title: Taranto

text: Taranto (, ; ; ; Latin: Tarentum; Old Italian: "Tarento"; Ancient Greek: Τάρᾱς) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto, serving as an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base.


title: Taranto

text: Founded by Spartans in the 8th century BC during the period of Greek colonisation, Taranto was among the most important in Magna Graecia, becoming a cultural, economic and military power that gave birth to philosophers, strategists, writers and athletes such as Archytas, Aristoxenus, Livius Andronicus, Heracleides, Iccus, Cleinias, Leonidas, Lysis and Sosibius. By 500 BC, the city was among the largest in the world, with a population estimated up to 300,000 people. The seven-year rule of Archytas marked the apex of its development and recognition of its hegemony over other Greek colonies of southern Italy.


title: Taranto

text: During the Norman period, it became the capital of the Principality of Taranto, which covered almost all of the heel of Apulia.


title: Taranto

text: Taranto is now the third-largest continental city in southern Italy (south of Rome, roughly the southern half of the Italian peninsula), with well-developed steel and iron foundries, oil refineries, chemical works, naval shipyards and food-processing factories. Taranto will host the 2026 Mediterranean Games.


title: Taranto

text: Taranto's pre-history dates back to 706 BC when it was founded as a Greek colony, established by the Spartans. The ancient city was situated on a peninsula; the modern city has been built over the ancient Greek city of which only a few ruins remain, including part of the city wall, two temple columns dating to the 6th century BC, and tombs.


title: Taranto

text: The Greek colonists from Sparta called the city Taras (; "Tarantos") after the mythical hero Taras, while the Romans, who connected the city to Rome with an extension of the Appian way, called it Tarentum.


title: Taranto

text: The islets of "S. Pietro" and "S. Paolo" (St. Peter and St. Paul), collectively known as Cheradi Islands, protect the bay, called "Mar Grande" ("Big Sea"), where the commercial port is located. Taranto is known for the large population of dolphins and other cetaceans living near these islands. Another bay, called "Mar Piccolo" ("Little Sea"), is formed by the peninsula of the old city and has flourishing fishing.


title: Taranto

text: At the end of the 19th century, a channel was excavated to allow naval ships to enter the "Mar Piccolo" harbour, and the ancient Greek city become an island connected to the mainland by bridges. The islets and the coast are strongly fortified and "Mar Piccolo" is a naval port with strategic importance. Because of the presence of these two bays, Taranto is also called "the city of the two seas".


title: Taranto

text: The natural harbor at Taranto made it a logical home port for the Italian naval fleet before and during the First World War. During World War II, Taranto became famous for a November 1940 British air attack on the Regia Marina naval base stationed here, which today is called the Battle of Taranto.


title: Taranto

text: The city's name is the origin of the common name "tarantula", originating from the terms tarantella, tarantism and tarantula — although no spider species of the family Theraphosidae inhabit the area. In ancient times, residents of Taranto bitten by the large local Wolf Spider, "Lycosa tarentula", would promptly do a long vigorous dance like a jig, in order to sweat the venom out of their pores — even though the wolf spider's venom is not fatal to humans. The frenetic dance became known as the Tarantella.


title: Taranto

text: Taranto faces the Ionian Sea. It is above sea level. It was built on a plain running north/north-west–southeast, and surrounded by the Murgia plateau from the north-west to the east. Its territory extends for and is mostly underwater. It is characterised by three natural peninsulas and a man-made island, formed by digging a ditch during the construction of Aragon Castle. The city is known as the "city of two seas" because it is washed by the Big Sea in the bay between Punta Rondinella to the northwest and Capo San Dante to the south, and by the vast reservoir of the Little Sea.


title: Taranto

text: The Big Sea is frequently known as the "Big Sea bay" as that is where ships harbour. It is separated from the Little Sea by a cape which closes the gulf, leading to the artificial island. This island formed the heart of the original city and it is connected to the mainland by the Ponte di Porta Napoli and the Ponte Girevole. The Big Sea is separated from the Ionian Sea by the Capo San Vito, the Isole Cheradi of St Peter and St Paul, and the three islands of San Nicolicchio, which are completely incorporated by the ILVA steelworks. The latter form a little archipelago which closes off the arc creating the natural Big Sea bay.


title: Taranto

text: The Little Sea is considered to be a lagoon so it presents problems of water exchange. It is virtually divided into two by the Ponte Punta Penna Pizzone, which joins the Punta Penna to the Punta Pizzone. The first of these forms a rough triangle, whose corners are the opening to the east and the Porta Napoli channel linking it to the Big Sea in the west. The second half forms an ellipse whose major axis measures almost from the south-west to the north-east. The Galeso river flows into the first half.


title: Taranto

text: The two water bodies have slightly different winds and tides and their underwater springs have different salinities. These affect the currents on the surface and in the depths of the Big Sea and the two halves of the Little Sea. In the Big Sea and in the northern part of the Little Sea, there are some underwater springs called citri, which carry undrinkable freshwater together with salt water. This creates the ideal biological conditions for cultivating Mediterranean mussels, known locally as "cozze".


title: Taranto

text: The climate of the city, recorded by the weather station situated near the Grottaglie Military Airport, is a hot-summer Mediterranean climate, typical of the Mediterranean with frequent continental features.


title: Taranto

text: The spring is usually mild and rainy, but it is not uncommon to have sudden cold spells from the north and east, which often cause snowfall. Average annual precipitation is fairly low (even for southern Italy), measuring just per year.


title: Taranto

text: On 28 November 2012 a large F3 tornado hit the port of Taranto and damaged the Taranto Steel Mill; about 20 workers were injured, and another man was reported missing.


title: Taranto

text: Taranto was founded in 706 BC by Dorian Greek immigrants hailing from Sparta. Its origin is peculiar: the founders were Partheniae ("sons of virgins"), sons of unmarried Spartan women and "Perioeci" (free men, but not citizens of Sparta); these out-of-wedlock unions were permitted extraordinarily by the Spartans to increase the prospective number of soldiers (only the citizens of Sparta could become soldiers) during the bloody Messenian Wars, but later they were retroactively nullified, and the sons were then obliged to leave Greece forever. Phalanthus, the Parthenian leader, went to Delphi to consult the oracle: the puzzling answer designated the harbour of Taranto as the new home of the exiles. The Partheniae arrived in Apulia, and founded the city, naming it "Taras" after the son of the Greek sea god, Poseidon, and of a local nymph, According to other sources, Heracles founded the city. Another tradition indicates Taras as the founder of the city; the symbol of the Greek city (as well as of the modern city) depicts the legend of Taras being saved from a shipwreck by riding a dolphin that was sent to him by Poseidon. Taranto increased its power, becoming a commercial power and a sovereign city of Magna Graecia, ruling over the Greek colonies in southern Italy.


title: Taranto

text: Its independence and power came to an end as the Romans expanded throughout Italy. Taranto won the first of two wars against Rome for the control of Southern Italy: it was helped by Pyrrhus, king of Greek Epirus, who surprised Rome with the use of war elephants in battle, a thing never seen before by the Romans. Rome won the second war in 272 BC. This subsequently cut off Taranto from the centre of Mediterranean trade, by connecting the Via Appia directly to the port of Brundisium (Brindisi).


title: Taranto

text: Like many Greek city states, Taras issued its own coins in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The denomination was a Nomos, a die-cast silver coin whose weight, size and purity were controlled by the state. The highly artistic coins presented the symbol of the city, Taras being saved by a dolphin, with the reverse side showing the likeness of a hippocamp, a horse-fish amalgam which is depicted in mythology as the beast that drew Poseidon's chariot.


title: Taranto

text: Taras was also the centre of a thriving decorated Greek pottery industry during the 4th century BC. Most of the South Italian Greek vessels known as Basilican ware were made in different workshops in the city.


title: Taranto

text: Unfortunately, none of the names of the artists have survived, so modern scholars have been obliged to give the recognizable artistic hands and workshops nicknames based on the subject matter of their works, museums which possess the works, or individuals who have distinguished the works from others. Some of the most famous of the Apulian vase painters at Taras are now called: the Iliupersis Painter, the Lycurgus Painter, the Gioia del Colle Painter, the Darius Painter, the Underworld Painter, and the White Sakkos Painter, among others.


title: Taranto

text: The wares produced by these workshops were usually large elaborate vessels intended for mortuary use. The forms produced included volute kraters, loutrophoroi, paterai, oinochoai, lekythoi, fish plates, etc. The decoration of these vessels was red figure (with figures reserved in red clay fabric, while the background was covered in a black gloss), with overpainting (sovradipinto) in white, pink, yellow, and maroon slips.


title: Taranto

text: Often the style of the drawings is florid and frilly, as was already the fashion in 4th-century Athens. Distinctive South Italian features also begin to appear. Many figures are shown seated on rocks. Floral motifs become very ornate, including spiraling vines and leaves, roses, lilies, poppies, sprays of laurel, acanthus leaves. Often the subject matter consists of naiskos scenes (scenes showing the statue of a deceased person in a naos, a miniature temple or shrine). Most often the naiskos scene occupies one side of the vase, while a mythological scene occupies the other. Images depicting many of the Greek myths are only known from South Italian vases, since Athenian ones seem to have had more limited repertoires of depiction.


title: Taranto

text: The Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11–12 November 1940 during the Second World War between British naval forces, under Admiral Andrew Cunningham, and Italian naval forces, under Admiral Inigo Campioni. The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack in history, employing 21 obsolete Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea. The attack struck the battle fleet of the "Regia Marina" at anchor in the harbour of Taranto, using aerial torpedoes despite the shallowness of the water.


title: Taranto

text: The Municipality of Taranto was declared bankrupt effective 31 December 2005, having accrued liabilities of €637 million. This was one of the biggest financial crises which has ever hit a municipality.


title: Taranto

text: The bankruptcy declaration was made on 18 October 2006 by the receiver Tommaso Blonda. He was appointed following the resignation of the mayor, Rossana Di Bello, on account of her sixteen-month prison sentence for abuse of office and forgery of documents relating to investigations into the contract for the management of the city incinerator, awarded to Termomeccanica.


title: Taranto

text: Taranto railway station connects the city with Rome, Naples, Milan, Bologna, Bari, Reggio di Calabria and Brindisi.


title: Taranto

text: Taranto-Grottaglie Airport is located 16 km away from Taranto, but does not offer any regularly scheduled commercial services. The two closest airports that do offer regularly scheduled commercial services are in Brindisi and Bari, approximately 70 km and 90 km away, respectively.


title: Taranto

text: The Ponte Girevole (swing bridge), built in 1887, runs across the navigable ship canal that joins "Mar Piccolo" ("Little Sea") with "Mar Grande" ("Big Sea") and stretches along . When the bridge is open, the two ends of the city are disconnected.


title: Taranto

text: In 1991 Taranto was declared a high environmental risk area by the Ministry of Environment. As a consequence of the pollutants discharged into the air by the factories in the area, most notably the ILVA steel plant, part of Gruppo Riva. 7% of Taranto's pollution is produced by the public; 93% is produced by factories. In 2005, the European Pollutant Emission Register estimated dioxin emissions from the Taranto ILVA plant were responsible for 83% of Italy's total reported emissions.


title: Taranto

text: Every year the city is exposed to of carbon monoxide and of carbon dioxide. In 2014, the Italian National Institute of Emissions and their Sources, stated that Taranto stands third in the world behind China's Linfen, and Copşa Mică in Romania, the most polluted cities in the world due to factories' emissions.


title: Taranto

text: In particular, the city produces ninety-two percent of Italy's dioxin. This is 8.8 percent of the dioxin in Europe. Between 1995 and 2004, leukaemias, myelomas and lymphomas increased by 30 to 40 percent. Dioxin accumulates over the years. Over 9 kilos of dioxin have been discharged into the city's air by its factories. Grazing is banned within of the ILVA plant.


title: Taranto

text: In 2013, the ILVA plant was placed under special administration when its owner, the Riva family, was accused of failing to prevent toxic emissions, which caused at least 400 premature deaths. Emissions of both carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and dioxin have decreased. Animal species have returned that had left, including swallows, cranes, dolphins, seahorses and the coral reef.


title: Taranto

text: Taranto has a number of sites of historic value. Situated at the angle of the canal, Big Sea and "Piazza Castello", the Aragon Castle was built between 1486 and 1492 by orders of King Ferdinand II of Aragon to protect the city from the Turks' frequent raids. The castle, which was designed by Italian painter and architect Francesco di Giorgio Martini, replaced a pre-existing 9th-century Byzantine fortress, which was deemed unfit for 15th-century warfare. In 1707 it ceased to be used as a military fortress and was converted to a prison until under Napoleon Bonaparte it reverted to its original military function. To date it is the property of the Italian Navy and is open to the public. Twenty-first-century excavations revealed the castle's earlier Byzantine foundations which can be viewed.


title: Taranto

text: There are several Greek temple ruins - some from the 6th century BC - such as the remains of a temple dedicated to Poseidon, with its two surviving Doric columns still visible on Piazza Castello in the "Città Vecchia".


title: Taranto

text: The Promenade ("lungomare"), named after former Italian king Victor Emmanuel III, overlooks the "Mar Grande", the natural harbour and commercial port.


title: Taranto

text: The Concattedrale Gran Madre di Dio, designed by Gio Ponti, was built in 1967–1971 in reinforced concrete and is one of the most significant late works by the architect. In 2018 it is in poor condition and defaced by graffiti.


title: Taranto

text: In the modern districts, but above all in the central "Borgo Umbertino", there are also the Fountain of the "Rosa dei Venti", Monumento al Marinaio, the War Memorial and the Navy Yard, another symbol of the city, some archeological sites such as the Cripta del Redentore, churches like "Maria Santissima del Monte Carmelo", "San Pasquale" and "San Francesco di Paola" and 18th- and 19th-century palaces such as Palazzo Magnini, Palazzo delle Poste, Palazzo del Governo, Palazzo degli Uffici and Palazzo Savino D'Amelio.


title: Taranto

text: On the outskirts and in the countryside there are several traditional ancient country houses called "masseria", like Masseria Capitignano.


title: Taranto

text: The Old City or "Città Vecchia" is where the Greeks built their acropolis. Today it retains the same street layout of 967, when the Byzantines under Nicephorus Phocas rebuilt what the Saracen troops led by the Slavic Sabir had razed to the ground in 927 AD. There are four main arteries (Corso Vittorio II, Via Duomo, Via di Mezzo and Via Garibaldi) which run in a straight direction however the side streets were purposely built narrow and winding to impede the passage of an invading army.


title: Taranto

text: Incorporating the Aragon Castle, Doric Columns, City Hall, Clock Tower and Piazza Fontana, it is situated and entirely enclosed on the artificial island between the Big and Little Seas and is reached from the New City


title: Taranto

text: by crossing the Ponte Girevole (swing bridge) from the south and the Ponte di Porta Napoli from the north. Almost rectangular in shape, it is divided into four (quarters) that are delineated by the cross formed between Via di Mezzo and Via Nuova. These are "Baglio" and "San Pietro" in the upper section which face the Big Sea; and "Turipenne" and "Ponte" in the lower part fronting the Little Sea. The nobility, clergy and military personnel made their homes in Baglio and San Pietro, whilst the artisans and fishermen dwelled in Ponte and Turipenne. An Armenian community was present in the 10th and 11th centuries having arrived in Taranto as troops in the Byzantine Army. The "San't Andrea degli Armeni" church in Piazza Monteoliveto, located in the Baglio quarter, stands as testimony to the neighbourhood where the Armenians made their homes.


title: Taranto

text: In 1746 the entire population of Taranto resided in Old City. This resulted in the necessity of building additional stories on the narrow houses. It is still inhabited with a number of people living in juxtaposition to the old palazzi. By 2013 the population of the Old City was just 1000 at a time when the wider city had more than 200,000 inhabitants.


title: Taranto

text: There are a number of 17th and 18th-century "palazzi" in Old City. For years, they served as the main residence of local aristocratic families and the clergy. These include Palazzo Calò, Palazzo Carducci-Artenisio (1650), Palazzo Galeota (1728), Palazzo Gallo (17th century), P PMalazzo Latagliata, Palazzo Lo Jucco (1793), Palazzo D'Aquino, Palazzo Delli Ponti, Palazzo Gennarini, Palazzo d'Ayala, Palazzo Visconti, Palazzo Galizia, Palazzo Ciura and Palazzo Pantaleo. The 17th century de Beaumont-Bonelli-Bellacicco palace houses the Spartan Museum of Taranto - Hypogeum Bellacicco which extends below street and sea level to the hypogeum that is a crossroads with other hypogeum of Old City which together form the system of subterranean Taranto.


title: Taranto

text: Churches include the "San Cataldo Cathedral" (10th century) in Piazza Duomo, "San Domenico Maggiore" (1302), Sant'Andrea degli Armeni (16th century), "Sant'Agostino" (1402), "San Michele" (1763), "Sant'Anna", the "Madonna della Salute" sanctuary (1752), and "San Giuseppe" (16th century). Close to the San Agostino church, located near Pendio La Riccia, the buried remains of an ancient Greek temple were discovered.


title: Taranto

text: Beginning in 1934 Benito Mussolini embarked on a project of rejuvenation that involved the demolition of the working class Turipenne along the Via Garibaldi and <nowiki>"</nowiki>Discesa Vasto<nowiki>"</nowiki> which contained the homes of local fishermen as well as the old Jewish quarter. The demolitions, which also razed the old medieval wall and three churches out of the four within the area, continued until the outbreak of World War II. Modern edifices and apartment blocks were erected to replace the demolished structures.


title: Taranto

text: In addition to the many "palazzi", Old City has myriad arched alleyways, "saliti", vicoli and small streets, some of which are closed to traffic. Between 2013 and 2014 two Neapolitan urban artists Cyop and Kaf embarked on a project to decorate derelict buildings, walls and doors in the "piazzi" and vicoli with 120 representations of street art. It has since become a striking feature of Old City which is described as the abandoned district of Taranto.


title: Taranto

text: Among the various school are: Liceo Scientifico Battaglini, Liceo Archita (the most ancient), Liceo Quinto Ennio (in Literature), Liceo Aristosseno (Languages, Science, Humanistic), Galileo Ferraris, ITCS Pitagora da Taranto, Vittorino da Feltre, Cabrini, ITIS Righi and ITIS Pacinotti (in IT) and ITC V. Bachelet (in Commercial and Accounting – famous for the activities at BIT MILANO).


title: Taranto

text: The city is the centre of the Tarantino dialect ("dialètte tarandíne") of the Neapolitan language. As a result of the city's history, it is influenced by Greek, Vulgar Latin, French and many others.


title: Taranto

text: Taranto will host the 2026 Mediterranean Games which will mark the fourth time Italy hosts the Mediterranean Games.


title: Taranto

text: Taranto's cuisine is characterised by local products, especially vegetables and fish like artichokes, eggplants, tomatoes, olives, onions, shrimps, octopus, sardines, squid and, above all, mussels. A very important role is also played by the olive oil and bread produced in the city and in all the villages of its province. Some PDO, PGI and PAT are made in the countryside of Taranto and in the villages around the city: among them we can find some extra-virgin olive oil like Terre Tarentine PDO and Terra d'Otranto PDO, fruits like Uva di Puglia PGI and Clementine del Golfo di Taranto PGI, vegetables like the Barattiere PAT, Pomodorino di Manduria PAT, types of cheese like Burrata di Andria PGI and Ricotta Forte PAT, a type of bread called Pane di Laterza PAT and the Capocollo di Martina Franca PAT, a type of "capocollo".


title: Taranto

text: A very important ingredient of the cuisine of Taranto is mussels. They are grown in the Big Sea and, above all, in the Little Sea (see above). They have been inserted in the list of Traditional Food Products by the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies. The peculiar flavour of Tarantine mussels is given by the special conditions of salinity of the Little Sea which is crossed by the "citri", submarine freshwater springs which manage to oxygenate the water, helping the development of the plankton and by the freshwater come from the Galeso river. The piles for the mussels were anciently made with wood from Sila Mountains in Calabria. During the Ancient Greek and Roman times, several authors described the richness and the goodness of the mussels of Taranto. After the tests about the pollution that is present in the first side of the Little Sea, the legal production of mussels has been moved to the second side. The tests and the classifications of the water are made by producers giving the possibility to certify the safety of the product. Some of the most traditional dishes of Taranto are mussels "alla puppitegna" (with garlic, extra-virgin olive oil and parsley) or the "impepata" ("full of pepper" in Italian) or spaghetti with mussels, or Tubettini with mussles.


title: Taranto

text: These historical figures have had a relationship with the city. Not all of them were actually born in Taranto.


title: Video editing software

text: Video editing software, or a video editor is software used performing the post-production video editing of digital video sequences on a non-linear editing system. It has replaced traditional flatbed celluloid film editing tools and analog video tape-to-tape online editing machines.


title: Video editing software

text: Video editing software serves a lot of purposes, such as filmmaking, audio commentary, and general editing of video content.


title: Video editing software

text: In NLE software, the user manipulates sections of video, images, and audio on a sequence. These clips can be trimmed, cut, and manipulated in many different ways. When editing is finished, the user exports the sequence as a video file.


title: Video editing software

text: NLE software is typically based on a timeline interface where sections moving image video recordings, known as clips, are laid out in sequence and played back. The NLE offers a range of tools for trimming, splicing, cutting and arranging clips across the timeline.


title: Video editing software

text: Another kind of clip is a text clip, used to add text to a video, such as title screens or movie credits. Audio clips can additionally be mixed together, such as mixing a soundtrack with multiple sound effects.


title: Video editing software

text: Typically, the timeline is divided into multiple rows on the y-axis for different clips playing simultaneously, whereas the x-axis represents the run time of the video.


title: Video editing software

text: Effects such as transitions can be performed on each clip, such as a crossfade effect going from one scene to another.


title: Video editing software

text: Since video editors represent a project with a file format specific to the program, one needs to export the video file in order to publish it.


title: Video editing software

text: Once a project is complete, the editor can then export to movies in a variety of formats in a context that may range from broadcast tape formats to compressed video files for web publishing (such as on an online video platform or personal website), optical media, or saved to mobile devices.


title: Video editing software

text: To facilitate editing, source video typically has a higher resolution than the desired output. Therefore, higher resolution video needs to be downscaled during exporting, or after exporting in a process known as transsizing.


title: Video editing software

text: As digital video editing advanced, visual effects became possible, and is part of the standard toolkit, usually found in prosumer and professional grade software.


title: Video editing software

text: A common ability is to do compositing techniques such as chroma keying or luma keying, among others, which allow different objects to look as if they are in the same scene.


title: Video editing software

text: A different kind of visual effects is motion capture. Software such as Blender can perform motion capture to make animated objects follow an actor's movements.


title: Video editing software

text: Most professional video editors are able to do color grading, which is to manipulate visual attributes of a video such as contrast to enhance output, and improve emotional impact.


title: Video editing software

text: As video editing puts great demands on storage and graphics performance, especially at high resolutions such as 4K, and for videos with many visual effects, powerful hardware is often required.


title: Video editing software

text: It is not uncommon for a computer built for video editing to have a lot of drive capacity, and a powerful graphics processing unit, which optimally has hardware accelerated video encoding.


title: Video editing software

text: Having sufficient disk space is important since videos take up large amounts of storage, depending on resolution and compression format used. Each minute of a Full HD (1080p) video at 30 fps takes up 60MB of space.


title: Video editing software

text: Video editing software can be divided into consumer grade, which focuses on ease-of-use, along with professional grade software, which focuses on feature availability, and advanced editing techniques. The typical use case for the former is to edit personal videos on the go, when more advanced editing is not required.


title: Video editing software

text: While most video editing software has been separate from the operating systems, some operating systems have had a video editor installed by default, such as Windows Movie Maker in Windows XP, or as a component of the default photo viewer, such as the Photos app on iOS.


title: Video editing software

text: Some social media platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram may include a rudimentary video editor to trim clips.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Pregnancy is a potential result of rape. It has been studied in the context of war, particularly as a tool for genocide, as well as other unrelated contexts, such as rape by a stranger, statutory rape, incest, and underage pregnancy. The current scientific consensus is that rape is at least as likely to lead to pregnancy as consensual sexual intercourse, with some studies suggesting rape may actually result in higher rates of pregnancy than consensual intercourse.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Rape can cause difficulties during and after pregnancy, with potential negative consequences for both the victim and a resulting child. Medical treatment following a rape includes testing for, preventing, and managing pregnancy. A woman who becomes pregnant after a rape may face a decision about whether to have an abortion, to raise the child or to make an adoption plan. In some countries where abortion is illegal after rape and incest, over 90% of pregnancies in girls age 15 and under are due to rape by family members.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: The false belief that pregnancy can almost never result from rape was widespread for centuries. In Europe, from medieval times well into the 18th century a man could use a woman's pregnancy as a legal defense to "prove" that he could not have raped her. A woman's pregnancy was thought to mean that she had enjoyed the sex and, therefore, consented to it. In recent decades, some anti-abortion organizations and politicians (such as Todd Akin) who oppose legal abortion in cases of rape have advanced claims that pregnancy very rarely arises from rape, and that the practical relevance of such exceptions to abortion law is therefore limited or non-existent.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Estimates of the numbers of pregnancies from rape vary widely. Recent estimates suggest that rape conception happens between 25,000 and 32,000 times each year in the U.S.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: In a 1996 three-year longitudinal study of 4,000 American women, physician Melisa Holmes estimated from data from her study that forced sexual intercourse causes over 32,000 pregnancies in the United States each year. Physician Felicia H. Stewart and economist James Trussell estimated that the 333,000 assaults and rapes reported in the US in 1998 caused about 25,000 pregnancies, and up to 22,000 of those pregnancies could have been prevented by prompt medical treatment, such as emergency contraception. Other analyses indicate a much lower rate. The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a charity based in Washington, D.C., reached a much lower figure calculated using estimates from the Justice Department's 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey. The network took that survey's annual average of 64,080 rapes committed in 2004 and 2005 and applies the 5 percent pregnancy rate to reach an estimate of 3,204 pregnancies a year from rape.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: A 1996 study of 44 cases of rape-related pregnancy estimated that in the United States, the pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45). A 1987 study also found a 5% pregnancy rate from rape among 18- to 24-year-old college students in the US. A 2005 study placed the rape-related pregnancy rate at around 3–5%.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: A study of Ethiopian adolescents who reported being raped found that 17% subsequently became pregnant, and rape crisis centres in Mexico reported the figure the rate of pregnancy from rape at 15–18%. Estimates of rape-related pregnancy rates may be inaccurate since the crime is under-reported, resulting in some pregnancies from rape not being recorded as such, or alternately, social pressure may mean some rapes are not reported if no pregnancy results.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Most studies suggest that conception rates are independent of whether insemination is due to rape or consensual sex.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Some analysts have suggested that the rate of conception may be higher from insemination due to rape. Psychologist Robert L. Smith states that some studies have reported "unusually high rates of conception following rape". He cites a paper by C.A. Fox and Beatrice Fox, reporting that biologist Alan Sterling Parkes had speculated in personal correspondence that "there is a high conception rate in rape, where hormonal release, due to fear or anger, could produce reflex ovulation". Smith also cites veterinary scientist Wolfgang Jöchle, who "proposed that rape may induce ovulation in human females". Literary scholar Jonathan Gottschall and economist Tiffani Gottschall argued in a 2003 "Human Nature" article that previous studies of rape-pregnancy statistics were not directly comparable to pregnancy rates from consensual intercourse, because the comparisons were largely uncorrected for such factors as the use of contraception. Adjusting for these factors, they estimated that rapes are about twice as likely to result in pregnancies (7.98%) as "consensual, unprotected penile-vaginal intercourse" (2–4%). They discuss a variety of possible explanations and advance the hypothesis that rapists tend to target victims with biological "cues of high fecundity" or subtle indications of ovulation.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: In contrast, psychologists Tara Chavanne and Gordon Gallup Jr., found that women in the ovulatory phase of their menstrual cycle reduce risk-taking behaviors, which could theoretically reduce the likelihood of rape during fertile periods. Anthropologist Daniel Fessler disputed these findings, saying, "analysis of conception rates reveals that the probability of conception following rape does not differ from that following consensual coitus".


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that causing pregnancy by rape may be a mating strategy in humans, as a way for males to ensure the survival of their genes by passing them on to future generations. Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer are key popularizers of this hypothesis. They assert that most rape victims are women of childbearing age and that many cultures treat rape as a crime against the victim's husband. They state that rape victims suffer less emotional distress when they are subjected to more violence, and that married women and women of childbearing age experience greater psychological distress after a rape than do girls, single women or post-menopausal women. Rape-pregnancy rates are crucial in evaluating these theories, because a high or low pregnancy rate from rape would determine whether such adaptations are favored or disfavored by natural selection.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: In 1995–1996, the journal "Family Planning Perspectives" published a study by the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual health research and policy organization, on statutory rape (sexual intercourse with a minor) and resulting pregnancies. It drew on other research to conclude that "at least half of all babies born to minor women are fathered by adult men", and that "although relatively small proportions of 13–14-year-olds have had intercourse, those who become sexually active at an early age are especially likely to have experienced coercive sex: Seventy-four percent of women who had intercourse before age 14 and 60% of those who had sex before age 15 report having had a forced sexual experience". Because of difficulties in bringing such cases to trial, however, "data from the period 1975–1978 ... indicate that, on average, only 413 men were arrested annually for statutory rape in California, even though 50,000 pregnancies occurred among underage women in 1976 alone". In that state, it was found that two thirds of babies born to school-age mothers were fathered by adult men.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Sexual abuse early in life can lead young women to feel a lack of control over their sexual lives, decrease their future likelihood of using contraceptives such as condoms, and increase their chances of becoming pregnant or acquiring sexually transmitted infections. A 2007 paper by Child Trends examined studies from 2000 to 2006 to identify links between sexual abuse and teenage pregnancy, starting with Blinn-Pike et al.'s 2002 metastudy of 15 studies since 1989. It found that childhood sexual abuse has a "significant association" with adolescent pregnancy. Direct connections have been demonstrated both by retrospective studies examining antecedents to reported pregnancies and prospective studies, which track the lives of sex abuse victims and "can be helpful for determining causality". The more severe forms of abuse, such as rape and incest, entail a greater risk of adolescent pregnancy. Although some researchers suggest that pregnancy could be a choice made to escape a "bad situation", it may also be "a direct result of unwanted intercourse", which one study found to be the case for about 13% of participants in a Texas parenting program.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: In Nicaragua, between 2000 and 2010, around 172,500 births were recorded for girls under 14, representing around 13% of the 10.3 million births during that period. These were attributed to poverty, laws forbidding abortion for rape and incest, lack of access to justice, and beliefs held in the culture and legal system. A 1992 study in Peru found that 90% of babies delivered to mothers aged 12–16 were conceived through rape, typically by a father, stepfather, or other close relative. In 1991 in Costa Rica, the figure was similar, with 95% of adolescent mothers under 15 having become pregnant through rape.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Many of the youngest documented birth mothers in history experienced precocious puberty and were impregnated as a result of rape, including incest. The youngest, Peruvian Lina Medina, was impregnated when she was four and had a live birth in 1939, at age five.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Rape has been used as a weapon of psychological warfare for centuries, to terrorize, humiliate, and undermine the morale of the enemy. Rape was also used as an act of ethnic cleansing to produce babies that share the perpetrators' ethnicity. Forced pregnancy has been noted in places including Bangladesh, Darfur, and Bosnia. More broadly, pregnancy commonly results from wartime rape that was perpetrated without the intention of impregnating the enemy, as has been found in conflicts in East Timor, Liberia, Kosovo, and Rwanda. Gita Sahgal of Amnesty International commented that, rather than being primarily about "spoils of war" or sexual gratification, rape is often used in ethnic conflicts as a way for attackers to perpetuate social control and redraw ethnic boundaries. Children may be born to women and girls forced to "marry" abductors and occupiers; this happened in the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and in the Lord's Resistance Army's conflict in Uganda.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Rape during war is recognized under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820 as a war crime and a crime against humanity. "Forced pregnancy" is specifically enumerated as a war crime and crime against humanity in the Rome Statute, which was the "first international criminal tribunal ever officially to criminalize forced pregnancy".


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Children born as the result of wartime rape may be identified with the enemy and grow up stigmatized and excluded by their communities; they may be denied basic rights or even killed before reaching adulthood. Children are particularly at risk for such abuse when they are visibly identifiable as sharing half their ethnicity with the occupying forces, as in the case of half-Arab children of Darfuri women raped by janjaweed soldiers as part of the war in Darfur. Children of war rape are also at risk due to neglect by traumatized mothers unable to provide sufficient care.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: In 1937 the Japanese army took over Nanking, which at the time was the capital of China. In the resulting seven-week occupation known as the Rape of Nanking, as many as 80,000 women were raped. Chinese women and girls of all ages were raped, mutilated, tortured, sexually enslaved, and killed; unknown numbers of them were left pregnant. Many pregnant Nanking women killed themselves in 1938, and others committed infanticide when their babies were born. During the rest of the 20th century there was no record of any Chinese woman acknowledging her child as having been born as a result of the Rape of Nanking.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: During the 1992–1995 Bosnian War, pregnancy from rape was used to perpetrate genocide. There were reports of deliberately created "rape camps" intended to impregnate captive Muslim and Croatian women. Women were reported to have been kept in confinement until their pregnancies had advanced beyond a stage at which abortion would be safe. In the context of a patrilineal society, in which children inherit their father's ethnicity, such camps were intended to create a new generation of Serbian children. The women's group "Tresnjevka" claimed that more than 35,000 women and children were held in such Serb-run camps. Estimates range from 20,000 to 50,000 victims. Feryal Gharahi of Equality Now reported:


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: After the Bosnian War, the International Criminal Court updated its statute to prohibit "confin[ing] one or more women forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population".


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Immediate post-rape protocols call for medical professionals to assess the likelihood that a victim will become pregnant in their assessment of the physical damage done to the woman. Protocol for gaining a history of the use of contraceptives, as a woman's use of birth control pills or other contraceptives before a rape affect her chance of becoming pregnant. Treatment protocols also call for clinicians to provide access to emergency contraception and counseling on abortion in countries where it is legal. High-dose estrogen pills were tried as an experimental treatment after rape in the 1960s, and in 1972 Canadian physician A. Albert Yuzpe and his colleagues began systematic studies on the use of ethinylestradiol and norgestrel to provide emergency contraception after an assault. These treatments reduced the rate of pregnancy after rape by 84%. This method is now called the Yuzpe regimen. Before being treated with pregnancy prevention measures, a rape victim is given a HCG pregnancy test to determine whether she was already pregnant before the rape.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: When being discharged from emergency care, clinicians provide information about pregnancy as well as other complications such as infection and emotional trauma. While a woman who has become pregnant during the past 48 hours will test negative for pregnancy in an HCG pregnancy test (unless she was already pregnant before the rape), pregnancy resulting from the rape can be detected at the two-week follow-up visit.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Decisions of whether to end a rape-related pregnancy or carry it to term, and whether to keep the child or place the child for adoption can be severely traumatizing for a woman.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Abortion rates for pregnancies due to rape vary significantly by culture and demographics; women who live in countries where abortion is illegal must often give birth to the child or secretly undergo a dangerous, unsafe abortion. Some women do not wish to get abortions for religious or cultural reasons. In a third of cases, rape-related pregnancies are not discovered until the second trimester of pregnancy, which may reduce a woman's options, particularly if she doesn't have easy access to legal abortion or is still recovering from the trauma of the rape itself.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: In the United States, 1 percent of 1,900 women questioned in 1987 listed rape or incest as the reason for having an abortion; of these, 95 percent named other reasons as well.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: A 1996 study of thousands of US women showed that, of pregnancies resulting from rape, 50% were aborted, 12% resulted in miscarriage, and 38% were brought to term and either placed for adoption or raised. Peer-reviewed studies have reported from 38% of American women to 90% of Peruvian adolescents carrying the pregnancy to term. In Lima, Peru, where abortion is illegal, 90% of girls aged 12 to 16 who became pregnant through rape carried the child to term.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Of all children born, 1% are placed for adoption; the number of children conceived from rape who are placed for adoption was found to be about 6% in one study and 26% in another.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: When a mother commits neonaticide, killing an infant younger than 24 hours old, the child's birth being the result of rape is a main cause, although other psychological and situational factors are generally present. Some people turn to drugs or alcohol to cope with emotional trauma after a rape; use of these during pregnancy can harm the fetus.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: When a mother chooses to raise her child conceived in rape, the traumatic effect of the rape and the child's blood relationship to the rapist has the potential to create some psychological challenges, but the circumstance of conception is no guarantee to cause psychological problems.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: If a woman decides to keep and raise the child, she may have difficulty accepting it, and both mother and child face ostracism in some societies.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Mothers may also face legal difficulties. In most US states, the rapist maintains parental rights. Research by legal scholar Shauna Prewitt indicates that the resulting continued contact with the rapist is damaging for women who keep the child. She wrote in 2012 that in the US, 31 states allow rapists to assert custody and visitation rights over children conceived through rape.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Children whose births result from rape have been killed by their mothers at various times in history. During ancient and medieval times, such infanticide was not prohibited (however, penance was expected of these mothers in medieval Europe).


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Beliefs that rape could not lead to pregnancy were widespread in both legal and medical opinion for centuries. Galen, an ancient Greek physician, believed that a woman must experience pleasure to release "seed" and become pregnant, and could not derive such pleasure from nonconsensual sex. Galen's thinking influenced understanding from medieval England to Colonial America. Aristotle disagreed, as he believed that "women's bodies were not hot enough to produce semen". Female reproduction was, in many ways, viewed through the lens of male reproductive processes, imagining that female organs functioned as inverted versions of male organs, and hence orgasm was required for conception.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Centuries later, in medieval Europe, the belief that pregnancy could not occur without consent was still standard; in fact, conception by a woman was considered a legitimate defense against charges of rape. The belief was codified in the medieval British law texts "Fleta" and "Britton". "Britton" states:


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: If the defendant confesses the fact, but says that the woman at the same time conceived by him, and can prove it, then our will is that it be adjudged no felony, because no woman can conceive if she does not consent.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Medieval literary scholar Corinne Saunders acknowledged a difficulty in determining how widely held was the belief that pregnancy implies consent, but concluded that it influenced "at least some justices", citing a 1313 case in Kent.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: By the late 1700s, scientists no longer universally accepted the view that pregnancy was impossible without pleasure, although this view was still common. A 1795 British legal text, "Treatise of Pleas of the Crown", disparaged the belief's legal utility and its biological veracity:


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Also it hath been said by some to be no rape to force a woman who conceives at the time; for it is said, that if she had not consented, she could not have conceived, but this opinion seems very questionable, not only because the previous violence is no way extenuated by such a subsequent consent, but also because, if it were necessary to shew that the woman did not conceive, the offender could not be tried till such time as it might appear whether she did or did not, and likewise because the philosophy of this notion may very well be doubted of.


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: The 1814 British legal text "Elements of Medical Jurisprudence" by Samuel Farr claimed that conception "probably" could not occur without a woman's "enjoyment", so that an "absolute rape" was unlikely to lead to pregnancy. On the other hand, in the US in an 1820 court case in the Arkansas Territory a man pleaded not guilty to rape charges because the victim became pregnant, but the court rejected the argument:


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: The old notion that if the woman conceive, it could not be a rape, because she must have in such case have consented, is quite exploded. Impregnation, it is well known, does not depend on the consciousness or volition of the female. If the uterine organs be in a condition favorable to impregnation, this may take place as readily as if the intercourse was voluntary.In more recent times, opponents of legal abortion have argued that pregnancy resulting from rape is rare. In a 1972 article, physician and anti-abortion activist Fred Mecklenburg argued that pregnancy from rape is "extremely rare", adding that a woman exposed to the trauma of rape "will not ovulate even if she is 'scheduled' to". Blythe Bernhard wrote in "The Washington Post", "That article has influenced two generations of anti-abortion activists with the hope to build a medical case to ban all abortions without any exception."


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Historian Ian Talbot has written about how countries with Quran-based Islamic codes on rape and pregnancy use Sura An-Nur, verse 2, as a legal basis: "The law of evidence in all sexual crimes required either self-confession or the testimony of four upright ("salah") Muslim males. In the case of a man, self-confession involved a verbal confession. For women however medical examinations and pregnancy arising from rape were admissible as proof of self-guilt."


title: Pregnancy from rape

text: Pregnancy from rape can also occur when the victim is male and the rapist is female. Many such cases involve the statutory rape of underage boys by adult women who subsequently became pregnant. In Kansas, "Hermesmann v. Seyer" established that a male victim of rape can be held liable to pay child support for a baby that results from the rape, and later cases in the United States have held likewise.


title: Martin Charteris, Baron Charteris of Amisfield

text: Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Michael Charles Charteris, Baron Charteris of Amisfield, (7 September 1913 – 23 December 1999) was a British Army officer and courtier of Queen Elizabeth II. Charteris was the longest-serving Assistant Private Secretary to the Sovereign, having served for over 20 years in that position. Later, he became Private Secretary to the Sovereign.


text: Charteris was the second of two sons born to Hugo Francis Charteris, Lord Elcho (1884–1916), and Lady Violet Catherine Manners (died 1971). His paternal grandparents were The 11th Earl of Wemyss and Mary Constance Wyndham, and his maternal grandparents were The 8th Duke of Rutland and Violet Lindsay. His father, a barrister, was killed in action in Egypt in the First World War, and his mother remarried in 1922. His brother, David, succeeded as 12th Earl of Wemyss following the death of their grandfather in 1937.


text: He was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned in the King's Royal Rifle Corps. He fought in the Middle East during the Second World War, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. On his return, he married the Hon. Mary Margesson (a daughter of the 1st Viscount Margesson) on 16 December 1944 in Jerusalem and they had three children. He retired from the Army in 1951.


text: In 1950, he was appointed Private Secretary to Princess Elizabeth, who was then Duchess of Edinburgh and heir presumptive to the British throne. From her accession in 1952 until 1972, he served as her Assistant Private Secretary under Sir Michael Adeane. On Adeane's retirement in 1972, he was promoted to Private Secretary. He held this post until his retirement in 1977 and returned to Eton as its Provost. He was granted the honour of being a Permanent Lord in Waiting.


text: Charteris was noted for his outspoken interview, given to "The Spectator" in 1995, in which he described the Duchess of York as "vulgar", the then Prince of Wales (now Charles III) as "whiny", and the Queen Mother as "a bit of an ostrich", who "doesn't look at" what she "doesn't want to see".


text: In the first two seasons of the Netflix series "The Crown", Charteris was portrayed by Harry Hadden-Paton. In seasons 3 and 4, the more mature Charteris was played by Charles Edwards. Charteris retired in 1977 as Private Secretary. In "The Crown" he was portrayed as holding the office much longer than in reality.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: The Possession of Hannah Grace (also known in some countries as Cadaver) is a 2018 American supernatural horror thriller film directed by Diederik van Rooijen and written by Brian Sieve. It stars Shay Mitchell, Kirby Johnson, Stana Katic, Grey Damon and Nick Thune, and follows a former policewoman who encounters the supernatural while working in a morgue.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: The film was released in the United States on November 30, 2018, by Sony Pictures Releasing. It was released under the Screen Gems label and received generally negative reviews from critics, but grossed $43 million worldwide.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: During an exorcism ritual, the possessed Hannah Grace almost kills the priest by choking him while suspended in midair. Her father, Grainger, then suffocates her to death using a pillow, and as she dies the priest drops to the floor gasping for breath. As her father sobs over her dead body, a fly lands on her hand and it twitches ominously.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: Three months later, Megan Reed, an ex-cop with the Boston Police Department struggles with depression and an addiction to pills after her patrol partner was shot dead by a criminal whom she failed to subdue. Megan's friend Lisa Roberts finds her a nightshift job in the Boston Metro Hospital's morgue, located in an intimidating brutalist architecture building (portrayed by Boston City Hall). During Megan's second shift, a man (later identified as Grainger) aggressively tries to convince her to let him into the building, but she denies and informs the two security guards Ernie Gainor and Dave. However, shortly after, Megan helps EMT Randy to move the corpse of a brutally murdered young woman (later identified as the one of Hannah Grace) into the building and the man secretly enters the building. Randy tells Megan a man stabbed Hannah to death and was then caught in the act trying to burn her body in an alleyway.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: When Megan tries to fingerprint and photograph Hannah's corpse, the camera explodes and the fingerprints return as illegible by the computer. Other strange things occur and Megan becomes more suspicious of the corpse. Megan subsequently researches on the internet only to find out that Hannah had died during an exorcism. She also notices that Hannah's bright blue eye color does not match the one listed on her driver's license. Megan soon encounters Grainger who had invaded the building trying to drag Hannah's corpse through the building. Alongside with the two security guards Ernie and Dave, Megan manages to subdue Grainger. The latter screams Hannah's corpse must be burnt because she isn't really dead, but they do not listen to him and have him arrested by the police.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: Megan's ex-boyfriend, Andrew Kurtz, is still employed as an officer and responds to the scene. He agrees to help Megan identify the corpse after she tells him about the color of Hannah's eyes. Soon after, Andrew tells Megan that Hannah Grace had died three months earlier and asked Megan whether the given finger prints was Hannah's. Megan confirmed it and Andrew thought maybe there is some error in the computer data. Meanwhile, Hannah kills Dave by telekinetically lifting his body across the ceiling and into her refrigerated drawer in the morgue where she breaks his body. Soon after, Megan notices that some of the wounds on Hannah are missing, as if it had healed by itself. Investigating the security footage, Megan sees a glimpse of Hannah's corpse crawling around in the building. She shows the footage to Lisa who does not believe her and accuses her of having a relapse on her addiction to pills. Lisa is killed by Hannah soon after. When Randy returns to the morgue to deliver another corpse, Megan shows Randy the healing body of Hannah.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: After Randy leaves the morgue, Megan notices that the lift closes by itself and is going down. Megan investigates the security footage and sees a glimpse of Hannah's body crawling inside the lift. She rushes down to the access bay to warn Randy, but Hannah has already killed him. Suddenly, Andrew calls Megan to warn her that Grainger has escaped police custody after killing the two officers transporting him. Moments later, Grainger forces Megan to take him to Hannah's body at gunpoint. Grainger explains to Megan that he is Hannah's father. He tells her that numerous exorcisms failed because the demon possessing her was too strong. So strong, in fact, that it is even able to possess Hannah's body after her death by killing people to heal itself. He tells her that Hannah had depression and it worsened until the demon was able to enter Hannah's body. The blue eye color is the sign of the demon possessing Hannah. Grainger wonders why Hannah killed Dave and Lisa, but did not kill Megan. Megan agrees to help Grainger cremate Hannah, but she reanimates and pushes Grainger into the fire. Then she locks Megan inside her refrigerated drawer.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: Andrew and Ernie come to Megan's help. Hannah kills Ernie and then tries to kill Andrew, but Megan forces herself to be calm. She picks up Andrew's firearm and shoots Hannah, then drags her to the crematorium while Andrew calls for backup. After a brief struggle before the incinerator, Megan pushes Hannah into the fire, eventually killing the demon. As the movie comes to a close, Megan recounts how she has managed to stay clean for over two months. As she looks into the mirror at her reflection, her hair covering one eye, a single fly -similar to the ones shown in several scenes involving Hannah's corpse earlier in the film- lands on the mirror's surface. Megan promptly smashes it with her hand as the movie ends, leading the audience to wonder whether the fly's appearance is simple coincidence, if Hannah's demon has somehow transferred her essence, in whole or in part, into Megan herself, or simply symbolic that Megan is strong enough to fight her depression, thus not letting any possessive demon to enter her body.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: On March 23, 2016, it was announced that Screen Gems hired Diederik van Rooijen to direct horror thriller "Cadaver" from a script by Brian Sieve, which Todd Garner and Sean Robins would produce through Broken Road Productions. The film was originally entitled "Cadaver".


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: On June 6, 2016, Shay Mitchell joined the principal cast to play Megan Reed, and on October 28, Stana Katic was also cast in the film, along with Grey Damon, Nick Thune, Jacob Ming-Trent, Max McNamara, Louis Herthum and Kirby Johnson.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: Principal photography on the film began on November 8, 2016, in Boston, Massachusetts, with the production team including director of photography Lennert Hillege, production designer Paula Loos, and costume designer Deborah Newhall. Filming would also take place at New England Studios in Devens, Massachusetts. The film was shot entirely on a Sony α7S II camera, marking the first time a feature film was shot using a mirrorless full-frame camera.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: The film was released in the United States and Canada on November 30, 2018. In several countries, including Brazil, Greece and Israel, it was released a day earlier on November 29, 2018.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: On October 15, 2018, Sony released the first trailer online. The studio spent about $12 million on promoting the film.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: "The Possession of Hannah Grace" grossed $14.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $28.2 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $43 million, against a production budget of about $7.7 million.


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: In the United States and Canada, the film was projected to gross $3–7million from 2,065 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $2.6 million on its first day, including $625,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $6.5 million, finishing seventh. Due to it being a "low-budget cash grab in the current slow marketplace," anything over $5.5 million would have been considered a success by Sony. In its second weekend the film dropped 51% to $3.2 million, an above-average hold for a horror film (which typically drop at least 60%).


title: The Possession of Hannah Grace

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average of . The website's critical consensus reads, ""The Possession of Hannah Grace" feints at real horror just often enough to offer hints of the movie it should have been -- and further frustrate viewers seeking a good scare." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 37 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it a 36% overall positive score and a 24% "definite recommend."


title: Kotatsu

text: A is a low, wooden table frame covered by a "futon", or heavy blanket, upon which a table top sits. Underneath is a heat source, formerly a charcoal brazier but now electric, often built into the table itself. "Kotatsu" are used almost exclusively in Japan, although similar devices for the same purpose of heating are used elsewhere, e.g. the Spanish "brasero" or Iranian "korsi".


title: Kotatsu

text: The history of the "kotatsu" begins in the Muromachi period or Ashikaga shogunate during the fourteenth century. Its origins begin with the Japanese cooking hearth, known as the "irori". Charcoal was the primary method of cooking and heating in the traditional Japanese household and was used to heat the "irori". By the fourteenth century in Japan, a seating platform was introduced to the "irori" and its cooking function became separated from its seating function. On top of the wooden platform a quilt was placed, known as an "oki" that trapped and localized the heat of the charcoal burner. This early ancestor to the modern "kotatsu" was called a "hori-gotatsu". The word "hori-gotatsu" () is derived from the kanji (hori) meaning ditch, digging, (ko) meaning torch or fire, and (tatsu) meaning foot warmer.


title: Kotatsu

text: The formation of the "hori-gotatsu" was slightly changed in the Edo period during the seventeenth century. These changes consisted of the floor around the "irori" being dug-out into the ground in a square shape. The wooden platform was placed around this, making a hearth. Then the blanket was placed on top of the platform again, where one could sit with legs underneath to stay warm.


title: Kotatsu

text: The moveable "kotatsu" was created later, originating from the concept of "hori-gotatsu". This "kotatsu" came about with the popular use of "tatami" matting in Japanese homes. Instead of placing the charcoals in the "irori", they were placed in an earthen pot which was placed on the "tatami" making the "kotatsu" transportable. This more modern style "kotatsu" is known as the "oki-gotatsu". The word "oki-gotatsu" () is derived from the kanji (oki) meaning placement, meaning torch or fire, and meaning foot warmer.


title: Kotatsu

text: In the middle of the twentieth-century charcoal was replaced with electricity as a heating source. Instead of having the moveable earthen pot of charcoals beneath the "kotatsu", it was possible to attach an electric heating fixture directly to the frame of the "kotatsu". By 1997, the majority (approximately two-thirds) of Japanese homes had the modern "irori" and 81 percent had a "kotatsu", though they are warmed using electricity instead of glowing coals or charcoal. Thus, the "kotatsu" became completely mobile with electricity and became a common feature of Japanese homes during winter.


title: Kotatsu

text: There are two kinds of "kotatsu" used in Japan today, differing in the configuration and the type of heating:


title: Kotatsu

text: In the twenty-first century, the "kotatsu" typically consists of the electric heater attached to the frame, which is no longer limited to wood, but may be made of plastic or other materials. Generally, a blanket (or "shitagake") is draped over the frame and heater and under the table-top. This first blanket is covered by a second heavier blanket, known as a (). A person sits on the floor or on "zabuton" cushions with their legs under the table and the blanket draped over the lower body. The "kotatsu" was designed when people most commonly wore traditional Japanese style clothes, where the heat would enter through the bottom of the robes and rise to exit around the neck, thus heating the entire body.


title: Kotatsu

text: Most Japanese housing is not insulated to the same degree as a Western domicile and does not have central heating, thus relying primarily on space heating. Heating is expensive because of the lack of insulation and the draftiness of housing. A "kotatsu" is a relatively inexpensive way to stay warm in the winter, as the futons trap the warm air. Families may choose to concentrate their activity in this one area of the house in order to save on energy costs. In the summer, the blanket may be removed, and the "kotatsu" used as a normal table.


title: Kotatsu

text: It is possible to sleep under a "kotatsu", although unless one is quite short, one's body will not be completely covered. This generally is considered acceptable for naps, but not for overnight sleeping for many reasons: one's body is not completely covered, yielding uneven heating; the table is low, so one may touch heating elements accidentally when moving while asleep, risking burns. Traditionally, children are told that they will catch a cold if they sleep under a "kotatsu". Pets such as cats frequently sleep under "kotatsu", however, and are small enough to fit completely underneath—comparable to cats who sleep on floor heating vents in Western countries (Japanese homes do not generally have floor heating vents).


title: Kotatsu

text: During the winter months in Japan, the "kotatsu" often is the center of domestic life. In the evening family members gather around the "kotatsu" to enjoy food, television, games, and conversation while keeping the lower half of their bodies warm. It has been said that "once under the "kotatsu", all of your worries slip away as a familiar warmth takes over and you become completely relaxed."


title: Kotatsu

text: Historically, were made of bast fibers. Later, cotton was introduced (1300s to 1700s, depending on region) and they were usually made of bast-filled quilts of recycled cotton, dyed with indigo and pieced from old garments in boroboro style. , for going under the , as a floor covering, were made the same way. In the 2010s, "kotatsu-gake" were often decorative and might be designed to match home décor.


title: Kotatsu

text: There are similar systems in countries around the world: economical and often sociable ways to keep warm while sitting still. In Spain and Portugal, the "" is a small round table with a "brasero" heater (i.e. a brazier) placed underneath. The Netherlands used to use a foot stove. In the First World War, British Royal Engineers built 'Japanese footwarmers' in the trenches.


title: Kotatsu

text: Tajikistan and Afghanistan have the very similar "sandali", used even today in many traditional houses as a warm family eating place. Another similar item called the "korsi" is used likewise in Iran.


title: Kotatsu

text: In China and Korea, underfloor heating traditionally is used. The devices used in a similar fashion are, respectively, a Kang bed-stove and an "ondol".


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) is a medium-sized broad-snouted crocodile, also known as mugger and marsh crocodile. It is native to freshwater habitats from southern Iran to the Indian subcontinent, where it inhabits marshes, lakes, rivers and artificial ponds. It rarely reaches a body length of and is a powerful swimmer, but also walks on land in search of suitable waterbodies during the hot season. Both young and adult mugger crocodiles dig burrows to which they retreat when the ambient temperature drops below or exceeds . Females dig holes in the sand as nesting sites and lay up to 46 eggs during the dry season. The sex of hatchlings depends on temperature during incubation. Both parents protect the young for up to one year. They feed on insects, and adults prey on fish, reptiles, birds and mammals.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The mugger crocodile evolved at least and has been a symbol for the fructifying and destructive powers of the rivers since the Vedic period. It was first scientifically described in 1831 and is protected by law in Iran, India and Sri Lanka. Since 1982, it has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Outside protected areas, it is threatened by conversion of natural habitats, gets entangled in fishing nets and is killed in human–wildlife conflict situations and in traffic accidents.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: "Crocodilus palustris" was the scientific name proposed by René Lesson in 1831 who described the type specimen from the Gangetic plains. In subsequent years, several naturalists and curators of natural history museums described zoological specimens and proposed different names, including:


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Phylogenetic analysis of 23 crocodilian species indicated that the genus "Crocodylus" most likely originated in Australasia about . The freshwater crocodile ("C. johnstoni") is thought to have been the first species that genetically diverged from the common ancestor of the genus about . The sister group comprising saltwater crocodile ("C. porosus"), Siamese crocodile ("C. siamensis") and mugger crocodile diverged about . The latter diverged from this group about .


title: Mugger crocodile

text: A paleogenomics analysis indicated that "Crocodylus" likely originated in Africa and radiated towards Southeast Asia and the Americas, diverging from its closest recent relative, the extinct "Voay" of Madagascar, around near the Oligocene/Miocene boundary.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Within "Crocodylus", the mugger crocodile's closest living relatives are the Siamese crocodile and the saltwater crocodile.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Fossil crocodile specimens excavated in the Sivalik Hills closely resemble the mugger crocodile in the shortness of the premaxillae and in the form of the nasal openings. In Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district, a long fossilized skull of a mugger crocodile was found in a volcanic ash bed that probably dates to the late Pleistocene. "Crocodylus palaeindicus" from late Pliocene sediments in the Sivalik Hills is thought to be an ancestor of the mugger crocodile. Fossil remains of "C. palaeindicus" were also excavated in the vicinity of Bagan in central Myanmar.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Below cladogram is from a tip dating study, for which morphological, molecular DNA sequencing and stratigraphic fossil age data were simultaneously used to establish the inter-relationships within Crocodylidae. This cladogram was revised in a paleogenomics study.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Mugger crocodile hatchlings are pale olive with black spots. Adults are dark olive to grey or brown. The head is rough without any ridges and has large scutes around the neck that is well separated from the back. Scutes usually form four, rarely six longitudinal series and 16 or 17 transverse series. The limbs have keeled scales with serrated fringes on outer edges, and outer toes are extensively webbed. The snout is slightly longer than broad with 19 upper teeth on each side. The symphysis of the lower jaw extends to the level of the fourth or fifth tooth. The premaxillary suture on the palate is nearly straight or curved forwards, and the nasal bones separate the premaxilla above.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The mugger crocodile is considered a medium-sized crocodilian, but has the broadest snout among living crocodiles. It has a powerful tail and webbed feet. Its visual, hearing and smelling senses are acute. Adult female muggers are on average, and male muggers measure between . They rarely grow up to . The largest known muggers measured .


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The largest zoological specimen in the British Museum of Natural History measures . One male mugger caught in Pakistan of about weighed .


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The mugger crocodile occurs in southern Iran, Pakistan, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka up to an elevation of . It inhabits freshwater lakes, rivers and marshes, and prefers slow-moving, shallow water bodies. It also thrives in artificial reservoirs and irrigation canals.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In Iran, the mugger occurs along rivers in Sistan and Baluchestan Provinces along the Iran–Pakistan border. A population of around 200 mugger crocodiles lives on the Iranian Makran coast near Chabahar. Due to human activity and a long drought in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it had been pushed to the brink of extinction. Following several tropical cyclones in 2007 and 2010, much of the habitat of the mugger crocodiles has been restored as formerly dry lakes and hamuns were flooded again.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In Pakistan, a small population lives in 21 ponds around Dasht River; in the winter of 2007–08, 99 individuals were counted. By 2017, the population had declined to 25 individuals. In Sindh Province, small mugger populations occur in wetlands of Deh Akro 2 and Nara Desert Wildlife Sanctuaries, near Chotiari Dam, in the Nara Canal and around Haleji lake.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In Nepal's Terai, it occurs in the wetlands of Shuklaphanta and Bardia National Parks, Ghodaghodi Tal, Chitwan National Park and Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In Sri Lanka, it occurs in Wilpattu, Yala and Bundala National Parks. Between 1991 and 1996, it was recorded in another 102 localities.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In Bangladesh, it was historically present in the northern parts of the Sundarbans, where four to five captive individuals survived in an artificial pond by the 1980s. It is possibly locally extinct in the country.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In Bhutan, it became extinct in the late 1960s, but a few captive-bred individuals were released in the Manas River in the late 1990s. It is considered locally extinct in Myanmar.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The mugger crocodile is a powerful swimmer that uses its tail and hind feet to move forward, change direction and submerge. It belly-walks, with its belly touching ground, at the bottom of waterbodies and on land. During the hot dry season, it walks over land at night to find suitable wetlands and spends most of the day submerged in water. During the cold season it basks on riverbanks, individuals are tolerant of others during this period. Territorial behaviour increases during the mating season.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Like all crocodilians, the mugger crocodile is a thermoconformer and has an optimal body temperature of and risks dying of freezing or hyperthermia when exposed to temperatures below or above , respectively. It digs burrows to retreat from extreme temperatures and other harsh climatic conditions. Burrows are between deep, with entrances above the water level and a chamber at the end that is big enough to allow the mugger to turn around. Temperatures inside remains constant at , depending on region.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The mugger crocodile preys on fish, snakes, turtles, birds and mammals including monkeys, squirrels, rodents, otters and dogs. It also scavenges on dead animals. During dry seasons, muggers walk many kilometers over land in search of water and prey. Hatchlings feed mainly on insects such as beetles, but also on crabs and shrimp and on vertebrates later on. It seizes and drags potential prey approaching watersides into the water, when the opportunity arises. Adult muggers were observed feeding on a flapshell turtle and a tortoise. Subadult and adult muggers favour fish, but also prey on small to medium-sized ungulates up to the size of chital ("Axis axis"). In Bardia National Park, a mugger was observed caching a chital kill beneath the roots of a tree and returning to its basking site. A part of the deer was still wedged among the roots on the next day. Muggers have also been observed while preying and feeding on a python. At the Chambal River, muggers have attacked water buffaloes, cattle and goats.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In Yala National Park, a mugger was observed killing a large Indian pangolin ("Manis crassicaudata"), of which it devoured pieces over several hours.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Mugger crocodiles have been documented using lures to hunt birds. This means they are among the first reptiles recorded to use tools. By balancing sticks and branches on their heads, they lure birds that are looking for nesting material. This strategy is particularly effective during the nesting season.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Female muggers obtain sexual maturity at a body length of around at the age of about 6.5 years, and males at around body length. The reproduction cycle starts earliest in November at the onset of the cold season with courtship and mating. Between February and June, females dig deep holes for nesting between away from the waterside. They lay up to two clutches with 8 –46 eggs each. Eggs weigh on average. Laying of one clutch usually takes less than half an hour. Thereafter, females scrape sand over the nest to close it. Males have been observed to assist females in digging and protecting nest sites. Hatching season is two months later, between April and June in south India, and in Sri Lanka between August and September. Then females excavate the young, pick them up in their snouts and take them to the water. Both females and males protect the young for up to one year.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Healthy hatchlings develop at a temperature range of . Sex ratio of hatched eggs depends on incubation temperature and exposure of nests to sunshine. Only females develop at constant temperatures of , and only males at . Percentage of females in a clutch decreases at constant temperatures between , and of males between . Temperature in natural nests is not constant but varies between nights and days. Foremost females hatch in natural early nests when initial temperature inside nests ranges between . The percentage of male hatchlings increases in late nests located in sunny sites. Hatchlings are long and weigh on average when one month old. They grow about per month and reach a body length of when two years old.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The distribution of the mugger crocodile overlaps with that of the saltwater crocodile in a few coastal areas, but it barely enters brackish water and prefers shallow waterways. It is an apex predator in freshwater ecosystems. It is sympatric with the gharial ("Gavialis gangeticus") in the Rapti and Narayani Rivers, in the eastern Mahanadi, and in tributaries of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The Bengal tiger ("Panthera tigris tigris") occasionally fights mugger crocodiles off prey and rarely preys on adult mugger crocodiles in Ranthambore National Park. The Asiatic lion ("Panthera leo leo") can sometimes prey on crocodiles on the banks of the Kamleshwar Dam in Gir National Park during dry, hot months.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The mugger crocodile is threatened by habitat destruction because of conversion of natural habitats for agricultural and industrial use. As humans encroach into its habitat, the incidents of conflict increase. Muggers are entangled in fishing equipment and drown, and are killed in areas where fishermen perceive them as competition.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Major wetlands in Pakistan were drained in the 1990s by dams and channels to funnel natural streams and agricultural runoffs into rivers.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In Gujarat, two muggers were found killed, one in 2015 with the tail cut off and internal organs missing; the other in 2017, also with the tail cut off. The missing body parts indicate that the crocodiles were sacrificed in superstitious practices or used as aphrodisiacs.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Between 2005 and 2018, 38 mugger crocodiles were victims of traffic accidents on roads and railway tracks in Gujarat; 29 were found dead, four died during treatment, and five were returned to the wild after medical care. In 2017, a dead mugger was found on a railway track in Rajasthan.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The mugger crocodile is listed in CITES Appendix I, hence international commercial trade is prohibited. It has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1982. By 2013, less than 8,700 mature individuals were estimated to live in the wild and no population unit to comprise more than 1,000 individuals.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In India, it has been protected since 1972 under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, which prohibits catching, killing and transporting a crocodile without a permit; offenders face imprisonment and a fine.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In Sri Lanka, it was listed in Schedule IV of the Fauna & Flora Protection Ordinance in 1946, which allowed for shooting one crocodile with a permit. Today, it is strictly protected, but law enforcement in Sri Lanka is lacking.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: In Iran, the mugger crocodile is listed as endangered and has been legally protected since 2013; capturing and killing a crocodile is punished with a fine of 100 million Iranian rials.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Since large muggers occasionally take livestock, this leads to conflict with local people living close to mugger habitat. In Maharashtra, local people are compensated for loss of close relatives and livestock. Local people in Baluchestan respect the mugger crocodile as a water living creature and do not harm it. If an individual kills livestock, the owner is compensated for the loss. The mugger crocodile is translocated in severe conflict cases.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: A total of 1,193 captive bred muggers were released to restock populations in 28 protected areas in India between 1978 and 1992. Production of new offspring was halted by the Indian Government in 1994.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The Sanskrit word मकर 'makara' refers to the crocodile and a mythical crocodile-like animal. The Hindi word for crocodile is मगर 'magar'. In English language, both names 'mugger' and 'magar' were used around the turn of the 20th century. The names 'marsh crocodile' and 'broad-snouted crocodile' have been used since the late 1930s.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The crocodile is acknowledged as the prototype of the makara and symbolises both the fructifying and the destructive powers of the rivers. It is the animal vehicle of the Vedic deity Varuna and of several nature spirits called yakshas. In Hindu mythology, it represents virility as a vehicle of Ganga and as an emblem of Kamadeva. A stone carving of a mugger crocodile was part of a beam of a gateway to the Bharhut Stupa built around 100 BC.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: The traditional biography of the Indian saint Adi Shankara includes an incident where he is grabbed by a crocodile in the Kaladi river, which releases him only after his mother reluctantly let him choose the ascetic path of a Sannyasa. The Muslim saint Pīr Mango is said to have taken care of crocodiles and created a stream to trickle out of a rock near Karachi in the 13th century. This place was later walled around, and about 40 mugger crocodiles were kept in the reservoir called Magar Talao in the 1870s; they were fed by both Hindu and Muslim pilgrims. Mugger crocodiles have also been kept in tanks near Hindu temples built in the vicinity of rivers; these crocodiles are considered sacred. In the early 20th century, young married women fed the crocodiles in Khan Jahan Ali's Tank in Jessore in the hope of being blessed with children.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: Vasava, Gamit and Chodhri tribes in Gujarat worship the crocodile god Mogra Dev asking for children, good crops and milk yield of their cows. They carve wooden statues symbolising Mogra Dev and mount them on poles. Their offerings during the installation ceremony include rice, milk, wine, heart and liver of a chicken, and a mixture of vermillion, oil and coconut fibres. Fatal attacks of mugger crocodiles on humans were documented in Gujarat and Maharasthra, but they rarely consumed the victims who died of drowning.


title: Mugger crocodile

text: A fable from the Jataka tales of Buddhist traditions features a clever monkey outwitting a crocodile. Three folktales feature crocodiles and jackals. A mugger crocodile is one of the characters in "The Undertakers", a chapter of "The Second Jungle Book". The children’s book "Adventures of a Nepali Frog" features the character Mugger, the crocodile who lives by the Rapti River in Chitwan National Park.


title: Galago

text: Galagos , also known as bush babies, or nagapies (meaning "night monkeys" in Afrikaans), are small nocturnal primates native to continental, sub-Sahara Africa, and make up the family Galagidae (also sometimes called Galagonidae). They are considered a sister group of the Lorisidae.


title: Galago

text: According to some accounts, the name "bush baby" comes from either the animal's cries or its appearance. The Ghanaian name "aposor" is given to them because of their firm grip on branches.


title: Galago

text: In both variety and abundance, the bush babies are the most successful strepsirrhine primates in Africa, according to the African Wildlife Foundation.


title: Galago

text: Galagos are currently grouped into six genera. "Euoticus" is a basal sister taxon to all the other galagids. The 'dwarf' galagids recently grouped under the genus "Galagoides" have been found, based on genetic data, and supported by analysis of vocalisations and morphology, to actually consist of two clades, which are not sister taxa, in eastern and western/central Africa (separated by the rift valley). The latter are basal to all the other non-"Euoticus" galagids. The former group is sister to "Galago" and has been elevated to full genus status as "Paragalago". The genera "Otolemur" and "Sciurocheirus" are also sisters.


title: Galago

text: Galagos have large eyes that give them good night vision in addition to other characteristics, like strong hind limbs, acute hearing, and long tails that help them balance. Their ears are bat-like and allow them to track insects in the dark. They catch insects on the ground or snatch them out of the air. They are fast, agile creatures. As they bound through the thick bushes, they fold their delicate ears back to protect them. They also fold them during rest. They have nails on most of their digits, except for the second toe of the hind foot, which bears a grooming claw. Their diet is a mixture of insects and other small animals, fruit, and tree gums. They have pectinate (comb-like) incisors called toothcombs, and the dental formula: They are active at night.


title: Galago

text: After a gestation period of 110–133 days, young galagos are born with half-closed eyes and are initially unable to move about independently. After a few (6–8) days, the mother carries the infant in her mouth, and places it on branches while feeding. Females may have singles, twins, or triplets, and may become very aggressive. Each newborn weighs less than half an ounce. For the first three days, the infant is kept in constant contact with the mother. The young are fed by the mother for six weeks and can feed themselves at two months. The young grow rapidly, often causing the mother to walk awkwardly as she transports them.


title: Galago

text: Females maintain a territory shared with their offspring, while males leave their mothers' territories after puberty. Thus social groups consist of closely related females and their young. Adult males maintain separate territories, which overlap with those of the female social groups; generally, one adult male mates with all the females in an area. Males that have not established such territories sometimes form small bachelor groups.


title: Galago

text: Bush-babies are sometimes kept as pets, although this is not advised because, like many other nonhuman primates, they are a likely sources of diseases that can cross species barriers. Equally, they are very likely to attract attention from customs officials on importation into many countries. Reports from veterinary and zoological sources indicate captive lifetimes of 12.0 to 16.5 years, suggesting a natural lifetime over a decade.


title: Galago

text: Galagos communicate by calling to each other and by marking their paths with urine. By following the scent of urine, they can land on exactly the same branch every time. Each species produces a unique set of loud calls that have different functions. One function is to identify individuals as members of a particular species across distances. Scientists can recognize all known galago species by their 'loud calls'. At the end of the night, group members use a special rallying call and gather to sleep in a nest of leaves, a group of branches, or a hole in a tree.


title: Galago

text: Galagos have remarkable jumping abilities. The highest reliably reported jump for a galago is 2.25 m. According to a study published by the Royal Society, given the body mass of each animal and the fact that the leg muscles amount to about 25% of this, galago's jumping muscles should perform six to nine times better than those of a frog. This is thought to be due to elastic energy storage in tendons of the lower leg, allowing far greater jumps than would otherwise be possible for an animal of their size. In mid-flight, they tuck their arms and legs close to the body; they bring them out at the last second to grab a branch. In a series of leaps, a galago can cover ten yards in mere seconds. The tail, which is longer than the length of the head and body combined, assists the legs in powering the jumps. They may also hop like a kangaroo or simply run or walk on four legs. Such strong, complicated, and coordinated movements are due to the rostral half of the posterior parietal cortex that is linked to the motor, premotor, and visuomotor areas of the frontal cortex.


title: Galago

text: Generally, the social structure of the galago has components of both social life and solitary life. This can be seen in their play. They swing off branches or climb high and throw things. Social play includes play fights, play grooming, and following-play. During following-play, two galagos jump sporadically and chase each other through the trees. The older galagos in a group prefer to rest alone, while younger ones are in constant contact with one another. This is observed in the "Galago garnetti" species. Mothers often leave infants alone for long periods and do not try to stop them from leaving. On the other hand, the offspring tries to stay close to, and initiate social interactions with the mother.


title: Galago

text: Grooming is a very important part of galago daily life. They often groom themselves before, during, and after rest. Social grooming is done more often by males in the group. Females often reject attempts by males to groom them.


title: Galago

text: The bush baby also refers to a myth that is used to scare children to stay indoors at night. Most likely arising from the baby-like cry, the unusual nature evolved into a myth about a powerful animal that can kidnap humans. It is also said that wild bush babies/galagos in Nigeria can never be found dead on plain ground. Rather, they make a nest of sticks, leaves or branches to die in. Endangerment of the species in sub-Saharan Africa has made this claim difficult to verify.


title: Zhang Zongchang

text: Zhang Zongchang (1881 – 3 September 1932) was a Chinese warlord in Shandong in the early 20th century. "Time" dubbed him China's "basest warlord". He was known by many nicknames such as the "Dogmeat General" (), based on the name of his favorite card game or tonic.


title: Zhang Zongchang

text: Zhang was born in 1881 in Yi County (now Laizhou) in Shandong. His family was poor. Zhang's father worked as head shaver and trumpeter, and was an alcoholic. His mother was an exorcist and "practicing witch". His parents eventually separated. Zhang stayed with his mother who had taken a new lover. In his teens, Zhang's family moved to Manchuria, where Zhang became involved in petty crime in Harbin. He successively worked as a pickpocket, bouncer, and prospector. At some point, he worked in Siberia, learning Russian. Zhang eventually became a bandit in the Chinese countryside, though served as auxiliary for the Imperial Russian Army during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–1905. Following the conflict, he returned to crime and rose to lead his own bandit gang.


title: Zhang Zongchang

text: His activities during the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 are unclear, though he reportedly led a group of "revolutionary desperados" at the time. At first, he ended up in Jiangsu, where he joined an army regiment. He impressed his commanding officer Cheng Dechuan so much that he appointed Zhang his successor. Afterwards, Zhang and his regiment operated under Division Commander Leng Yuqin, battling bandit groups. When the Second Revolution broke out in 1913, Leng sided with the revolutionaries and was killed, resulting in Zhang becoming the division's commander. However, the division's connection with the revolutionaries caused General Feng Guozhang to disband the entire unit, reducing Zhang to a merely symbolic role. He responded by murdering the revolutionary Chen Qimei in Shanghai in 1916, proving himself loyal and reliable to Feng. When the latter became Vice President of the Republic of China, he appointed Zhang the commander of his personal guard.


title: Zhang Zongchang

text: Zhang returned to Manchuria in 1922, and joined the Fengtian clique of warlord Zhang Zuolin. He made a good impression, with one story being that he rose in popularity one year at Zhang Zuolin's birthday party: in contrast to other guests who showered the warlord with expensive gifts, Zhang Zongchang sent him two empty coolie baskets and failed to turn up himself. Zhang Zuolin was baffled until the purpose of the gift was ascertained: Zhang Zongchang's empty basket implied he was a man willing to shoulder whatever heavy responsibilities the warlord entrusted him with. He was subsequently rewarded with a command position in his army, though only after proving himself in battle did Zhang Zongchang visit his superior in person.


title: Zhang Zongchang

text: Zhang Zongchang proved to be one of the more capable warlord generals, making effective use of armored trains. Aided by his knowledge of the Russian language, he recruited thousands of White Russian refugees from the Russian Civil War; he organised the men into specialised units, including a unit of Cossack bodyguards, and crews for his armored trains. He even outfitted some White Russians with pseudo-Tsarist uniforms and regalia. He was also one of the first Chinese generals to incorporate women into the military on a large scale, including using a regiment of nurses consisting entirely of White Russian women. They trained their Chinese counterparts, resulting in greater efficiency in taking care of Zhang's wounded troops, a significant boost for morale and combat capability. He also organized his own small air force, including at least one Caudron C.59 bomber.