discontented Tamils turned to separatism. In May 1976, the Vaddukoddai Resolution was adopted by the Tamil United Liberation Front, calling for independent statehood and sovereign autonomy. In the 1977 general elections, the United Front was soundly defeated, winning only six seats.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Bandaranaike retained her parliamentary seat in Attanagalla in the 1977 general elections. In November 1977, a petition challenging her position as a member of parliament was dismissed by the Colombo High Court. In 1978, a new constitution was ratified, replacing the British-style parliamentary system with a French-style presidential system. Under the constitution, the executive or President, was elected by a vote of the people to serve a six-year term. The president then chose a Prime Minister to preside over the Cabinet, who was confirmed by the legislature. Providing a declaration of fundamental rights, guaranteeing the equality of citizens for the first time, it also recognised Tamil as a national language, though the administrative language remained Sinhala. Though aimed at appeasing Tamil separatists, the provisions did not stop the violence between Tamils and Sinhalese, resulting in the passage of the 1979 Prevention of Terrorism Act.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In 1980, a Special Presidential Commission was appointed by President J. R. Jayawardene to investigate allegations against Bandaranaike for abuses of power during her tenure as Prime Minister. Following the submission of the report to Jayawardene, the United National Party government adopted a motion in parliament on 16 October 1980 to strip Bandaranaike and her nephew, Felix Dias Bandaranaike – who was convicted of corruption – of their civil liberties for a period of seven years. She was expelled from parliament, but maintained her role as party leader. The motion passed by 139 votes in favour and 18 against, easily meeting the required two-thirds threshold.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Despite being its head, Bandaranaike was unable to campaign for the Freedom Party. As a result, her son, Anura served as the parliamentary party leader. Under Anura the Freedom Party moved to the right, and Bandaranaike's daughter, Chandrika, withdrew, forming the Sri Lanka People's Party with her husband, Vijaya Kumaratunga. The goals of the new party were related to rapprochement with the Tamils.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: From 1980, conflict between the government and separatists of various competing groups, including the Tamil Tigers, the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Army, and the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization, became more frequent and increasingly violent. During local election campaigning in 1981, Tamil extremists assassinated Arumugam Thiagarajah, a prominent United National Party politician. The Tamil United Liberation Front Party called for a boycott of the 1982 presidential elections. Insurgents supported the ban, as they contended that co-operation with the government legitimised its policies and conflicted with the desire for attaining an independent Tamil state.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In 1983 insurgent Tamils ambushed an army patrol, killing thirteen soldiers. Retaliatory violence by Sinhalese mobs sparked riots against non-insurgent Tamils and their property throughout the country, later referred to as Black July.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Jayewardene's move towards free markets and a focus on economic growth hurt Tamil farmers in the north by removing trade protections. Similarly, the policies negatively impacted not only southern Sinhalese businesses facing competition from Indian markets, but also the urban poor, whose food subsidies were greatly reduced. Massive government spending for economic development created budget deficits and inflation, alarming the World Bank and International Monetary Fund administrators. In turn, donor agencies reduced aid to persuade the government to control spending. Acceleration of the Mahaweli Development programme increased employment and stabilised the food supply, also reducing dependence on foreign energy supplies with the completion of four hydropower-generating facilities.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: The focus on building the economy and infrastructure failed to address social issues. For example, the rural housing initiative – which built some 100,000 new homes by 1984 – polarised communities because housing was distributed by political alliance rather than need. Privatization of industry, after 1982, created significant gaps between the rich and poor and inflation returned, making goods hard to procure and lowering the standard of living.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In January 1986, Bandaranaike's civil rights were restored by a presidential decree issued by Jayewardene. The conflict between the government and the separatists, which had escalated since 1983, morphed into a Civil War by 1987.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Jayewardene showed little sympathy for the issues of concern to the Tamils and instead blamed the unrest on left-wing factions plotting a government overthrow. Breakdowns in negotiations with the rebels eventually led Jayewardene to authorise the intervention of the Indian Government. Signed in 1987, "The Indo-Sri Lanka Accord" laid out terms of the truce between the Sri Lankan Government and the rebels, authorising the Indian Peace Keeping Force to occupy the country in an attempt to promote disarmament.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Bandaranaike and the Freedom Party opposed the introduction of Indian troops, believing the government had betrayed its own people by allowing India to intervene on behalf of the Tamils. As a reaction to state-sanctioned violence and their desire for nationalist focus, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna militants re-emerged in the south. Against this backdrop, Bandaranaike decided to run in the 1988 presidential election. She was narrowly defeated by Ranasinghe Premadasa, who succeeded Jayewardene as president.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: On 6 February 1989, while campaigning for the Freedom Party in the 1989 general election, Bandaranaike survived a bombing attack. Though she was unscathed, one of her aides suffered leg injuries. In the final results on the 19th, the Freedom Party was defeated by the United National Party under Ranasinghe Premadasa, but gained 67 seats, sufficient for Bandaranaike to take up the post of Leader of the Opposition for a second term. She was successfully re-elected to parliament in the Gampaha Electoral District. The same year, the government crushed the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna rebels, killing some 30,000 to 70,000 of them, rather than opting for trials or imprisonment as Bandaranaike had done in 1971.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In 1990, when the 13-month ceasefire was broken by the Tamil Tigers, after other militias surrendered their weapons, the government decided to break off negotiations with the Tigers and employ a military solution. Anura supported the move, but his mother, Bandaranaike, spoke against the plan. When emergency powers were assumed by the president, she demanded that the state of emergency be lifted, accusing the government of human rights abuses.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: During her tenure as opposition leader, she supported the impeachment of Premadasa in 1991, which was led by senior United National Party members such as Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake. The impeachment failed, as Premadasa adjourned Parliament and the Speaker M. H. Mohamed dismissed the motion for impeachment, stating there were not enough signatures supporting it. Bandaranaike's daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga, who had been living in self-imposed exile in London since 1988, when her husband had been assassinated, returned to Sri Lanka and rejoined the Freedom Party in 1991. In the same year, Bandaranaike, who was increasingly impaired by arthritis, suffered a stroke.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In 1992, Premadasa Udugampola, head of the Bureau of Special Operations, was forced to retire after an international outcry over human rights abuse surfaced. Udugampola provided a written statement that the death squads used against rebels had been backed by the government. Bandaranaike came out in support of his evidence, but Udugampola was charged for cultivating public hostility against the government. When President Premadasa was assassinated by a suicide bomber on 1 May 1993, his Prime Minister Dingiri Banda Wijetunga was sworn as acting president and nominated to complete the president's unexpired term until 2 January 1995. The members of Parliament were required to vote on the succession within a month. Due to her failing health, Bandaranaike chose not to run for the presidency, but to continue as opposition leader, and Wijetunga ran unopposed.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Wijetunga convinced Bandaranaike's son, Anura, to defect to the United National Party and rewarded him with an appointment as Minister of Higher Education. His defection left Bandaranaike and Kumaratunga in charge of the Freedom Party. Due to her mother's declining health, Kumaratunga led the formation of a new coalition, the People's Alliance (PA), to contest the 1993 provincial election in the Western Province of Sri Lanka in May. The alliance won a landslide victory, and Kumaratunga was appointed as the chief minister in 1993. Subsequently, the coalition led by Kumaratunga also won the southern provincial council elections. Kumaratunga led the People's Alliance campaign for the 1994 parliamentary election, as her mother was recovering from surgery. The Alliance won a decisive victory, and Bandaranaike announced that Kumaratunga would become Prime Minister. By this time Kumaratunga had also succeeded her as the leader of the Freedom Party. Mentally alert but suffering from a foot ailment and complications from diabetes, Bandaranaike was confined to a wheelchair. Having been re-elected to parliament, she was appointed to her daughter's cabinet as a Minister without Portfolio at the swearing-in ceremony held on 19 August 1994.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: In the presidential election that followed in November, Kumaratunga's main political rival, Gamini Dissanayake, was assassinated two weeks before the election. His widow, Srima Dissanayake, was chosen as the United National Party's presidential candidate. Kumaratunga's lead was predicted to be around a million votes even before the assassination; she won the election by a wide margin. Becoming the first female President of Sri Lanka, Kumaratunga appointed her mother as prime minister, which under the terms of the 1978 constitution meant Bandaranaike was responsible for defence and foreign affairs. Though the office of prime minister had become mainly a ceremonial post, Bandaranaike's influence in the Freedom Party remained strong. While they agreed on policy, Kumaratunga and Bandaranaike differed on leadership style. By 2000, Kumaratunga wanted a younger prime minister, and Bandaranaike, citing health reasons, stepped down in August 2000.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Bandaranaike died on 10 October 2000 of a heart attack at Kadawatha, as she was heading home to Colombo. She had been casting her vote in the parliamentary election, which had been held that day. Sri Lanka declared two days of national mourning, and state radio stations abandoned their regular programming to play funereal laments. Bandaranaike's remains lay in state in the parliament, and her funeral subsequently took place at Horagolla, where she was interred in the mausoleum, Horagolla Bandaranaike Samadhi, originally built for her husband.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: At a time in history when the idea of a woman leading a country was almost unthinkable to the public, Bandaranaike helped raise the global perception of women's capabilities. In addition to her own contributions to Sri Lanka, her children became involved in the development of the country. All three children held nationally prominent positions; in addition to Anura and Chandrika's roles in government, Bandaranaike's daughter Sunetra worked as her political secretary in the 1970s and later became a philanthropist. The Bandaranaike marriage helped break down social barriers in Sri Lanka over the years, through the Socialist policies they enacted.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: During her three terms in office, Bandaranaike led the country away from its colonial past and into its political independence as a republic. Implementing socialist policies during the Cold War, she attempted to nationalise key sectors of the economy and undertake land reforms to benefit the native population, desiring to end the political favouritism enjoyed by the Western-educated elites. A major goal of her policies was to reduce the ethnic and socio-economic disparities in the country, though her failure to address adequately the needs of the Tamil population led to decades of strife and violence in the country. As one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, Bandaranaike brought Sri Lanka to prominence among the nations which sought to remain neutral to the influence of the superpowers. She worked to forge alliances between the countries in the Global South, and sought to resolve issues diplomatically, opposing nuclear expansion.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: Despite Bandaranaike's notability as the world's first woman prime minister, political scholars have commented that Bandaranaike was symbolically powerful, but ultimately had little impact on women's political representation in Sri Lanka. Although Bandaranaike expressed pride in her status as a woman leader, considering herself a "Mother of the People", she did not place much personal or political emphasis on women's issues, and her election as prime minister did not significantly increase the number of women in Sri Lankan politics. Her appointment of the first woman minister, Siva Obeyesekere, to the Sri Lankan Cabinet in 1976, was less than revolutionary due to the fact that Obeyesekere was a relative of Bandaranaike's. That appointment followed a pattern of Bandaranaike appointing family members to high government positions.


title: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

text: By 1994, even though Bandaranaike and her daughter Kumaratunga held the top political positions of prime minister and president, Sri Lanka continued to have some of the lowest political participation rates for women out of any Asian country. In 2010, on the 50th anniversary of Bandaranaike's election as the world's first female prime minister, Sri Lankan parliamentarian Rosy Senanayake told the press that Sri Lanka had not made significant progress towards gender equality in politics: only 4.5 per cent of parliamentarians were women. Senanayake had earlier called for a "special quota" to achieve better gender representation: such a quota, reserving 25% of all legislative seats for women, was passed in 2016.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: Breakthrough is a 2019 American Christian drama film directed by Roxann Dawson in her feature film directorial debut. The film was written by Grant Nieporte, based on the Christian book, "The Impossible", an account of true events written by Joyce Smith with Ginger Kolbaba. It stars Chrissy Metz, Josh Lucas, Topher Grace, Mike Colter, Marcel Ruiz, Sam Trammel, and Dennis Haysbert with a cameo by Phil Wickham and Lecrae. Stephen Curry and Samuel Rodriguez are executive producers.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: The film tells the story of a St. Louis teenager who slipped through an icy lake on January 19, 2015 and was underwater for 15 minutes before resuscitative efforts were started. Although being rescued, he is in a coma, and his family must rely on their faith to get through the ordeal.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: "Breakthrough" premiered in St. Louis on March 20, 2019, and was released in the United States on April 17, 2019, by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through their 20th Century Fox label. It is the studio's first feature film after the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the performances and inspirational messages but called the plot predictable. The film garnered a nomination at the 92nd Academy Awards for Best Original Song.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: John Smith (Ruiz) is a 14-year-old Guatemalan boy raised in Lake St. Louis, Missouri by his adoptive parents, Brian (Lucas) and Joyce Smith (Metz). Though they are loving and supportive, John struggles with feelings of abandonment from his birth parents, and rebels against his parents and teachers.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: In school, John's class is assigned to give a presentation about their family backgrounds. On his day to present, John admits he did not do the assignment. His basketball coach, who had promised him a starting position, warns John that if he gets a failing grade, he will be benched. John later gives a half-hearted presentation, saying that everyone already knows he is adopted and he does not know much about his true background.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: Later, John and his friends Josh and Reiger go out onto a frozen lake, ignoring a neighbor's warning. The resident calls the police, and all three boys fall through the ice. Josh and Reiger manage to swim to the surface and are swiftly rescued by first responders. Two of the rescuers dive in, but are unable to find John. As they are about to give up, one of the rescuers, Tommy Shine (Colter), hears a voice telling him to "go back". Thinking it is his chief, he tries again, and manages to lift John to the surface.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: With no pulse or breath, John is taken to the local hospital where an emergency team works frantically to save his life. After John still fails to register a pulse, the attending physician Dr. Sutterer gives Joyce a chance to say goodbye. A weeping Joyce cradles her son in her arms, pleading with the Holy Spirit to not let John die, at which point a faint pulse registers. Sutterer recommends transferring John to a better equipped hospital, citing Dr. Garrett (Haysbert) as an expert in cases like John's.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: After John is transferred and placed in a medically-induced coma, Garrett warns his parents that he has little hope for John's recovery, and that if John were to pull through, he would likely live in a persistent vegetative state. Jason Noble (Grace), the family's new liberal pastor with whom Joyce has frequently clashed, visits the hospital and Joyce slowly warms to him. Like Joyce, he regards John's progress as divine intervention. John shows some signs of consciousness: he is able to hear Joyce and Noble and to respond with squeezes to the hand, and a tear trickles from his eye as a crowd gathers outside the hospital to sing and to pray for his recovery.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: Joyce turns John's possible recovery into an obsession, harassing his health care professionals and alienating those around her, including her husband. In a heated moment, Joyce tells Brian that if not for her, John would be dead. After a brief and hurtful rebuttal, Brian storms off. Realizing she cannot control John's outcome, Joyce retreats to the roof of the hospital to pray, asking God for forgiveness and submitting to His will. It begins to snow, which she believes is an answer. She and Brian meet with Garrett, who tells them that the drugs they have been administering are becoming toxic to John's system and may be doing more harm than good. Joyce, who had been adamant about saving John's life at all costs, suggests stopping treatment and bringing him out of the coma, stating that she is ready for whatever fate brings. Garrett agrees.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: John is revived and slowly regains consciousness, reliving his accident. He hears his mother's voice and opens his eyes, with full cognitive ability. A few days later he is discharged from the hospital, returning home and then back to school.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: John's return though welcomed by many, is met with some resentment by others, who question why John's life was spared while their own loved ones died. This weighs on John's mind, he returns to the lake. There he sees Tommy Shine, and thanks him for saving his life. Tommy admits that he did not believe in God until after a series of protracted events since John's accident, and all he did was pull John from the water.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: John reconciles his survival with a renewed sense of purpose in his life and rebuilds his relationships with those he had been alienating. An epilogue reveals that John is pursuing a career in ministry after graduating from high school.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: Producer DeVon Franklin helped the Smith family find a literary agent and then develop the book in a film after it was published. The movie was filmed in Manitoba from March to May 2018. Locations for the 31-day shoot included Winnipeg, Selkirk, and Portage la Prairie.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: An official trailer for the film was released on December 5, 2018 and received more than 30 million views within two days, becoming the most-viewed trailer for a religious film within that timespan.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: Metz performed "I'm Standing With You" from the film's soundtrack at the 54th Academy of Country Music Awards alongside Carrie Underwood, Lauren Alaina, Maddie & Tae and Mickey Guyton.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: "Breakthrough" was released in the United States by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (through their subsidiary 20th Century Fox) on April 17, 2019; it is also the first film from Fox under the ownership of The Walt Disney Company after its acquisition of 21st Century Fox on March 20, 2019. The Easter weekend it was released had the lowest box office receipts since 2005, because studios chose to avoid any major release during that period so as not to compete with Disney's release of "" the following weekend.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: The film was released on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment which became the label of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on July 16, 2019.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: "Breakthrough" grossed $40.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $9.7 million in other territories (including $5.9 million in Brazil), for a worldwide total of $50.4 million.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside "Penguins", and was projected to gross $13–17 million from 2,300 theaters in its five-day opening weekend. The film made $1.9 million on its first day and $1.5 million on its second. It went on to debut to $11.3 million (a five-day total of $14.6 million), finishing third behind "The Curse of La Llorona" and "Shazam!". In its second weekend the film fell 39% to $6.8 million, finishing fourth.


title: Breakthrough (2019 film)

text: According to the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 62% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 65 reviews; the average rating is 5.60/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Like its lead character, "Breakthrough" is fiercely focused on faith – but its less subtle elements are balanced by strong performances and an uplifting story." At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars and a "definite recommend" of 69%.


title: Victorian architecture

text: Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. "Victorian" refers to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), called the Victorian era, during which period the styles known as Victorian were used in construction. However, many elements of what is typically termed "Victorian" architecture did not become popular until later in Victoria's reign, roughly from 1850 and later. The styles often included interpretations and eclectic revivals of historic styles "(see Historicism)". The name represents the British and French custom of naming architectural styles for a reigning monarch. Within this naming and classification scheme, it followed Georgian architecture and later Regency architecture, and was succeeded by Edwardian architecture.


title: Victorian architecture

text: Although Victoria did not reign over the United States, the term is often used for American styles and buildings from the same period, as well as those from the British Empire.


title: Victorian architecture

text: During the early 19th century, the romantic medieval Gothic Revival style was developed as a reaction to the symmetry of Palladianism, and such buildings as Fonthill Abbey were built.


title: Victorian architecture

text: By the middle of the 19th century, as a result of new technology, construction was able to incorporate metal materials as building components. Structures were erected with cast iron and wrought iron frames. However, due to being weak in tension, these materials were effectively phased out in place for more structurally sound steel. One of the greatest exponents of iron frame construction was Joseph Paxton, architect of the Crystal Palace. Paxton also continued to build such houses as Mentmore Towers, in the still popular English Renaissance styles. New methods of construction were developed in this era of prosperity, but ironically the architectural styles, as developed by such architects as Augustus Pugin, were typically retrospective.


title: Victorian architecture

text: In Scotland, the architect Alexander Thomson who practised in Glasgow was a pioneer of the use of cast iron and steel for commercial buildings, blending neo-classical conventionality with Egyptian and Oriental themes to produce many truly original structures. Other notable Scottish architects of this period are Archibald Simpson and Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, whose stylistically varied work can be seen in the architecture of Aberdeen.


title: Victorian architecture

text: While Scottish architects pioneered this style it soon spread right across the United Kingdom and remained popular for another forty years. Its architectural value in preserving and reinventing the past is significant. Its influences were diverse but the Scottish architects who practiced it were inspired by unique ways to blend architecture, purpose, and everyday life in a meaningful way.


title: Victorian architecture

text: Some styles, while not uniquely Victorian, are strongly associated with the 19th century owing to the large number of examples that were erected during that period:


title: Victorian architecture

text: During the 18th century, a few English architects emigrated to the colonies, but as the British Empire became firmly established during the 19th century, many architects emigrated at the start of their careers. Some chose the United States, and others went to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Normally, they applied architectural styles that were fashionable when they left England. By the latter half of the century, however, improving transport and communications meant that even remote parts of the Empire had access to publications such as the magazine "The Builder", which helped colonial architects keep informed about current fashion. Thus, the influence of English architecture spread across the world. Several prominent architects produced English-derived designs around the world, including William Butterfield (St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide) and Jacob Wrey Mould (Chief Architect of Public Works in New York City).


title: Victorian architecture

text: The Victorian period flourished in Australia and is generally recognised as being from 1840 to 1890, which saw a gold rush and population boom during the 1880s in the states of Victoria and New South Wales. There were fifteen styles that predominated:


title: Victorian architecture

text: The Arts and Crafts style and Queen Anne style are considered to be part of the Federation Period, from 1890 to 1915.


title: Victorian architecture

text: Western influence in architecture was strong when Hong Kong was a British colony. Victorian architecture in Hong Kong:


title: Victorian architecture

text: Georgian architecture is more prominent in Ireland than Victorian architecture. The cities of Dublin, Limerick, and Cork are famously dominated by Georgian squares and terraces. Though Victorian architecture flourished in certain quarters. Particularly around Dublin's Wicklow Street and Upper Baggot Street and in the suburbs of Rathmines, Ranelagh, Rathgar, Rathfarnham, and Terenure. The colourful Italianate buildings of Cobh are excellent examples of the regional Victorian style in Ireland. Further examples of Victorian architecture in the country include Dublin's George's Street Arcade, the Royal City of Dublin Hospital on Baggot Street and the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital on Adelaide Road.


title: Victorian architecture

text: In the United States, 'Victorian' architecture generally describes styles that were most popular between 1860 and 1900. A list of these styles most commonly includes Second Empire (1855–85), Stick-Eastlake (1860–ca. 1890), Folk Victorian (1870–1910), Queen Anne (1880–1910), Richardsonian Romanesque (1880–1900), and Shingle (1880–1900). As in the United Kingdom, examples of Gothic Revival and Italianate continued to be constructed during this period, and are therefore sometimes called Victorian. Some historians classify the later years of Gothic Revival as a distinctive Victorian style named High Victorian Gothic. Stick-Eastlake, a manner of geometric, machine-cut decorating derived from Stick and Queen Anne, is sometimes considered a distinct style. On the other hand, terms such as "Painted Ladies" or "gingerbread" may be used to describe certain Victorian buildings, but do not constitute a specific style. The names of architectural styles (as well as their adaptations) varied between countries. Many homes combined the elements of several different styles and are not easily distinguishable as one particular style or another.


title: Victorian architecture

text: Notable Victorian-inspired cities during this era include Alameda, Astoria, Albany, Deal, Troy, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, the Brooklyn Heights and Victorian Flatbush sections of New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Eureka, Galena, Galveston, Grand Rapids, Baltimore, Jersey City/Hoboken, Cape May, Louisville, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Saint Paul, San Francisco and Midtown in Sacramento. Los Angeles grew from a Pueblo (village) into a Victorian Downtown – now almost entirely demolished but with residential remnants in its Angelino Heights and Westlake neighborhoods. San Francisco is particularly well-known for its extensive Victorian architecture, especially in the Haight-Ashbury, Lower Haight, Alamo Square, Western Addition, Mission, Duboce Triangle, Noe Valley, Castro, Nob Hill, and Pacific Heights neighborhoods.


title: Victorian architecture

text: The extent to which any one is the "largest surviving example" is debated, with numerous qualifications. The Distillery District in Toronto, Ontario contains the largest and best preserved collection of Victorian-era industrial architecture in North America. Cabbagetown is the largest and most continuous Victorian residential area in North America. Other Toronto Victorian neighbourhoods include The Annex, Parkdale, and Rosedale. In the US, the South End of Boston is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as the oldest and largest Victorian neighborhood in the country. Old Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, also claims to be the nation's largest Victorian neighborhood. Richmond, Virginia is home to several large Victorian neighborhoods, the most prominent being The Fan. The Fan district is best known locally as Richmond's largest and most 'European' of Richmond's neighborhoods and nationally as the largest contiguous Victorian neighborhood in the United States. The Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio is recognized as the largest collection of late Victorian and Edwardian homes in the United States, east of the Mississippi. Summit Avenue in Saint Paul, Minnesota, has the longest line of Victorian homes in the country. Over-The-Rhine in Cincinnati, Ohio, has the largest collection of early Victorian Italianate architecture in the United States, and is an example of an intact 19th-century urban neighborhood. According to National Register of Historic Places, Cape May Historic District has one of the largest collections of late 19th century frame buildings left in the United States.


title: Victorian architecture

text: The photo album "L'Architecture Americaine" by Albert Levy published in 1886 is perhaps the first recognition in Europe of the new forces emerging in North American architecture.


title: Victorian architecture

text: Canada's chief dominion architects designed numerous federal buildings over the course of the Victorian era. Thomas Fuller's completion of the Canadian Parliament Buildings in 1866, in particular, established a High Victorian Gothic influence over Canadian architectural design for several consecutive decades, producing many public buildings, churches, residences, industrial buildings, and hotels.


title: Victorian architecture

text: Because India was a colony of Britain, Victorian Architecture is prevalent in India, Especially in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, In Mumbai (Formerly called Bombay) buildings like Municipal Corporation Building, Bombay University, Bombay High Court, Asiatic Society of Mumbai Building (Former Town Hall) and the David Sasoon Library are some example of Victorian Architecture in Mumbai. In Kolkata (Formerly called Calcutta) buildings like the Victoria Memorial, Calcutta High Court, St Paul's Cathedral, The Asiatic Society of Bengal are some examples of Victorian Architecture in Kolkata. In Chennai (Formerly called Madras) some examples include Madras High court, State Bank of Madras and St. Mary’s Church.


title: Victorian architecture

text: Efforts to preserve landmarks of Victorian architecture are ongoing and are often led by the Victorian Society. A recent campaign the group has taken on is the preservation of Victorian gasometers after utility companies announced plans to demolish nearly 200 of the now-outdated structures.


title: John Brzenk

text: John Brzenk (born July 15, 1964) is a professional armwrestler from the United States. One of the most decorated wrestlers in the sport, Brzenk and was named in the 2000 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, as the "Most Successful Arm Wrestler" at that time and lauded at the World Wristwrestling Championship in 1998 as "the greatest arm wrestler in the history of the sport".


title: John Brzenk

text: John Brzenk's father, John Brzenk Sr., was an arm wrestler, and Brzenk says he gained some of his forearm size through genetics. John started his amateur career in the classroom, where he arm wrestled students across tables for five years. When he was in eighth grade, he broke his arm while armwrestling his father's friend, and has stated that this breakage increased his tendon strength significantly. Over the years, Brzenk has often been called "The Giant Crusher", "Superman", or the "Perfect Storm" for his ability to pin opponents twice his size.


title: John Brzenk

text: Brzenk started his professional career in 1982, at the age of 18, where he won his first world title on ABC's 1983 Wide World of Sports. John has only lost a single supermatch, and only a handful of people have ever beaten him in tournaments. Most of these losses occurred later in his career when he was of advanced age. Two of his most prominent losses were to Devon Larratt and Alexey Voyevoda, both of whom are considered legendary arm wrestlers. Aside from arm wrestling, John works as a mechanic at Delta Air Lines. He says the job is non-physical so his arms get plenty of rest. During his career he has competed for upwards of USD$80 000.


title: John Brzenk

text: Brzenk has won championships in a number of different weight classes, including four world championships in the heavyweight division, and the middleweight world championship. He also had an uncredited cameo in the 1987 Sylvester Stallone film "Over the Top", and was the subject of the feature documentary "Pulling John", directed by Vassiliki Khonsari and Sevan Matossian. The documentary chronicles Brzenk's legendary armwrestling career by following him intimately for 4 years, in which John competes in global tournaments and ponders retiring from the sport he loves.


title: John Brzenk

text: On February 10th, 2022, after a six year retirement, John Brzenk beat Khadzimurat Zoloev at the age of 57, to once again reclaim the world’s top ranking in the 225 pound division.


title: John Brzenk

text: On August 6, 2022, at the fourth installment of international arm wrestling tournament East vs West, John Brzenk was defeated in a right-handed supermatch with Kazakhstan armwrestler Kydyrgali Ongarbaev. November 19th of the same year, in the next installment of East vs West, Brzenk would defeat Oleg Petrenko in a right-handed supermatch in dominant fashion, 3-0.


title: Television set

text: A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using it as a computer monitor. Introduced in the late 1920s in mechanical form, television sets became a popular consumer product after World War II in electronic form, using cathode ray tube (CRT) technology. The addition of color to broadcast television after 1953 further increased the popularity of television sets in the 1960s, and an outdoor antenna became a common feature of suburban homes. The ubiquitous television set became the display device for the first recorded media in the 1970s, such as , VHS and later DVD. It has been used as a display device since the first generation of (e.g. Timex Sinclair 1000) and dedicated video game consoles (e.g. Atari) in the 1980s. By the early 2010s, flat-panel television incorporating liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology, especially LED-backlit LCD technology, largely replaced CRT and other display technologies. Modern flat panel TVs are typically capable of high-definition display (720p, 1080i, 1080p, 4K, 8K) and can also play content from a USB device. Starting in the late 2010s, most flat panel TVs began to offer 4K and 8K resolutions.


title: Television set

text: Mechanical televisions were commercially sold from 1928 to 1934 in the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The earliest commercially made televisions were radios with the addition of a television device consisting of a neon tube behind a mechanically spinning disk with a spiral of apertures that produced a red postage-stamp size image, enlarged to twice that size by a magnifying glass. The Baird "Televisor" (sold in 1930–1933 in the UK) is considered the first mass-produced television, selling about a thousand units.


title: Television set

text: In 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated the first TV system that employed a cathode ray tube (CRT) display, at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan. This was the first working example of a fully electronic television receiver. His research toward creating a production model was halted by the US after Japan lost World War II.


title: Television set

text: The first commercially made electronic televisions with cathode ray tubes were manufactured by Telefunken in Germany in 1934, followed by other makers in France (1936), Britain (1936), and USA (1938). The cheapest model with a 12-inch (30 cm) screen was $445 (). An estimated 19,000 electronic televisions were manufactured in Britain, and about 1,600 in Germany, before World War II. About 7,000–8,000 electronic sets were made in the U.S. before the War Production Board halted manufacture in April 1942, production resuming in August 1945. Television usage in the western world skyrocketed after World War II with the lifting of the manufacturing freeze, war-related technological advances, the drop in television prices caused by mass production, increased leisure time, and additional disposable income. While only 0.5% of U.S. households had a television in 1946, 55.7% had one in 1954, and 90% by 1962. In Britain, there were 15,000 television households in 1947, 1.4 million in 1952, and 15.1 million by 1968.


title: Television set

text: Early electronic television sets were large and bulky, with analog circuits made of vacuum tubes. As an example, the RCA CT-100 color TV set used 36 vacuum tubes. Following the invention of the first working transistor at Bell Labs, Sony founder Masaru Ibuka predicted in 1952 that the transition to electronic circuits made of transistors would lead to smaller and more portable television sets. The first fully transistorized, portable solid-state television set was the 8-inch Sony TV8-301, developed in 1959 and released in 1960. However, the first fully transistorized color TV set, the HMV Colourmaster Model 2700, was released in 1967 by the British Radio Corporation. This began the transformation of television viewership from a communal viewing experience to a solitary viewing experience. By 1960, Sony had sold over 4million portable television sets worldwide.


title: Television set

text: The MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959, and presented in 1960. RCA Laboratories researchers W.M. Austin, J.A. Dean, D.M. Griswold and O.P. Hart in 1966 proposed the use of the MOSFET in television circuits, including RF amplifier, low-level video, chroma and AGC circuits. The MOSFET was later widely adopted for most television circuits.


title: Television set

text: By the late 1960s and early 1970s, color television had come into wide use. In Britain, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV were regularly broadcasting in colour by 1969.


title: Television set

text: Building on the work of Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng on the MOSFET, Paul K. Weimer at RCA developed the thin-film transistor (TFT) in 1962. It was a type of MOSFET distinct from the standard bulk MOSFET. The idea of a TFT-based liquid-crystal display (LCD) was conceived by Bernard Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968. Lechner, F. J. Marlowe, E. O. Nester and J. Tults demonstrated the concept in 1968 with a dynamic scattering LCD that used standard discrete MOSFETs.


title: Television set

text: In 1973, T. Peter Brody, J. A. Asars and G. D. Dixon at Westinghouse Research Laboratories demonstrated the first thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD). Brody and Fang-Chen Luo demonstrated the first flat active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) in 1974.


title: Television set

text: By 1982, pocket LCD TVs based on AM LCD technology were developed in Japan. The 2.1-inch Epson ET-10 (Epson Elf) was the first color LCD pocket TV, released in 1984. In 1988, a Sharp research team led by engineer T. Nagayasu demonstrated a 14-inch full-color LCD display, which convinced the electronics industry that LCD would eventually replace cathode-ray tube (CRT) as the standard television display technology.


title: Television set

text: During the first decade of the 21st century, CRT "picture tube" display technology was almost entirely supplanted worldwide by flat-panel displays. By the early 2010s, LCD TVs, which increasingly used LED-backlit LCDs, accounted for the overwhelming majority of television sets being manufactured.


title: Television set

text: Cambridge's Clive Sinclair created a mini TV in 1967 which could be held in the palm of your hand and was the world's smallest television at the time, though it never took off commercially because the design was complex. In 2019, Samsung launched the largest television to date at 292 inches, which is around 24 feet. The average size of TVs has grown over time.


title: Television set

text: Television sets may employ one of several available display technologies. As of mid-2019, LCDs overwhelmingly predominate in new merchandise, but OLED displays are claiming an increasing market share as they become more affordable and DLP technology continues to offer some advantages in projection systems. The production of plasma and CRT displays has been completely discontinued.


title: Television set

text: The cathode ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing a so-called electron gun (or three for a color television) and a fluorescent screen where the television image is displayed. The electron gun accelerates electrons in a beam which is deflected in both the vertical and horizontal directions using varying electric or (usually, in television sets) magnetic fields, in order to scan a raster image onto the fluorescent screen. The CRT requires an evacuated glass envelope, which is rather deep (well over half of the screen size), fairly heavy, and breakable. As a matter of radiation safety, both the face (panel) and back (funnel) were made of thick lead glass in order to reduce human exposure to harmful ionizing radiation (in the form of x-rays) produced when electrons accelerated using a high voltage (10-30kV) strike the screen. By the early 1970s, most color TVs replaced leaded glass in the face panel with vitrified strontium oxide glass, which also blocked x-ray emissions but allowed better color visibility. This also eliminated the need for cadmium phosphors in earlier color televisions. Leaded glass, which is less expensive, continued to be used in the funnel glass, which is not visible to the consumer.


title: Television set

text: In television sets (or most computer monitors that used CRT's), the entire screen area is scanned repetitively (completing a full frame 25 or 30 times a second) in a fixed pattern called a raster. The image information is received in real-time from a video signal which controls the electrical current supplying the electron gun, or in color television each of the three electron guns whose beams land on phosphors of the three primary colors (red, green, and blue). Except in the very early days of television, "magnetic deflection" has been used to scan the image onto the face of the CRT; this involves a varying current applied to both the vertical and horizontal deflection coils placed around the neck of the tube just beyond the electron gun(s).


title: Television set

text: Digital Light Processing (DLP) is a type of video projector technology that uses a digital micromirror device. Some DLPs have a TV tuner, which makes them a type of TV display. It was originally developed in 1987 by Larry Hornbeck of Texas Instruments. While the DLP imaging device was invented by Texas Instruments, the first DLP based projector was introduced by Digital Projection Ltd in 1997. Digital Projection and Texas Instruments were both awarded Emmy Awards in 1998 for the DLP projector technology. DLP is used in a variety of display applications from traditional static displays to interactive displays and also non-traditional embedded applications including medical, security, and industrial uses.


title: Television set

text: DLP technology is used in DLP front projectors (standalone projection units for classrooms and business primarily), DLP rear projection television sets, and digital signs. It is also used in about 85% of digital cinema projection, and in additive manufacturing as a power source in some SLA 3D printers to cure resins into solid 3D objects.


title: Television set

text: Rear-projection televisions (RPTVs) became very popular in the early days of television, when the ability to practically produce tubes with a large display size did not exist. In 1936, for a tube capable of being mounted horizontally in the television cabinet, nine inches would have been regarded as the largest convenient size that could be made owing to its required length, due to the low deflection angles of CRTs produced in the era, which meant that CRTs with large front sizes would have also needed to be very deep, which caused such CRTs to be installed at an angle to reduce the cabinet depth of the TV set. Twelve inch tubes and TV sets were available, but the tubes were so long (deep) that they were mounted vertically and viewed via a mirror in the top of the TV set cabinet which was usually mounted under a hinged lid, reducing considerably the depth of the set but making it taller. These mirror lid televisions were large pieces of furniture.


title: Television set

text: As a solution, Philips introduced a television set in 1937 that relied on back projecting an image from a inch tube onto a 25-inch screen. This required the tube to be driven very hard (at unusually high voltages and currents, see Cathode-ray tube#Projection CRTs) to produce an extremely bright image on its fluorescent screen. Further, Philips decided to use a green phosphor on the tube face as it was brighter than the white phosphors of the day. In fact these early tubes were not up to the job and by November of that year Philips decided that it was cheaper to buy the sets back than to provide replacement tubes under warranty every couple of weeks or so. Substantial improvements were very quickly made to these small tubes and a more satisfactory tube design was available the following year helped by Philips's decision to use a smaller screen size of 23 inches. In 1950 a more efficient inch tube with vastly improved technology and more efficient white phosphor, along with smaller and less demanding screen sizes, was able to provide an acceptable image, though the life of the tubes was still shorter than contemporary direct view tubes. As cathode ray tube technology improved during the 1950s, producing larger and larger screen sizes and later on, (more or less) rectangular tubes, the rear projection system was obsolete before the end of the decade.


title: Television set

text: However, in the early to mid 2000s RPTV systems made a comeback as a cheaper alternative to contemporary LCD and Plasma TVs. They were larger and lighter than contemporary CRT TVs and had a flat screen just like LCD and Plasma, but unlike LCD and Plasma, RPTVs were often dimmer, had lower contrast ratios and viewing angles, image quality was affected by room lighting and suffered when compared with direct view CRTs, and were still bulky like CRTs. These TVs worked by having a DLP, LCoS or LCD projector at the bottom of the unit, and using a mirror to project the image onto a screen. The screen may be a fresnel lens to increase brightness at the cost of viewing angles. Some early units used CRT projectors and were heavy, weighing up to 500 pounds. Most RPTVs used Ultra-high-performance lamps as their light source, which required periodic replacement partly because they dimmed with use but mainly because the operating bulb glass became weaker with ageing to the point where the bulb could eventually shatter often damaging the projection system. Those that used CRTs and lasers did not require replacement.


title: Television set

text: A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display common to large TV displays or larger. They are called "plasma" displays because the technology utilizes small cells containing electrically charged ionized gases, or what are in essence chambers more commonly known as fluorescent lamps. Around 2014, television manufacturers were largely phasing out plasma TVs, because a plasma TV became higher cost and more difficult to make in 4k compared to LED or LCD.


title: Television set

text: Liquid-crystal-display televisions (LCD TV) are television sets that use Liquid-crystal displays to produce images. LCD televisions are much thinner and lighter than cathode ray tube (CRTs) of similar display size and are available in much larger sizes (e.g., 90-inch diagonal). When manufacturing costs fell, this combination of features made LCDs practical for television receivers.


title: Television set

text: In 2007, LCD televisions surpassed sales of CRT-based televisions globally for the first time, and their sales figures relative to other technologies accelerated. LCD TVs quickly displaced the only major competitors in the large-screen market, the plasma display panel and rear-projection television. In the mid-2010s LCDs became, by far, the most widely produced and sold television display type.


title: Television set

text: LCDs also have disadvantages. Other technologies address these weaknesses, including OLEDs, FED and SED.


title: Television set

text: An OLED (organic light-emitting diode) is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound which emits light in response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor is situated between two electrodes. Generally, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices such as television screens. It is also used for computer monitors, portable systems such as mobile phones, handheld game consoles and PDAs.


title: Television set

text: There are two main families of OLED: those based on small molecules and those employing polymers. Adding mobile ions to an OLED creates a light-emitting electrochemical cell or LEC, which has a slightly different mode of operation. OLED displays can use either passive-matrix (PMOLED) or active-matrix addressing schemes. Active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLED) require a thin-film transistor backplane to switch each individual pixel on or off, but allow for higher resolution and larger display sizes.


title: Television set

text: An OLED display works without a backlight. Thus, it can display deep black levels and can be thinner and lighter than a liquid crystal display (LCD). In low ambient light conditions such as a dark room, an OLED screen can achieve a higher contrast ratio than an LCD, whether the LCD uses cold cathode fluorescent lamps or LED backlight.


title: Television set

text: While most televisions are designed for consumers in the household, there are several markets that demand variations including hospitality, healthcare, and other commercial settings.


title: Television set

text: Televisions made for the hospitality industry are part of an establishment's internal television system designed to be used by its guests. Therefore, settings menus are hidden and locked by a password. Other common software features include volume limiting, customizable power-on splash image, and channel hiding. These TVs are typically controlled by a set-back box using one of the data ports on the rear of the TV. The set back box may offer channel lists, pay per view, video on demand, and casting from a smart phone or tablet.