title: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

text: The "Jason Goes to Hell" depiction of Jason Voorhees is featured in 2017's "". Because of a continuity error in the film regarding Jason's damaged eye, his in-game character model is mirrored from his movie counterpart. As the Gun Media developers explained, "In ["Jason Goes to Hell"], everyone kind of knows there was a mistake made with Jason's undermask. It's Jason's left eye that’s supposed to be damaged, 'cause in "" he takes the machete to the head. But in "[Jason Goes to Hell]", it was reversed on accident. So we decided to fix it." The game officially reveals Jason's facial appearance from underneath the mask, which was not seen in the film.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: Rock Star is a 2001 American musical comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Herek from a script by John Stockwell and starring Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. It tells the story of Chris "Izzy" Cole, a tribute band singer who ascended to the position of lead vocalist of his favorite band. The script was inspired by the real-life story of Tim "Ripper" Owens, singer in a Judas Priest tribute band who was chosen to replace singer Rob Halford when he left the band. After optioning the filming rights to a "New York Times" profile of Owens by Andrew Revkin, Warner Bros. hired Stockwell to write the script. Brad Pitt was initially signed to play the lead role but left due to creative differences, and Wahlberg was eventually hired for the part. "Rock Star" garnered mixed reviews from critics and was a box office flop, grossing $19 million worldwide against a production budget of $57 million.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: In the mid-1980s, Pittsburgh resident Chris Cole is a fanatical admirer of a heavy metal band called Steel Dragon. By day, Chris is a photocopier technician and by night, he is the lead singer of a Steel Dragon tribute band called Blood Pollution (the name is taken from a Steel Dragon song).


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: Internal struggles among the actual Steel Dragon band members culminate with the firing of their lead singer, Bobby Beers, and the beginning of recruitment sessions to find a new vocalist. Chris experiences his own strife with his Blood Pollution bandmates, particularly guitarist Rob Malcolm. During a live performance, Rob's playing fails to live up to Chris' over-demanding standards regarding note-for-note accuracy to the original Steel Dragon recordings and, after Chris sabotages Rob's amplifier mid-song, a fight breaks out between the two onstage. The next day, Chris meets Blood Pollution at a rehearsal session, but he finds out that he has been replaced by his arch-rival, the erstwhile lead singer of another Steel Dragon tribute band. Rob also cites Chris' inability to create his own musical style, preferring to remain the singer in a tribute band.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: One day, Chris receives an unexpected phone call from Steel Dragon's founder and rhythm guitarist, Kirk Cuddy, and is offered an audition for the band (thanks to two of Blood Pollution's groupies, who showed Kirk a videotape of one of Blood Pollution's concerts). After hanging up on Kirk once, thinking he's being pranked by Rob, Chris ecstatically agrees. At the studio, he meets the band and gives an outstanding performance of "We All Die Young" (a Steel Dragon song in the movie, but it is a real song by Steelheart, whose lead vocalist, Miljenko Matijevic, provides Cole's singing voice for the film). Chris joins the band as their new singer, adopting the stage name "Izzy". Following a successful debut concert with Steel Dragon, Izzy must come to grips with the pressures of his new-found fame and success. The band embarks on a lengthy tour and Izzy experiences the excesses of the lifestyle, with the group's road manager, Mats, serving as a sympathetic mentor to Izzy.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: His new lifestyle impacts his life both for better and worse, particularly with his relationship with his supportive girlfriend, Emily Poule, when she decides not to continue with him throughout the remainder of the tour as a rock star girlfriend, though Emily and Izzy agree to get back together when the tour reaches Seattle. Eventually, Steel Dragon stops in Seattle for a show, and Emily arrives at his hotel room as they had previously arranged, although Izzy has become so inebriated while on tour he forgot about the arrangement and does not even know what city he is in. Although taken aback by all the groupies, Emily still tries to reconnect with him, reminding him of their plans to meet up once he got to Seattle; however he is too intoxicated to really understand what she is saying, eventually suggesting they go to Seattle together. Heartbroken with his inconsiderate behavior, intoxication and the fact that he is having sex with so many groupies, Emily leaves him.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: Six months later, Izzy reports to the next series of Steel Dragon recording sessions with song concepts and artwork for the band's next album. The rest of the band like his ideas, but they reject them, with Kirk explaining that the band has to stay true to the "Steel Dragon thing" to fulfill fan expectations. Izzy is angered upon realizing that he was only recruited for his vocal abilities. After a heartfelt conversation with Mats about how he feared he had no control over the direction life has taken him, Izzy begins to reconsider his rock star lifestyle. On the next tour, in a scene directly paralleling one near the beginning of the film with their roles reversed, Izzy hears a fan singing along with him toward the end of a live concert. Impressed, Izzy pulls the fan, who introduces himself as Thor, onstage and hands him the microphone to finish the concert. Backstage, Izzy realizes that what he thought he wanted for so long was not what he wanted, and he says goodbye to Mats, departing from the band while doing so.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: After leaving Steel Dragon and ditching his rock star image and stage name, Chris makes his way to Seattle and starts a new band with his old friend and former bandmate, Rob, allowing him to write his own music. Chris finds Emily working in the coffee shop she and her roommate purchased a few years earlier, and he is initially too ashamed to speak to her. While walking one evening, Emily sees a flyer for his band posted on the wall and takes it down. In the final scene, Chris is singing with his band in a bar and Emily walks in. Chris leaves the stage and speaks to her. They reconcile, ending the film with a kiss and the final note of Chris' first original song "Colorful" (which is a real song by The Verve Pipe).


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: During the credits, Cuddy talks about the future of the band and Bobby Beers is shown to have taken up Irish Dancing after his sacking from Steel Dragon.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: The band members are portrayed by ex-Dokken and current Foreigner bassist Jeff Pilson; Black Label Society founder and Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde; actor Dominic West; and ex-Foreigner and Black Country Communion drummer Jason Bonham (the son of the late John Bonham, drummer for Led Zeppelin). Myles Kennedy, who was at the time the lead vocalist of The Mayfield Four and now the front man of Alter Bridge and Slash's solo project, makes a cameo appearance.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: The singing voice for Wahlberg's character was provided by Steelheart frontman Miljenko Matijevic for the Steel Dragon Songs, and the final number was sung by Brian Vander Ark of The Verve Pipe. Jeff Scott Soto (of Talisman, Yngwie Malmsteen, Soul SirkUS, and Journey) provided the voice of Jason Flemyng's character Bobby Beers. Ralph Saenz (Steel Panther) also appears briefly, as the singer auditioning ahead of Chris at the studio.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: Tribute band Blood Pollution is also made up of known musical artists, including guitarist Nick Catanese (Black Label Society), drummer Blas Elias (Slaughter), and bassist Brian Vander Ark (The Verve Pipe, who also contributed a song to the film's soundtrack). Actor Timothy Olyphant portrays Blood Pollution's guitarist, Rob Malcolm. Bradley, the singer who replaces Chris in Blood Pollution, is played by Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: After "The New York Times" ran a story on Tim "Ripper" Owens in 1997, various Hollywood studios ran to option the filming rights. Warner Bros. won the bid, and hired John Stockwell to write the script. Stockwell soon began researching the heavy metal music and tribute band scene and visited Owens' hometown of Akron, Ohio. Afterwards the project, under the working title "Metal God", got the involvement of George Clooney's newly founded Maysville Pictures. Brad Pitt signed to star in 1998, but wound up dropping the project following creative differences with the studio. Eventually Mark Wahlberg, a former rapper with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch who co-starred with Clooney in "Three Kings", was hired for the main role in May 1999. Stephen Herek signed to direct in October, and the following month Jennifer Aniston became attached for the main female role, while Callie Khouri was hired to revise the script. Judas Priest were initially approached, but the band had some objections to the initial script and were phased out as it was rewritten into a more original story loosely based on the facts, in spite of the band still offering to give advice and assistance to the production.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: Wahlberg spent five months preparing for his role as Chris Cole, working with a vocal coach, growing his hair, attending the metal scene and wandering around Los Angeles in-character. A concert scene was shot at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena before 10,000 Metallica and Megadeth fans.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: While filming one Steel Dragon performance, the crew pranked Wahlberg by playing Marky Mark's "Good Vibrations" instead of a rock track, and footage of this is featured during the film's end credits. By 2001, Warner renamed the project from "Metal God" to "Rock Star" in order to attract a broader rock fandom instead of just metal fans.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: The film opened at at the U.S. box office taking US$6,018,636 in its opening weekend, and grossing a domestic total of $17,008,282 and $2,325,863 internationally for a worldwide gross of $19,334,145; based on a $57 million budget, "Rock Star" was a box office bomb.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average score of . The website's consensus states: "Like its title, "Rock Star" is rather generic, being not so much about the heavy metal scene than about rock cliches and formula". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 54 out of 100 based on 32 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B−" on scale of A to F.


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it 2.5 out of 4 stars and wrote: "By the end of the film I conceded, yes, there are good performances and the period is well captured, but the movie didn't convince me of the feel and the flavor of its experiences."


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: Tim "Ripper" Owens, the inspiration for the story, noted to "Rolling Stone" that while he considered "Rock Star" "a "Spinal Tap" kind of movie" that distanced from the real facts to feature "all the cliches of sex, drugs, and rock and roll", he found the portrayal of the band members as accurate and was still flattered to become the basis for a movie. When Judas Priest bassist Ian Hill was asked about his reaction to "Rock Star" in an interview in "PopMatters" magazine, he said "I mean, I quite enjoyed the movie. It was entertaining, you know?" Hill was quoted as saying "It had nothing to do with Rob Halford, Ripper Owens and Judas Priest, it's got nothing to do with that, whatsoever. It was fiction. Apart from the fact that 'Local Boy Makes Good'? That was the only true aspect of the movie." Hill was quick to add "I watched it once. I don't have the urge to watch it again."


title: Rock Star (2001 film)

text: A small number of the songs featured in the film and on the soundtrack were released after the dates given in the film. They are marked with an asterisk.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: Hawthorne is a city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California. It is part of a seventeen-city region commonly called the South Bay. As of the 2020 US census, Hawthorne had a population of 88,083.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: Hawthorne was founded in 1905 as the "Hawthorne Improvement Company" by B.L. Harding and H.D. Lombard. Harding's daughter shared her birthday—the 4th of July, American Independence Day—with New England author Nathaniel Hawthorne, and a decision was made to name the city after him.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: Hawthorne was once a "whites only" settlement, commonly called a sundown town. During the 1930s, signs warned African-Americans to be out of Hawthorne by sundown.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: To the north of Hawthorne is the unincorporated community of Lennox and the city of Inglewood. To the east is the unincorporated community of Athens and the city of Gardena. To the south is the unincorporated community of El Camino Village, and the cities of Lawndale and Redondo Beach. Manhattan Beach is at the southwest corner of Hawthorne. To the west is the city of El Segundo, and the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westchester is to the northwest of Hawthorne. The unincorporated community of Del Aire is surrounded on three sides by Hawthorne.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: The Century Freeway (Glenn Anderson Freeway, I-105) runs along the northern boundary of Hawthorne, with the LACMTA Green Line light rail line running down the center of the Century Freeway. The San Diego Freeway (I-405) runs along the western boundary of Hawthorne. Major east–west streets in Hawthorne include Rosecrans Avenue, El Segundo Boulevard, and Imperial Highway. Major north–south streets include Aviation Boulevard, Inglewood Avenue, Hawthorne Boulevard, Prairie Avenue, Crenshaw Boulevard, and Van Ness Avenue.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: Hawthorne comprises ZIP codes 90250 and 90251. It is in the 310 area code, except for a small portion of northeastern Hawthorne, which is located in the 323 area code.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: Hawthorne has a Mediterranean climate or dry-summer subtropical (Köppen climate classification "Csb" on the coast, "Csa" inland), enjoying plenty of sunshine throughout the year, with an average of 263 sunshine days and only 35 days with measurable precipitation annually.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: The period of April through November is warm to hot and dry with average high temperatures of and lows of . Due to the moderating effect of the ocean, temperatures are cooler than more inland areas of Los Angeles, where temperatures frequently exceed 90 °F (32 °C) and occasionally reach 100 °F (38 °C).


title: Hawthorne, California

text: The Los Angeles area is also subject to the phenomena typical of a microclimate. As such, the temperatures can vary as much as 18 °F (10 °C) between inland areas and the coast, with a temperature gradient of over one degree per mile (1.6 km) from the coast inland. California has also a weather phenomenon called "June Gloom or May Grey", which sometimes brings overcast or foggy skies in the morning at the coast, but usually gives way to sunny skies by noon, during late spring and early summer.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: The Los Angeles region averages 15 inches (385 mm) of precipitation annually, which mainly occurs during the winter and spring (November through April) with generally light rain showers, but sometimes as heavy rainfall and thunderstorms. On November 6, 1966, the first-ever documented tornado touched down within city limits. It caused significant damage, running for about , from 132nd Street and Ramona Avenue to 140th Street and Ramona Avenue. Snowfall is extremely rare but not impossible in the city basin.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: At the 2010 census Hawthorne had a population of 84,293. The population density was . The racial makeup of Hawthorne was 27,678 (32.8%) White (10.3% Non-Hispanic White), 23,385 (27.7%) African American, 565 (0.7%) Native American, 5,642 (6.7%) Asian, 974 (1.2%) Pacific Islander, 22,127 (26.3%) from other races, and 3,922 (4.7%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 44,572 persons (52.9%).


title: Hawthorne, California

text: The census reported that 83,754 people (99.4% of the population) lived in households, 208 (0.2%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 331 (0.4%) were institutionalized.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: There were 28,486 households, 12,330 (43.3%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 10,833 (38.0%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 6,369 (22.4%) had a female householder with no husband present, 2,357 (8.3%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 2,309 (8.1%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 191 (0.7%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. Of the households, 7,125 (25.0%) were one person and 1,430 (5.0%) had someone living alone who was 65 or older. The average household size was 2.94. There were 19,559 families (68.7% of households); the average family size was 3.54.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: The age distribution was 23,157 people (27.5%) under the age of 18, 9,487 people (11.3%) aged 18 to 24, 27,035 people (32.1%) aged 25 to 44, 18,395 people (21.8%) aged 45 to 64, and 6,219 people (7.4%) who were 65 or older. The median age was 31.5 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.6 males.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: There were 29,869 housing units at an average density of 4,902.7 per square mile, of the occupied units 7,623 (26.8%) were owner-occupied and 20,863 (73.2%) were rented. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.5%; the rental vacancy rate was 4.6%. 25,869 people (30.7% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 57,885 people (68.7%) lived in rental housing units.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: During 2009–2013, Hawthorne had a median household income of $44,649, with 19.2% of the population living below the federal poverty line.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 84,112 people in 28,536 households, including 19,775 families, in the city. The population density was 13,879.4 inhabitants per square mile (5,359.0/km). There were 29,629 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 29.27% White, 39.02% Black or African American, 0.75% Native American, 7.73% Asian, 0.86% Pacific Islander, 24.16% from other races, and 5.22% from two or more races. 44.3% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: There were 28,536 households, 43.7% included children under the age of 18, 38.6% were married couples living together, 23.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.7% were non-families. Of all households 24.5% were one person and 4.5% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.93 and the average family size was 3.50.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: The age distribution was 31.7% under the age of 18, 11.3% from 18 to 24, 34.9% from 25 to 44, 16.1% from 45 to 64, and 6.1% 65 or older. The median age was 29 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.3 males.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: The median household income was $31,887 and the median family income was $35,149. Males had a median income of $29,481 versus $27,427 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,022. About 18.4% of families and 20.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25.6% of those under age 18 and 9.0% of those age 65 or over.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: Mexican (27.1%) and Filipino (2.6%) are the most common ancestries in the city. Mexico (45.1%) and Guatemala (9.3%) are the most common foreign places of birth in the city.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: As of 2022 the city is known as a center for the space industry and hosts numerous space related private companies, industries and startups. The relatively large number of aerospace engineers and technicians, history of established aerospace companies, and the presence of SpaceX has facilitated the development of space engineering industry cluster in the city. According to the City's 2021 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:


title: Hawthorne, California

text: Hawthorne has an elected city council composed of a mayor elected every four years and four city council members elected on four year terms.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: According to the city's most recent "Comprehensive Annual Financial Report," its various funds had $126.1 million in revenues, $113.2 million in expenditures, $220.2 million in total assets, $152.7 million in total liabilities, and $29.6 million in cash and investments.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: The structure of the management and coordination of city services is: The city manager is Vontray Norris.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: Hawthorne Math and Science Academy is a charter high school in Hawthorne associated with the Hawthorne School District.


title: Hawthorne, California

text: The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Curtis Tucker Health Center in Inglewood, serving Hawthorne.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: Butterfly is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey, released on September 10, 1997, by Columbia Records. The album contains both hip hop and urban adult contemporary sounds, as well as some softer and more contemporary melodies. Throughout the project, Carey worked with Walter Afanasieff, with whom she had written and produced most of the material from her previous albums. She also worked with many famed hip hop producers and rappers, such as Sean "Puffy" Combs, Q-Tip, Missy Elliott and the Trackmasters. With the latter acts producing most of the album, "Butterfly" deviated from the adult contemporary sound of Carey's previous albums.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: With "Butterfly", Carey continued the transition that began with previous album, "Daydream" (1995), which pushed her further into the R&B and hip hop market and away from the pop background of her previous work. During her marriage to Tommy Mottola, Carey had little control over the creative and artistic steps she took on her albums, however, after their divorce midway through the album's conception, she was able to reflect her creative maturity and evolution in the album's writing and recording. Carey writes in the booklet of her twelfth studio album, "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel" (2009), that she considers "Butterfly" her magnum opus and a turning point in both her life and career.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: Five singles were released from the album; two worldwide commercial singles and three limited-release singles. "Honey", the album's lead single, topped the charts in Canada and the United States, and reached the top-five in New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom. The album's fifth and final single, "My All", became a top-ten hit throughout Europe and topped the charts in the United States. To promote the album, Carey embarked on the Butterfly World Tour, which visited Australia, Japan and Taiwan, with one show in the United States. "Butterfly" was nominated for three Grammy Awards at the 40th Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: "Butterfly" received acclaim from music critics, many of whom embraced Carey's musical transition. Reviewers complimented the album for its mature sound and production, as well as Carey's musical direction. Though released during Carey's heavily publicized conflict with Sony Music, the album became an international commercial success, topping the albums charts in many countries, including Australia, Canada, Greece, Japan, the Netherlands, as well as the United States. It was certified five-times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the United States and received the Million Award in Japan. Globally, "Butterfly" has sold over ten million copies.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: Carey began working on "Butterfly" in January 1997. During the album's development in mid-1997 Carey separated from her husband, music executive Tommy Mottola, who had guided her career since 1990. Carey's increasing control over her own career had led to speculation in the press over the future of the couple, and they later divorced. Throughout the development of the album, in a departure from her previous style, Carey worked with various rappers and hip hop producers, including Sean "Puffy" Combs, Q-Tip, Missy Elliott and Jean Claude Oliver and Samuel Barnes from Trackmasters. Critics saw Carey's new production team as a form of revenge on Mottola and Sony Music. Carey denied taking a radically new direction, and insisted that the musical style of her new album was of her own choosing. Nevertheless, Carey resented the control that Sony, whose president was Mottola, exercised over her music, preventing her from making music about which she was passionate. In contrast, Sony was concerned Carey, their best-selling act, could jeopardize her future success through her actions.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: The pressure of the separation and constant press attention began to take its toll on Carey. Growing creative differences with producer Walter Afanasieff ended their working relationship, after collaborating on most of Carey's previous output. The breaking point came after a heated argument during a long recording session, over the album's musical direction. Carey also faced media criticism over her choice of producers and several newspapers linked Carey romantically to several rappers, suggesting these relationships influenced her decisions. However, Carey denied the allegations, stating she had only slept with her husband.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: "Butterfly" was first released on September 10, 1997, in Japan and Taiwan. It was unconventionally released on Thursday, September 11, in the United Kingdom, and September 12 in the rest of Europe. Columbia released it on September 16 in the United States. It was issued as an LP, cassette, compact disc, and/or MiniDisc depending on the country. In the United States, Columbia also issued a cassette/CD package set, the first such configuration by a record label.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: With a variety of writers and producers and its new musical direction for Carey, the album was always likely to be a commercial success. Carey and Combs wrote the lead single, "Honey." Combs believed this to be a good song but was uncertain how successful it would be as a release owing to its heavy hip hop influence. The remix for "Honey" featured rapping lead vocals from Da Brat, The LOX and Mase, and some verses were rapped by Combs himself. The track was very different from Carey's previous recordings, and was described by author Chris Nickson as "street Hip-Hop music, with a booming bass." The song's melody was driven by Q-Tip's drum programming and Stevie J's keyboard notes. Combs's production gave the song a "light and airy" effect, further distancing it from Carey's contemporary sound. "Honey" featured musical samples from Treacherous Three's "The Body Rock", and "Hey DJ" by The World's Famous Supreme Team. The track used both hip hop and R&B with traces of pop music and was described as a "[song with a] catchy chorus, combining hip hop and pop into something that simply wasn't going to be denied by anyone, and offering a powerful start to a record."


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: The album's second single, "Butterfly", was one of the ballads Carey wrote with Afanasieff. Carey described the song as the "favorite ballad she had ever written", one that was more personal than her previous work as the emotions conveyed through the song allude at just how meaningful the lyrics are to her. Carey solely wrote the lyrics while Afanasieff, who composed the music with Dan Shea, handled the song's instrumentals, and added a few personal R&B touches. Another ballad Carey wrote with Afanasieff was "My All", written as a contrast to the album's general hip hop flavor. Carey described the song as having "a lush sound and intense styling". It featured guitar arpeggios, which were synthetically created using sampling and keyboard notes. "The Roof", "Butterfly"s European single, incorporated fragments from Mobb Deep's "Shook Ones (Part II)", and was produced by Carey, Poke & Tone and Cory Rooney.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: "Fourth of July", one of the album's slower ballads, was also written solely by Carey and Afanasieff but was not released as a single. The song was perceived to have jazz influences and was compared to some of Carey's older work such as "Vanishing" and "The Wind". The next two tracks on the record, "Breakdown" and "Babydoll", were described as "the album's backbone, its real declaration of independence" by Nickson. "Breakdown" was written by Carey and Puffy and included rap verses from Wish and Krayzie Bone from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Author Chris Nickson wrote that "'Breakdown' showed Mariah treading forcefully into territory that was new for her and making it her own." For "Babydoll", Carey teamed up with Elliott. The track was recorded in Atlanta, where Elliott resided, and included background vocals from Carey's long-time friend, Trey Lorenz. "Babydoll" is an R&B ballad with trip hop and drum and bass influences, and was described as "a vocally driven piece", with strong jazz harmony provided by Cory Rooney. Other songs that incorporated R&B influence into ballads were "Whenever You Call" and "Close My Eyes", which were personally important to Carey due to their lyrical content. While both were similar ballads to Carey's previous work, Nickson said:


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: While up to the standard of anything Mariah had ever done before, [they] suffered in comparison. But even here you could hear the new Mariah in the spareness of the arrangements and the way it was her voice, rather than any instrument, that controlled the song. She'd grown to the point where having less behind her really proved to be more, for the song and for her. It was notable, too, that like the other ballads on the record, these two leaned very much towards R&B.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: Carey wrote the song "Fly Away (Butterfly Reprise)" with famed house music producer David Morales. When imagining the concept for "Butterfly", Carey intended the song to be a house music record, but after writing it, made it into a ballad. Carey expressed a desire to feature her concept both on the house record, in addition to the ballad that would become "Butterfly". Morales took Carey's lyrics, concept and melody and added a house beat to it. For the album, Carey recorded a version of Prince's "The Beautiful Ones", featuring Dru Hill, with Dru Hill lead singer Sisqó sharing much of the lead with her. The song was one of the last recorded tracks and was the only non-original song on "Butterfly". The final song on the album was "Outside", a ballad that was written by Carey, Afanasieff and Rooney, about Carey's experience being biracial. Richard Harrington from "The Washington Post" described the album's subtle inclusion of both pop and R&B genres:


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: There are two Mariah Careys on "Butterfly". One is the pop-oriented, ballad-leaning traditionalist who works very effectively with her longtime professional partner, composer-producer Walter Afanasieff. The other is a self-styled hip-hop fanatic who worked with Ol' Dirty Bastard on her last album and teams up here with several of that genre's movers and shakers, most notably Sean "Puffy" Combs, the godfather of hip-hop soul and the hottest producer in pop music today.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: To promote "Butterfly", Carey made many live appearances. On September 12, 1997, Carey was interviewed about her split from Mottola and sang a live rendition of "Butterfly" and "Hero" on "The Oprah Winfrey Show". Carey also featured as a musical guest on November 15, 1997, on "Saturday Night Live", performing "Butterfly" again, as well as the Spanish-inspired "My All". She made two appearances on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show"; she performed "My All" and on her return visit, sang "Close My Eyes" live for the first time. Carey also gave performances at awards shows, singing "My All" at the 1998 Blockbuster Entertainment Awards and "Honey" at the 1998 World Music Awards. In Europe, Carey made several promotional television appearances. In the United Kingdom, Carey performed "My All" and "Honey" on the "Des O'Connor Show" and "Top of the Pops". In Germany, she sang "Butterfly" on "Wetten, dass..?" and performed on Japanese television.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: Originally, Carey had not planned to tour, after receiving mixed reviews in the US for her Music Box Tour. However, after the album's release, many fans requested Carey to tour, especially in Asia and Australia. Therefore, Carey embarked on the Butterfly World Tour; her third head-lining tour and most extensive to date. The tour included eleven shows, four in Japan's largest stadium, Tokyo Dome, one in Taiwan, five in Australia and one in the United States. As part of her performance at the 50,000-capacity Aloha Stadium in Hawaii, Carey filmed a concert video, "Around the World". The video was a compilation DVD which included parts of Carey's shows in Japan, Australia and Hawaii. The tour was a critical and commercial success. Both fans and critics praised the quality of the show and Carey's vocals.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: Five singles were released from "Butterfly"; some featured as airplay-only singles, while others were released only in certain territories. "Honey" was released as the album's first single to mainstream and rhythmic radio on July 29, 1997. The song became Carey's twelfth number-one single on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and topped the chart in Canada, while reaching the top-five in New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of one million units in the United States, and received a gold certification in Australia. "Honey" was well-received, with critics complimenting its catchy sound and clever fusion of pop and R&B sounds. The title track served as the album's second single, but it was released as an "airplay-only" single due to Carey's conflict with Sony. Though not being released commercially by her label, "Butterfly" reached number sixteen on the Hot 100 Airplay, as well as the top-twenty in New Zealand.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: "Breakdown" was the third single released from "Butterfly". The song received a limited release throughout certain countries, such as the United States, where it peaked at number four on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. Aside from the US, "Breakdown" achieved a steady peak of number four on the New Zealand singles chart, in addition to entering the top-forty in Australia. While not one of Carey's best-known hits, "Breakdown" remains one of her most praised songs, receiving acclaim for assisting Carey's transition into the R&B market. In his review for the album, Rich Juzwiak from "Slant" magazine wrote the following:


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: The song of Carey's career, where the lyrical strokes are as broad and obvious as they are naked. Mariah the chanter flawlessly adapts to their singsong style, largely boxing her multi-octave range into a sly, hypnotic melody so that when she really wails at the end, you really feel it. Carey lunges toward musical maturity by embracing, not shunning hip-hop. This is the height of her elegance and maybe hip-hop-soul's, too.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: While "Breakdown" served as the album's third single in the United States, New Zealand and Australia, "The Roof" was released in Europe. It performed weakly on the charts, peaking at number 96 in the United Kingdom, and faring only slightly better in the Netherlands, where it peaked at number 63. While not commercially released in the US, the song's music video received heavy rotation on MTV and Vh1, due to the record's popularity. "My All" was chosen as the album's fifth and final single. The song was the most commercially successful song on "Butterfly", becoming Carey's thirteenth chart topper in the US, and reaching the top-ten throughout Europe. In France, "My All" peaked at number six, and was certified silver by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP). In the United States, the song finished at number seventeen, on the Billboard Year-End chart, remaining Carey's highest-charting single of 1998.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: In September 2022, for the album's twenty-fifth anniversary, Carey announced a deluxe reissue "with eight new bonus tracks from the "Butterfly" sessions". This was announced alongside merchandise, new vinyl releases, 4K remasters for music videos, and a documentary for the making of the "Honey" music video.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: "Butterfly" garnered general acclaim from music critics. In "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide", Arion Berger praised the album's producers and Carey's "more controlled" vocals. Berger noticed a connection between much of Carey's lyrics and her separation from Mottola. Jon Pareles, editor of "The New York Times" called "Butterfly" "a new turn" in Carey's career. He wrote, "Carey has sold tens of millions of albums by being the girl next door with the startling vocal range... but for most of "Butterfly" Carey turned her voice into an airy whisper, as if she would rather charm listeners" compared to over-powering them. Aside from commenting on its deviance from Carey's previous work, he noted songs in which Carey alludes to her failed marriage to Mottola, such as "Butterfly" and "Close My Eyes" which were both released on the album following the divorce with lyrics about letting love go and life struggles. Additionally he wrote, "Since Carey writes her own lyrics, fans might expect a glimpse of marital discord or pride in her new-found autonomy." David Browne from "Entertainment Weekly" gave "Butterfly" a B− in his review. Browne wrote: "In "Breakdown", [Carey] demonstrates she can match the staccato, lite-reggae phrasing of her guests, two members of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony." He described an increased intimacy in the music but noted the arrangement made it difficult to hear the lyrics Carey was singing. "Butterfly is undeniably pleasant, with little of the all-conquering bombast usually associated with Carey. But it's also the last thing anyone would have expected from her: blandly self-effacing."


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: In a retrospective review of the album, Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic appreciated the new direction of Carey's music, commenting on the increased urban feel of the work. He described the record as "a collection of hit singles surrounded by classy filler" and "while [the songs] are all well-crafted, many of them blend together upon initial listening". However, he noted an increased control in her voice which led him to describe some of the ballads such as 'Butterfly' and 'Breakdown' as among her best work. He said "Butterfly" was one of Carey's best records and she was "continuing to improve and refine her music, which makes her a rarity among her '90s peers." Erlewine gave the album a score of four out of five stars; but in 2021 the AllMusic website upgraded the rating by a half star. Rich Juzwiak from "Slant Magazine" awarded the album a score of four and a half out of five stars, calling it "elegant" and praising Carey's mature vocals. Juzwiak particularly praised "Breakdown", which he called one of the album's best tracks. Of Carey's vocals, he wrote, "The relatively high and thin register that she sings in when not belting (and that's often) could be the most important of "Butterfly"s changes, as it marks the first time that Mariah the vocalist seems consistently real. She's utterly soulful." In his consumer guide for "The Village Voice", critic Robert Christgau gave "Butterfly" a "dud" rating, indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought".


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: "Butterfly" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 selling 235,500 copies in the first week after its release, the highest of her career at the time. It maintained that position for one week and remained in the top twenty for 21 weeks; it stayed in the chart for 55 weeks, including one re-entry. The album achieved its highest weekly sales in its fifteenth week of release, when it was at number eight on the chart with 283,000 copies sold. It also peaked at number three on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. In the United States, "Butterfly" was certified five-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of five million copies. Nielsen SoundScan estimates the album's sales at 3,807,000 copies in the US. In Canada, the album debuted at number one and was certified double-platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), denoting shipments of 200,000 copies of the album. "Butterfly" debuted at number one in Australia, and received a double-platinum certification from the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), indicating shipments of 140,000 units.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: In Europe, "Butterfly" peaked within the top-five in several European countries. It received a platinum certification by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), denoting shipments of well one million copies throughout Europe. In the United Kingdom, "Butterfly" peaked at number two, and was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), denoting shipments of 300,000 copies. In France, the album peaked at number six, where it was certified double-gold by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP).


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: As with many of Carey's previous records, "Butterfly" became a large success in Asia. In Japan, the record debuted at number one on the album charts. The album was certified the Million Award by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ), denoting shipments of one million copies. In Hong Kong, "Butterfly" finished as one of the twenty best-selling foreign albums of 1997, receiving a platinum certification by IFPI. Globally, "Butterfly" has sold over 10 million copies.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: In the years since its release, "Butterfly" has been hailed as being an R&B classic. In a retrospective review for "The Washington Post", Bethonie Butler focused on the album's impact, stating that it "changed the face of pop music" by paving "the way for other pop stars...to sing alongside their rap contemporaries". Writing for Jezebel, Rich Juzwiak focused on the influence of Carey's vocal stylings in the track "Breakdown", remarking that "in this day and age, when there’s so much genre blending that it’s sometimes impossible to label an artist as merely “singer” or “rapper,” it'd be foolish to understate the prescience of" the song. A profile of the album in Essence by Jessica Littles further stated that the album "catalyzed the pop music trend of collaborating with hip-hop artists", concluding that it "not only showcased her [Carey's] already-established prowess as a vocalist, who could belt out ballads or flirt over the hottest summer jams, but also as one of the most versatile songwriters in contemporary music".


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: The lead single from the album, "Honey", was notable for pushing Carey further towards hip hop and R&B than before. The music video gained further attention, as Carey, for the first time in her career, was provocatively dressed, giving viewers a "taste of the freer Mariah." The Puerto Rico-filmed video's concept was created by Carey with Paul Hunter filling in as the director. Featuring a James Bond theme, Carey was a "very sexy agent M", in the words of Nickson, who escapes a large mansion in which she has been held captive. Carey said of the video: "I don't really think the video is overtly sexual, but for me—I mean people used to think I was the nineties version of Mary Poppins!"


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: At the time of the video's release, Carey and Mottola were in the midst of their divorce. Tabloids and critics were linking the video's theme to Carey's marriage, writing how Mottola would lock her in their mansion, although she denied this. In an interview, Carey said that "Tommy loves the video, he says it's my best video yet." Carey's writing partner of six years, Afanasieff, felt the video was undeniably about Mottola.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: The music video for "The Roof" was ranked 18th on Slant's "100 Greatest Music Videos". Sal Ciquemani, from Slant, gave the video a positive review, complimenting Carey's pairing the sultry song with a "sophisticated tale of a sexy rooftop encounter." The video shows Carey reminiscing on a past love and a night they shared together on a rainy roof-top. The video revolves around the settings of a dark limousine, a decrepit NYC apartment, and a rainy roof-top, where according to Slant, "Carey is featured at her most vulnerable, with runny mascara and drenched in the cold rainy night." In the conclusion of his review of the video, Ciquemani wrote: "When Carey rises through the limo's sunroof and relishes the warm November rain, she's not drunk on the bubbly but on the memory of past delights." The video for "My All" was also one of the more notable videos from "Butterfly". The video featured Carey in various places, including a submerged vessel, a lighthouse and a large conch shell floating the shore. In each of the scenes, Carey is shown lamenting her love and yearning to be re-united with him once more. In the video's climax, Carey meets her love in the lighthouse, where they caress and drift into the "nights abyss." According to author Chris Nickson, the scenes of Carey on the overturned vessel showed her vulnerability without her loved one, truly emphasizing the yearning featured in the song.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: "Butterfly", recognised by critics as one of Carey's best albums at that point in her career, received several awards and was nominated for others. At the "Billboard" Music Awards, Carey received an honorary award, recognizing her achievement of earning "The Most Number-one Singles Ever by a Female Solo Artist in History". "Honey" was nominated at the 1998 Grammy Awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song, while "Butterfly" was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. "Butterfly" won a Japan Gold Disc Award in the "International Pop Album of the Year" category. For "Butterfly", Carey won the American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist in 1998. Additionally, the album won the BMI Pop Award for Songwriter of the Year and the Songwriter awards for "Honey", "Butterfly" and "My All". At the Soul Train Music Awards in 1998, Carey won the awards for the Aretha Franklin Entertainer of the Year and Soul Train Lady of Soul, which were presented to her by Chris Tucker and Patti LaBelle.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: "Butterfly" was nominated at the 1998 NAACP Image Awards, in the Outstanding Female Artist category. At the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, Carey was named the Songwriter of the Year and received the Song of the Year award. At the 1998 World Music Awards, Carey won two of night's top awards; the World's Best-selling R&B Artist and the World's Best-selling Recording Artist of the '90s. Carey was unhappy not to win any of the Grammy Awards once again, but this was offset by the success of her tour, which was taking place during the awards. According to author Marc Shapiro, "No amount of awards could replace the popular acceptance of "Butterfly" and the feeling she was now free to live her own life – creatively and personally." In a recent list compiled by a selection of rock critics, "Butterfly" was chosen as one of the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.


title: Butterfly (Mariah Carey album)

text: The album was released with two different covers and in 2007 one of them was listed on "Maxim" Sexiest Album Covers.


title: Alec Berg

text: Alec Berg is an American television writer, director and executive producer. He wrote for the sitcom "Seinfeld" and is co-creator and executive producer of "Barry" with Bill Hader. He also co-wrote the screenplays for the films "The Cat in the Hat", "EuroTrip" and "The Dictator". Berg is also an executive producer (and sometime director) of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as well as an executive producer of "Silicon Valley". In 2016, Alec Berg signed an overall deal with HBO.


title: Gervinho

text: Gervais Yao Kouassi (born 27 May 1987), known as Gervinho, is an Ivorian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Greek Super League club Aris and the Ivory Coast national team.


title: Gervinho

text: Gervinho began his career at ASEC Abidjan and Toumodi, before moving to Belgium in 2004 to play for Beveren. Between 2007 and 2011, he played in the French Ligue 1, initially at Le Mans and then at Lille. In his final season in France, he helped his club win the league and the Coupe de France. He was sold to Arsenal in 2011 for £10.8 million and moved to Roma in 2013 for €8 million. In January 2016, Gervinho moved to Hebei China Fortune. In August 2018, he joined Parma Calcio 1913


title: Gervinho

text: Gervinho has made over 80 appearances for the Ivorian national team from his debut in 2007, scoring 23 goals. He was part of their squads at five Africa Cup of Nations tournaments and two World Cups.


title: Gervinho

text: Gervinho was born in Anyama, Ivory Coast. He began his career in the famed ASEC Abidjan youth academy, where he spent five years. At ASEC Abidjan, he was given the Brazilian Portuguese style nickname "Gervinho", derived from his first name Gervais, by the Brazilian coach who trained ASEC Abidjan. The suffix "-inho", in Portuguese, denotes smallness and/or affection, in this case, effectively meaning "Little Gervais".


title: Gervinho

text: Following this, he moved to Ivorian Deuxieme Division Zone Four side Toumodi F.C., where he turned professional.


title: Gervinho

text: Gervinho played for two seasons at Belgian side Waasland-Beveren, where he made 61 appearances for the club and scored 14 goals.


title: Gervinho

text: At the end of the 2006–07 season Gervinho moved to Ligue 1 side Le Mans, where he played alongside Ivorian international midfielder Romaric. He scored two goals in his debut season in Ligue 1, with one of them coming against AS Nancy. Gervinho scored 9 times in 59 Ligue 1 appearances over 2 seasons with the French side.


title: Gervinho

text: On 21 July 2009, Gervinho joined Lille for a reported fee of about €6 million (US$8.5 million) on a three-year contract. Gervinho scored 13 times in 32 appearances in his debut season for the club. His first goal for Lille came in a 3–2 victory away to US Boulogne on 4 October 2009.


title: Gervinho

text: Gervinho had an even more successful second season with Lille. He scored 18 goals in all competitions, 15 in Ligue 1, to help Lille win the Ligue 1 for the first time in 56 years. His side were also crowned Coupe de France champions, with Gervinho scoring a goal in the 2–0 semi-final victory over Nice on 20 April. At the end of the season, Gervinho was linked with clubs like Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Atlético Madrid and Newcastle United.


title: Gervinho

text: On 12 July 2011, Gervinho completed a transfer from Lille to Arsenal for a fee believed to be around £10.8 million. Gervinho was given the number 27 shirt, which was last worn by Ivory Coast teammate Emmanuel Eboué who was already on the verge of leaving the club. He made his debut in a pre-season friendly match against 1. FC Köln, in which he scored a brace within the first 15 minutes. He was sent off on his Premier League debut against Newcastle United for slapping Joey Barton. The game finished 0–0. This resulted in a standard three-match ban for violent conduct. Alan Pardew (manager of Newcastle United) accused Gervinho of diving when Cheick Tioté challenged him inside the box. He scored his first league goal in a 4–3 loss to Blackburn Rovers. On 23 October 2011 Gervinho followed this up by contributing to all three goals in Arsenal's 3–1 win over Stoke City, scoring the first and assisting both of Robin van Persie's goals. He then scored his third goal for Arsenal on 3 December 2011, in a 4–0 win at Wigan Athletic, scoring the third goal of the match in a comfortable victory. He scored his fourth goal of his time at Arsenal on 27 December 2011 in the 1–1 draw against Wolves. Gervinho then departed for the Africa Cup of Nations after a 2–1 defeat to Fulham. Gervinho made his return on 18 February 2012 in the FA Cup match against Sunderland which ended in a 2–0 defeat that knocked Arsenal out of the 2011–12 FA Cup.


title: Gervinho

text: Gervinho played in three of the first four league games of the season and scored a double in the 6–1 home victory over Southampton on 15 September. Gervinho scored his first Champions League goal of the new season in a 2–1 victory over Ligue 1 champions HSC Montpellier on 18 September.


title: Gervinho

text: On 16 March, Gervinho sealed a 2–0 win at Swansea City by scoring his first goal for Arsenal since September. On 30 March, Gervinho scored a goal and assisted two others as Arsenal beat Reading 4–1 and was named as man of the match.


title: Gervinho

text: On 8 August 2013, Arsenal sold Gervinho to Italian club A.S. Roma for €8 million. He made his first appearance for Roma as a substitute against Livorno on 25 August. It took until 25 September for Gervinho to score his first official goal for Roma, finishing from close range after an assist from Francesco Totti, which sealed a 2–0 defeat of Sampdoria. In the following Serie A match, he helped Roma record six straight victories to begin the season by netting two goals in their 5–0 defeat of Bologna.


title: Gervinho

text: In the quarter-final round of the Coppa Italia on 21 January 2014, Gervinho netted the game's only goal with an acrobatic finish from a Kevin Strootman pass to advance past Juventus and into the semi-finals. In the first leg of their semi-final tie with Napoli on 5 February, Gervinho netted twice, including a late game-winning goal to send Roma into the second leg with a 3–2 advantage.


title: Gervinho

text: On 30 August 2014, Gervinho scored in the Roma's second goal in a 2–0 win over Fiorentina to start the 2014–15 season. He scored his first goals in European competition for Roma on 17 September 2014, netting twice in the 5–1 Champions League group stage victory over CSKA Moscow.


title: Gervinho

text: In January 2016, Gervinho moved to newly promoted Chinese Super League team Hebei China Fortune for a reported initial fee of €18 million. On 4 March 2016, Gervinho scored on his competitive debut in a 1–2 away win against Guangzhou R&F on the opening game of the 2016 Chinese Super League.


title: Gervinho

text: In October 2016, Gervinho ruptured the ligaments in his left knee whilst in training for Hebei China Fortune. As a result of this, he missed the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations.


title: Gervinho

text: On 17 August 2018, Gervinho returned to Serie A by signing for Parma Calcio 1913 alongside his former Roma teammate Salih Uçan. He made his Parma debut as a substitute in a 1–0 away loss to S.P.A.L. nine days later, and on 1 September he scored on his first start for the club, a 2–1 home defeat to reigning champions Juventus. Three weeks afterwards, he scored a "staggering goal" in a 2–0 home win over Cagliari by running with the ball up the whole pitch. In Serie A round 22, on 2 February 2019, he scored two goals to earn a draw for Parma against Juventus in final score 3–3.


title: Gervinho

text: On 26 May 2021, it was announced that Gervinho had joined Turkish side Trabzonspor on a permanent basis. He scored on his Süper Lig debut for the club, a 5–1 win over Yeni Malatyaspor on 16 August.


title: Gervinho

text: He was named in the Ivorian senior squad for the first time for the friendlies against Angola and Qatar in November 2007, and was picked for the Ivorian squad for their 2008 African Cup of Nations campaign in Ghana where he was given the number 10 shirt. He made his competitive debut for the Ivorian club during the 2008 Nations Cup where he made two substitute appearances.


title: Gervinho

text: He represented his country at the 2008 Olympic tournament where he was captain. After Ivory Coast lost to Argentina in the first match, Gervinho scored one goal and set up two others in a 4–2 victory over Serbia.


title: Gervinho

text: On 15 January 2010, Gervinho scored his third international goal in the African Nations Cup group stage game against Ghana. He made a total of three appearances in the tournament, scoring once.


title: Gervinho

text: Gervinho missed a sudden-death penalty in the shoot-out at the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations Final, after which Stopila Sunzu scored to win the tournament for Zambia.


title: Gervinho

text: In the Ivory Coast's opening match at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea, Gervinho was sent off for striking Guinea's Naby Keïta during a 1–1 draw at the Nuevo Estadio de Malabo. He was given a two-match ban for the incident. Gervinho returned for the Ivory Coast's quarter-final against Algeria, scoring the last goal of a 3–1 win, and also netted in a semi-final victory of the same score against the DR Congo.


title: Gervinho

text: Gervinho made only three appearances, all as a substitute, in qualifying for the 2010 World Cup but still scored twice. On 15 June 2010, he played his first match in a World Cup. He played 82 minutes in Ivory Coast's opening match in Group G against Portugal, which ended 0–0. In total he made three appearances in the World Cup.


title: Gervinho

text: Gervinho was included in Ivory Coast's 23-man squad for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In their first group match against Japan, he scored the team's winning goal from Serge Aurier's cross in a 2–1 win. In the next match, he scored the only goal for "Les Éléphants" as they were defeated 2–1 by Colombia in Brasília.


title: Gervinho

text: Gervinho is generally deployed as a forward, more often on the wing, and takes a more attacking role than a typical midfielder. A quick, powerful, energetic, and agile player, he possesses good ball control and dribbling skills, which, coupled with his short, fast bursts of pace and sudden changes of direction, lead him to be considered a very direct player. Playing from the left allows him to cut in onto his favoured right foot to shoot. Although in a 4–4–2 formation, Gervinho can take on a more central role, but for both club and country is often utilized on either wing in a 4–3–3 formation.


title: Gervinho

text: Rudi Garcia, who managed Gervinho at Lille and Roma, has described him as a player who needs confidence and who makes opportunities for his teammates.


title: Unicameralism

text: Unicameralism (from "uni"- "one" + Latin "camera" "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one.


title: Unicameralism

text: Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multicameralism (two or more chambers). Many multicameral legislatures were created to give separate voices to different sectors of society. Multiple houses allowed, for example, for a guaranteed representation of different social classes (as in the Parliament of the United Kingdom or the French States-General). Sometimes, as in New Zealand and Denmark, unicameralism comes about through the abolition of one of two bicameral chambers, or, as in Sweden, through the merger of the two chambers into a single one, while in others a second chamber has never existed from the beginning.


title: Unicameralism

text: The principal advantage of a unicameral system is more efficient lawmaking, as the legislative process is simpler and there is no possibility of deadlock between two chambers. Proponents of unicameralism have also argued that it reduces costs, even if the number of legislators stays the same, since there are fewer institutions to maintain and support financially and that it is more democratic. Proponents of bicameral legislatures say that having two legislative chambers offers the opportunity to re-debate and correct errors in either chamber in parallel, and in some cases to introduce legislation in either chamber.


title: Unicameralism

text: The main weakness of a unicameral system can be seen as potential lack of restraint on the majority, particularly noticeable in parliamentary systems where the leaders of the parliamentary majority also dominate the executive. There is also the risk that important sectors of society may not be adequately represented by the elected singular body.


title: Unicameralism

text: Approximately half of the world's sovereign states are currently unicameral. The People's Republic of China is somewhat in-between, with a legislature and a formal advisory body. China has a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference which meets alongside the National People's Congress, in many respects an advisory "upper house".


title: Unicameralism

text: Many subnational entities have unicameral legislatures. These include the state of Nebraska and territories of Guam and the Virgin Islands in the United States, the Chinese special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, the Australian state of Queensland as well as the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, a majority of the provinces of Argentina, all of the provinces and territories in Canada, all of the German states, all of the regions of Italy, all of the Spanish autonomous communities, both the autonomous regions of Portugal, most of the states and union territories of India, and all of the states of Brazil. In the United Kingdom, the devolved Scottish Parliament, the Senedd Cymru, the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the London Assembly are also unicameral.


title: Unicameralism

text: Though the current Congress of the Philippines is bicameral, the country experienced unicameralism in 1898 and 1899 (during the First Philippine Republic), from 1935 to 1941 (the Commonwealth era) and from 1943 to 1944 (during the Japanese occupation). Under the 1973 Constitution, the legislative body was called Batasang Pambansa, which functioned also a unicameral legislature within a parliamentary system (1973-1981) and a semi-presidential system (1981-1986) form of government.


title: Unicameralism

text: The ongoing process of amending or revising the current Constitution and form of government is popularly known as Charter Change. A shift to a unicameral parliament was included in the proposals of the constitutional commission created by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Unlike in the United States, senators in the Senate of the Philippines are elected not per district and state but nationally; the Philippines is a unitary state. The Philippine government's decision-making process, relative to the United States, is more rigid, highly centralised, much slower and susceptible to political gridlock. As a result, the trend for unicameralism as well as other political system reforms are more contentious in the Philippines.


title: Unicameralism

text: While Congress is bicameral, all local legislatures are unicameral: the Bangsamoro Parliament, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (Provincial Boards), Sangguniang Panlungsod (City Councils), Sangguniang Bayan (Municipal Councils), Sangguniang Barangay (Barangay Councils), and the Sangguniang Kabataan (Youth Councils).


title: Unicameralism

text: The Nebraska Legislature (also called the Unicameral) is the supreme legislative body of the state of Nebraska and the only unicameral state legislature in the United States. Its members are called "senators", as it was originally the upper house of a bicameral legislature before the Nebraska House of Representatives dissolved in 1937. The legislature is also notable for being nonpartisan and officially recognizes no party affiliation, making Nebraska unique among U.S. states. With 49 members, it is also the smallest legislature of any U.S. state.


title: Unicameralism

text: A 2018 study found that efforts to adopt unicameralism in Ohio and Missouri failed due to rural opposition. There was a fear in rural communities that unicameralism would diminish their influence in state government.


title: Unicameralism

text: Local government legislatures of counties, cities, or other political subdivisions within states are usually unicameral and have limited lawmaking powers compared to their state and federal counterparts.


title: Unicameralism

text: Some of the 13 colonies which became independent, such as Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New Hampshire had initially introduced strong unicameral legislature and (relatively) less powerful governors with no veto power. Pennsylvania's constitution lasted only 14 years. In 1790, conservatives gained power in the state legislature, called a new constitutional convention, and rewrote the constitution. The new constitution substantially reduced universal male suffrage, gave the governor veto power and patronage appointment authority, and added an upper house with substantial wealth qualifications to the unicameral legislature. Thomas Paine called it a constitution unworthy of America.


title: Unicameralism

text: In 1999, Governor Jesse Ventura proposed converting the Minnesota Legislature into a single chamber. Although debated, the idea was never adopted.


title: Unicameralism

text: Seven U.S. states, Arizona, Idaho, Maryland, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Washington, effectively have two-house unicamerals. In these states, districts in the upper house and the lower house are combined into a single constituency, a practice known as nesting.


title: Unicameralism

text: The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico held a non-binding referendum in 2005. Voters approved changing its Legislative Assembly to a unicameral body by 456,267 votes in favor (83.7%) versus 88,720 against (16.3%). If both the territory's House of Representatives and Senate had approved by a vote the specific amendments to the Puerto Rico Constitution that are required for the change to a unicameral legislature, another referendum would have been held in the territory to approve such amendments. If those constitutional changes had been approved, Puerto Rico could have switched to a unicameral legislature as early as 2015.


title: Unicameralism

text: On June 9, 2009, the Maine House of Representatives voted to form a unicameral legislature, but the measure did not pass the Senate.


title: Unicameralism

text: Because of legislative gridlock in 2009, former Congressman Rick Lazio, a prospective candidate for governor, has proposed that New York adopt unicameralism.


title: Unicameralism

text: The United States as a whole was subject to a unicameral Congress during the years 1781–1788, when the Articles of Confederation were in effect. The Confederate States of America, pursuant to its Provisional Constitution, in effect from February 8, 1861, to February 22, 1862, was governed by a unicameral Congress.


title: Don (honorific)

text: Don (; ; ; all from Latin ', roughly 'Lord'), abbreviated as D., is an honorific prefix primarily used in Spain and Hispanic America, and with different connotations also in Italy, Portugal and its former colonies, and Croatia.


title: Don (honorific)

text: "Don" is derived from the Latin "dominus": a master of a household, a title with background from the Roman Republic in classical antiquity. With the abbreviated form having emerged as such in the Middle Ages, traditionally it is reserved for Catholic clergy and nobles, in addition to certain educational authorities and persons of distinction. "Dom" is the variant used in Portuguese.


title: Don (honorific)

text: The female equivalent is Doña (), Donna (), Doamnă (Romanian) and Dona () abbreviated D.ª, Da., or simply D. It is a common honorific reserved for women, especially mature women. In Portuguese "Dona" tends to be less restricted in use to women than "Dom" is to men.


title: Don (honorific)

text: In Britain and Ireland, especially at Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, the word is used for a college fellow or tutor, but it is not used as an honorific prefix.


title: Don (honorific)

text: In Spanish, although originally a title reserved for royalty, select nobles, and church hierarchs, it is now often used as a mark of esteem for a person of personal, social or official distinction, such as a community leader of long standing, a person of significant wealth, or a noble, but may also be used ironically. As a style, rather than a title or rank, it is used with, rather than in place of, a person's name.


title: Don (honorific)

text: Syntactically, in Spanish, "don" and "doña" are used in a way similar to "mister" ("señor") and "missus" ("señora"), but convey a higher degree of reverence, although not necessarily as high as knightly or noble titles such as "lord" and "dame". Unlike "The Honourable" in English, "Don" may be used when speaking directly to a person, and unlike "mister" it must be used with a given name. For example, "Don Diego de la Vega" or simply "Don Diego" (the secret identity of Zorro) are typical forms. But a form using the last name (e.g. "Don de la Vega") is not considered correct and would never be used by Spanish speakers ("señor de la Vega" would be used instead).


title: Don (honorific)

text: Today in the Spanish language, "Doña" is used to respectfully refer to a mature woman. In present-day Hispanic America, the title Don or Doña is sometimes used in honorific form when addressing a senior citizen. In some countries, Don or Doña may be used as a generic honorific, similar to Sir and Madam in the United States.


title: Don (honorific)

text: Historically, "don" was used to address members of the nobility, e.g. hidalgos, as well as members of the secular clergy. The treatment gradually came to be reserved for persons of the blood royal, and those of such acknowledged high or ancient aristocratic birth as to be noble "de Juro e Herdade", that is, "by right and heredity" rather than by the king's grace. However, there were rare exemptions to the rule, such as the mulatto Miguel Enríquez, who received the distinction from Philip V due to his privateering work in the Caribbean. But by the twentieth century it was no longer restricted in use even to the upper classes, since persons of means or education (at least of a "bachiller" level), regardless of background, came to be so addressed and, it is now often used as if it were a more formal version of "Señor", a term which was also once used to address someone with the quality of nobility (not necessarily holding a nobiliary title). This was, for example, the case of military leaders addressing Spanish troops as "señores soldados" (gentlemen-soldiers).


title: Don (honorific)

text: During the reign of King Juan Carlos of Spain from 1975 until his abdication as monarch on 19 June 2014, he was titled "Su Majestad [S. M.] el Rey Juan Carlos" (His Majesty King Juan Carlos). Following the abdication, Juan Carlos and his wife are titled, according to the Royal Household website, "S. M. el Rey Don Juan Carlos" (H.M. King Juan Carlos) and "S. M. la Reina Doña Sofía" (H.M. Queen Sofía)—the same as during his reign, with the honorific "Don/Doña" prefixed to the names. Juan Carlos' successor is "S. M. el Rey Felipe VI".


title: Don (honorific)

text: The honorific was also used among Ladino-speaking Sephardi Jews, as part of the Spanish culture which they took with them after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.


title: Don (honorific)

text: The honorific title "Don" was widely used in Crown documents throughout Hispanic America by those in nobility or landed gentry. It can be found in the many ‘Padrones’ and “Aguas y Tierras” records in Mexican archives. The honorific in modern times is also widely used throughout the Americas. This is the case of the Mexican New Age author Don Miguel Ángel Ruiz, the Chilean television personality Don Francisco, and the Puerto Rican industrialist and politician Don Luis Ferré, among many other figures. Although Puerto Rican politician Pedro Albizu Campos had a doctoral degree, he has been titled "Don". Likewise, Puerto Rican Governor Luis Muñoz Marín has often been called Don Luís Muñoz Marin instead of "Governor" Muñoz Marin. In the same manner, "Don" Miguel Ángel Ruiz is an M.D. Additionally the honorific is usually used with people of older age.


title: Don (honorific)

text: The same happens in other Hispanic American countries. For example, despite having a doctoral degree in theology, the Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia was usually styled as "Don". Likewise, despite being a respected military commander with the rank of Brigade General, Argentine Ruler Juan Manuel de Rosas was formally and informally styled "Don" as a more important title.


title: Don (honorific)

text: Prior to the American ownership of the Southwest, a number of Americans immigrated to California, where they often became Mexican citizens and changed their given names to Spanish equivalents, for example "Juan Temple" for Jonathan Temple. It was common for them to assume the honorific "don" once they had attained a significant degree of distinction in the community.


title: Don (honorific)

text: Officially, "Don" was the honorific for a "principe" or a "duca" (and any legitimate, male-line descendant thereof) who was a member of the nobility (as distinct from a reigning prince or duke, who was generally entitled to some form of the higher style of "Altezza"). This was how the style was used in the "Almanach de Gotha" for extant families in its third section. The last official Italian nobility law (abrogated 1948) stated that the style belonged to members of the following groups:


title: Don (honorific)

text: Genealogical databases and dynastic works still reserve the title for this class of noble by tradition, although it is no longer a right under Italian law.


title: Don (honorific)

text: In practice, however, the style Don/Donna (or Latin Dominus/Domina) was used more loosely in church, civil and notarial records. The honorific was often accorded to the untitled gentry (e.g., knights or younger sons of noblemen), priests, or other people of distinction. It was, over time, adopted by organized criminal societies in Southern Italy (including Naples, Sicily, and Calabria) to refer to members who held considerable sway within their hierarchies.


title: Don (honorific)

text: In modern Italy, the title is usually only given to Roman Catholic diocesan priests (never to prelates, who bear higher honorifics such as "monsignore", "eminenza", and so on). In Sardinia, until recently it was commonly used for nobility (whether titled or not), but it is being presently used mainly when the speaker wants to show that he knows the "don"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s condition of nobility.


title: Don (honorific)

text: Outside of the priesthood or old nobility, usage is still common in Southern Italy, mostly as an honorific form to address the elderly, but it is rarely, if ever, used in Central Italy or Northern Italy. It can be used satirically or ironically to lampoon a person's sense of self-importance.


title: Don (honorific)

text: "Don" is prefixed either to the full name or to the person's given name. The form "Don Lastname" for crime bosses (as in "Don Corleone") is an American custom. In Southern Italy, mafia bosses are addressed as "Don Firstname" by other "mafiosi" and sometimes their victims as well, while the press usually refers to them as "Firstname Lastname", without the honorific.


title: Don (honorific)

text: Priests are the only ones to be referred as "Don" plus the last name (e.g. Don Marioni), although when talking directly to them they are usually addressed as "Don" plus the first name (e.g. Don Francesco), which is also the most common form used by parishioners when referring to their priest.


title: Don (honorific)

text: The usage of "Dom" was a prerogative of princes of royal blood and also of other individuals to whom it had been granted by the sovereign. In most cases, the title was passed on through the male line. Strictly speaking, only females born of a nobleman bearing the title "Dom" would be addressed as "Dona" ("D.ª"), but the style was not heritable through daughters. The few exceptions depended solely on the conditions upon which the title itself had been granted. A well-known exception is the descent of Dom Vasco da Gama.


title: Don (honorific)

text: There were many cases, both in Portugal and Brazil, in which the title of "Dom" (or "Dona") was conceded to, and even bought by, people who were not from royalty. In any case, when the title was officially recognized by the proper authority, it became part of the name.


title: Don (honorific)

text: In Portugal and Brazil, "Dom" () is used for certain higher members hierarchs, such as superiors, of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches. In Catholic religious orders, such as the Order of Saint Benedict, it is also associated with the status of Dom Frater. "Dom" is similarly used as an honorific for Benedictine monks within the Benedictine Order throughout France and the English speaking world, such as the famous "Dom Pérignon". In France, it is also used within the male branch of the Carthusian Order.


title: Don (honorific)

text: It is also employed for laymen who belong to the royal and imperial families (for example the House of Aviz in Portugal and the House of Braganza in Portugal and Brazil). It was also accorded to members of families of the titled Portuguese nobility. Unless ennobling letters patent specifically authorised its use, "Dom" was not attributed to members of Portugal's untitled nobility: Since hereditary titles in Portugal descended according to primogeniture, the right to the style of "Dom" was the only apparent distinction between cadets of titled families and members of untitled noble families.


title: Don (honorific)

text: In the Portuguese language, the feminine form, "Dona" (or, more politely, "Senhora Dona"), has become common when referring to a woman who does not hold an academic title. It is commonly used to refer to First Ladies, although it is less common for female politicians.


title: Don (honorific)

text: Within the Catholic Church, the prefix "Don" is usually used for the diocesan priests with their first name, as well as "velečasni" (The Reverend).


title: Don (honorific)

text: "Dom" is used as a title in English for certain Benedictine (including some communities which follow the Rule of St. Benedict) and Carthusian monks, and for members of certain communities of Canons Regular. Examples include Benedictine monks of the English Benedictine Congregation (e.g. Dom John Chapman, late Abbot of Downside). Since the Second Vatican Council, the title can be given to any monk (lay or ordained) who has made a solemn profession. The equivalent title for a nun is "Dame" (e.g. Dame Laurentia McLachlan, late Abbess of Stanbrook, or Dame Felicitas Corrigan, author).


title: Don (honorific)

text: The honorific "Don" is used for fellows and tutors of a college or university, especially traditional collegiate universities such as Oxford and Cambridge in England. Teachers at Radley, a boys-only boarding-only public school modelled after Oxford colleges of the early 19th century, are known to boys as "dons".


title: Don (honorific)

text: Like the "don" used for Roman Catholic priests, this usage derives from the Latin "dominus", meaning "lord", a historical remnant of Oxford and Cambridge having started as ecclesiastical institutions in the Middle Ages. The earliest use of the word in this sense appears, according to the New English Dictionary, in Souths Sermons (1660). An English corruption, "dan", was in early use as a title of respect, equivalent to master. The particular literary application to poets is due to Edmund Spenser's use of "Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled."


title: Don (honorific)

text: At some universities in Canada, such as the University of King's College and the University of New Brunswick, a don is the senior head of a university residence. At these institutions, a don is typically a faculty member, staff member, or postgraduate student, whose responsibilities in the residence are primarily administrative. The don supervises their residence and a team of undergraduate resident assistants, proctors, or other student employees.


title: Don (honorific)

text: In other Canadian institutions, such as Huron College and the University of Toronto, a don is a resident assistant, typically an upper-year student paid a stipend to act as an advisor to and supervisor of the students in a university residence.


title: Don (honorific)

text: At Sarah Lawrence College, faculty advisors are referred to as "dons". Dons meet regularly with students to plan a course of study.


title: Don (honorific)

text: The "Don" is also an official mascot of the athletic teams of the University of San Francisco, Spanish Fork High School, Arroyo High School, and Amador Valley High School.


title: Don (honorific)

text: In the United States, "Don" has also been made popular by films depicting the Italian mafia, such as "The Godfather" trilogy, where the crime boss is given by his associates the same signs of respect that were traditionally granted in Italy to nobility. However, the honorific followed by the last name (e.g. Don Corleone) would be used in Italy for priests only: the proper Italian respectful form is similar to the Spanish-language form in that it is applied only to the first name (e.g. "Don Vito"). This title has in turn been applied by the media to real-world mafia figures, such as the nickname "Teflon Don" for John Gotti.


title: Cataphract

text: A cataphract was a form of armored heavy cavalryman that originated in Persia and was fielded in ancient warfare throughout Eurasia and Northern Africa.


title: Cataphract

text: The English word derives from the Greek ' (plural: '), literally meaning "armored" or "completely enclosed" (the prefix "kata-"/"cata-" implying "intense" or "completely"). Historically, the cataphract was a very heavily armored horseman, with both the rider and mount almost completely covered in scale armor, and typically wielding a kontos or lance as his primary weapon.


title: Cataphract

text: Cataphracts served as the elite cavalry force for most empires and nations that fielded them, primarily used for charges to break through opposing heavy cavalry and infantry formations. Chronicled by many historians from the earliest days of antiquity up until the High Middle Ages, they may have influenced the later European knights, through contact with the Eastern Roman Empire.


title: Cataphract

text: Peoples and states deploying cataphracts at some point in their history included: the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Parthians, Achaemenids, Sakas, Armenians, Seleucids, Pergamenes, Kingdom of Pontus, Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, Sassanids, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Georgians, Chinese, Koreans, Jurchens, and Mongols.


title: Cataphract

text: In Europe, the fashion for heavily armored Roman cavalry seems to have been a response to the Eastern campaigns of the Parthians and Sassanids in the region referred to as Asia Minor, as well as numerous defeats at the hands of Iranian cataphracts across the steppes of Eurasia, most notably in the Battle of Carrhae in upper Mesopotamia (53 BC). Traditionally, Roman cavalry was neither heavily-armored nor decisive in effect; the Roman equites corps comprised mainly lightly-armored horsemen bearing spears and swords and using light-cavalry tactics to skirmish before and during battles, and then to pursue retreating enemies after a victory. The adoption of cataphract-like cavalry formations took hold among the late Roman army during the late 3rd and 4th centuries. The Emperor Gallienus Augustus () and his general and putative usurper Aureolus (died 268) arguably contributed much to the institution of Roman cataphract contingents in the Late Roman army.


title: Cataphract

text: The origin of the word is Greek. (, , , or ) is composed of the Greek root words, , a preposition, and ("covered, protected"), which is interpreted along the lines of "fully armored" or "closed from all sides". The term first appears substantively in Latin, in the writings of Lucius Cornelius Sisenna: "", meaning "the armored, whom they call cataphract".


title: Cataphract

text: There appears to be some confusion about the term in the late Roman period, as armored cavalrymen of any sort that were traditionally referred to as in the Republican period later became exclusively designated as "cataphracts". Vegetius, writing in the fourth century, described armor of any sort as "cataphracts" – which at the time of writing would have been either or . Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman soldier and historian of the fourth century, mentions the "" – the "cataphract cavalry which they regularly call clibanarii" (implying that clibanarii is a foreign term, not used in Classical Latin).


title: Cataphract

text: "Clibanarii" is a Latin word for "mail-clad riders", itself a derivative of the Greek (), meaning "camp oven bearers" from the Greek word , meaning "camp oven" or "metallic furnace"; the word has also been tentatively linked to the Persian word for a warrior, . However, it appears with more frequency in Latin sources than in Greek throughout antiquity. A twofold origin of the Greek term has been proposed: either that it was a humorous reference to the heavily armored cataphracts as men encased in armor who would heat up very quickly much like in an oven; or that it was further derived from the Old Persian word "*griwbanar" (or "*grivpanvar"), itself composed of the Iranian roots "griva-pana-bara", which translates into "neck-guard wearer".


title: Cataphract

text: Roman chroniclers and historians Arrian, Aelian and Asclepiodotus use the term "cataphract" in their military treatises to describe any type of cavalry with either partial or full horse and rider armor. The Byzantine historian Leo Diaconis calls them (), which would translate as "fully iron-clad knights".


title: Cataphract

text: There is, therefore, some doubt as to what exactly cataphracts were in late antiquity, and whether or not they were distinct from . Some historians theorise that cataphracts and were one and the same type of cavalry, designated differently simply as a result of their divided geographical locations and local linguistic preferences. Cataphract-like cavalry under the command of the Western Roman Empire, where Latin was the official tongue, always bore the Latinized variant of the original Greek name, . The cataphract-like cavalry stationed in the Eastern Roman Empire had no exclusive term ascribed to them, with both the Latin variant and the Greek innovation being used in historical sources, largely because of the Byzantines' heavy Greek influence (especially after the 7th century, when Latin ceased to be the official language). Contemporary sources, however, sometimes imply that were in fact a heavier type of cavalryman, or formed special-purpose units (such as the late , a Roman equivalent of horse archers, first mentioned in the ""). Given that "cataphract" was used for more than a millennium by various cultures, it appears that different types of fully armored cavalry in the armies of different nations were assigned this name by Greek and Roman scholars not familiar with the native terms for such cavalry.


title: Cataphract

text: The reliance on cavalry as a means of warfare in general lies with the ancient inhabitants of the Central Asian steppes in early antiquity, who were one of the first peoples to domesticate the horse and pioneered the development of the chariot. Most of these nomadic tribes and wandering pastoralists circa 2000 BC were largely Bronze-Age, Iranian populations who migrated from the steppes of Central Asia into the Iranian Plateau and Greater Iran from around 1000 BC to 800 BC. Two of these tribes are attested based upon archaeological evidence: the Mitanni and the Kassites. Although evidence is scant, they are believed to have raised and bred horses for specific purposes, as is evidenced by the large archaeological record of their use of the chariot and several treatises on the training of chariot horses. The one founding prerequisite towards the development of cataphract cavalry in the Ancient Near East, apart from advanced metalworking techniques and the necessary grazing pastures for raising horses, was the development of selective breeding and animal husbandry. Cataphract cavalry needed immensely strong and endurant horses, and without selectively breeding horses for muscular strength and hardiness, they would have surely not been able to bear the immense loads of armor and a rider during the strain of battle. The Near East is generally believed to have been the focal point for where this first occurred.


title: Cataphract

text: The previously mentioned early Indo-Iranian kingdoms and statehoods were to a large degree the ancestors of the north-eastern Iranian tribes and the Medians, who would found the first Iranian Empire in 625 BC. It was the Median Empire that left the first written proof of horse breeding around the 7th century BC, being the first to propagate a specific horse breed, known as the Nisean, which originated in the Zagros Mountains for use as heavy cavalry. The Nisean would become renowned in the Ancient World and particularly in Ancient Persia as the mount of nobility. These warhorses, sometimes referred to as "Nisean chargers", were highly sought after by the Greeks, and are believed to have influenced many modern horse breeds. With the growing aggressiveness of cavalry in warfare, protection of the rider and the horse became paramount. This was especially true of peoples who treated cavalry as the basic arm of their military, such as the Ancient Persians, including the Medes and the successive Persian dynasties. To a larger extent, the same can be said of all the Ancient Iranian peoples: second only to perhaps the bow, horses were held in reverence and importance in these societies as their preferred and mastered medium of warfare, due to an intrinsic link throughout history with the domestication and evolution of the horse.


title: Cataphract

text: These early riding traditions, which were strongly tied to the ruling caste of nobility (as only those of noble birth or caste could become cavalry warriors), now spread throughout the Eurasian steppes and Iranian plateau from around 600 BC and onwards due to contact with the Median Empire's vast expanse across Central Asia, which was the native homeland of the early, north-eastern Iranian ethnic groups such as the Massagetae, Scythians, Sakas, and Dahae. The successive Persian Empires that followed the Medes after their downfall in 550 BC took these already long-standing military tactics and horse-breeding traditions and infused their centuries of experience and veterancy from conflicts against the Greek city-states, Babylonians, Assyrians, Scythians, and North Arabian tribes with the significant role cavalry played not only in warfare but everyday life to form a military reliant almost entirely upon armored horses for battle.


title: Cataphract

text: The evolution of the heavily armored horseman was not isolated to one focal point during a specific era (such as the Iranian plateau), but rather developed simultaneously in different parts of Central Asia (especially among the peoples inhabiting the Silk Road) as well as within Greater Iran. Assyria and the Khwarezm region were also significant to the development of cataphract-like cavalry during the 1st millennium BC. Reliefs discovered in the ancient ruins of Nimrud (the ancient Assyrian city founded by king Shalmaneser I during the 13th century BC) are the earliest known depictions of riders wearing plated-mail shirts composed of metal scales, presumably deployed to provide the Assyrians with a tactical advantage over the unprotected mounted archers of their nomadic enemies, primarily the Aramaeans, Mushki, North Arabian tribes and the Babylonians. The Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC) period, under which the Neo-Assyrian Empire was formed and reached its military peak, is believed to have been the first context within which the Assyrian kingdom formed crude regiments of cataphract-like cavalry. Even when armed only with pikes, these early horsemen were effective mounted cavalrymen, but when provided with bows under Sennacherib (705–681 BC), they eventually became capable both of long-range and hand-to-hand combat, mirroring the development of dual-purpose cataphract archers by the Parthian Empire during the 1st century BC.


title: Cataphract

text: Archaeological excavations also indicate that, by the 6th century BC, similar experimentation had taken place among the Iranian peoples inhabiting the Khwarezm region and Aral Sea basin, such as the Massagetae, Dahae and Saka. While the offensive weapons of these prototype cataphracts were identical to those of the Assyrians, they differed in that not only the rider but also the head and flanks of the horse were protected by armor. Whether this development was influenced by the Assyrians, as Rubin postulates, or perhaps the Achaemenid Empire, or whether they occurred spontaneously and entirely unrelated to the advances in heavily armored cavalry made in the Ancient Near East, cannot be discerned by the archaeological records left by these mounted nomads.


title: Cataphract

text: The further evolution of these early forms of heavy cavalry in Western Eurasia is not entirely clear. Heavily armored riders on large horses appear in 4th century BC frescoes in the northern Black Sea region, notably at a time when the Scythians, who relied on light horse archers, were superseded by the Sarmatians. By the 3rd century BC, light cavalry units were used in most eastern armies, but still only "relatively few states in the East or West attempted to imitate the Assyrian and Chorasmian experiments with mailed cavalry".


title: Cataphract

text: The Greeks first encountered cataphracts during the Greco-Persian Wars of the 5th century BC with the Achaemenid Empire. The Ionian Revolt, an uprising against Persian rule in Asia Minor which preluded the First Persian invasion of Greece, is very likely the first Western encounter of cataphract cavalry, and to a degree heavy cavalry in general. The cataphract was widely adopted by the Seleucid Empire, the Hellenistic successors of Alexander the Great's kingdom who reigned over conquered Persia and Asia Minor after his death in 323 BC. The Parthians, who wrested control over their native Persia from the last Seleucid Kingdom in the East in 147 BC, were also noted for their reliance upon cataphracts as well as horse archers in battle.


title: Cataphract

text: Besides the Seleucids it is possible that also the Kingdom of Pergamon adopted some cataphracts. Pergamese reliefs show cavalry similarly armed and equiped as Seleucid cataphracts, indicating an adoption. Yet these where probably equipped from trophies taken from the Seleucids, which would suggest limited numbers.


title: Cataphract

text: The Romans came to know cataphracts during their frequent wars in the Hellenistic East. Cataphracts had varying levels of success against Roman military tactics more so at the Battle of Carrhae and less so at the battle of Lucullus with Tigranes the Great near Tigranocerta in 69 BC. In 38 BC, the Roman general Publius Ventidius Bassus, by making extensive use of slingers, whose long-range weapons proved very effective, defeated the uphill-storming Parthian armored cavalry.


title: Cataphract

text: At the time of Augustus, the Greek geographer Strabo considered cataphracts with horse armor to be typical of Armenian, Caucasian Albanian, and Persian armies, but, according to Plutarch, they were still held in rather low esteem in the Hellenistic world due to their poor tactical abilities against disciplined infantry as well as against more mobile, light cavalry. However, the lingering period of exposure to cataphracts at the eastern frontier as well as the growing military pressure of the Sarmatian lancers on the Danube frontier led to a gradual integration of cataphracts into the Roman army. Thus, although calvarymen with armor were deployed in the Roman army as early as the 2nd century BC (Polybios, VI, 25, 3), the first recorded deployment and use of cataphracts ("equites cataphractarii") by the Roman Empire comes in the 2nd century AD, during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (117–138 AD), who created the first, regular unit of auxiliary, mailed cavalry called the "ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum catafractata". A key architect in the process was evidently the Roman emperor Gallienus, who created a highly mobile force in response to the multiple threats along the northern and eastern frontier. However, as late as 272 AD, Aurelian's army, completely composed of light cavalry, defeated Zenobia at the Battle of Immae, proving the continuing importance of mobility on the battlefield.