title: Comic Relief

text: In 1991, a music video was created called "Helping Hands", which included numerous children's television puppet personalities, including characters from "The House of Gristle", "Fraggle Rock", "Rainbow", "Roland Rat", "Thunderbirds", "Round the Bend!", "Bill & Ben", "The Gophers", "Spitting Image", "Jim Henson's Tale of the Bunny Picnic" and more. In 1993 a follow up single happened, this time feature the biggest stars of children televisions at the time called "You Can Be a Hero". Neither song was ever released.


title: Comic Relief

text: The biggest-selling Comic Relief single is Tony Christie and Peter Kay's "Is This the Way to Amarillo", with 1.28 million copies sold. Westlife's 2001 cover of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" is the second biggest-seller, followed by 1986's "Living Doll" and the Spice Girls' 1997 double-A side single "Mama"/"Who Do You Think You Are", with Boyzone's 1999 cover of "When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going" rounding up the top five.


title: Comic Relief

text: In addition, the first Red Nose Day schools' song ("Make Someone Happy") was published in 2007. A CD of the song, together with backing tracks and fundraising ideas, was sent free of charge to all primary schools in the UK - during February - by the education music publisher 'Out of the Ark Music'. Schools would be free to use the song in assemblies, singathons, or other fundraising activities. A second Red Nose Day Song has been released for every school in the UK, to use free of charge. It can be downloaded from the Red Nose Day 09 website, or watched on YouTube, and a copy has been sent to every primary school in the UK. It was again published by 'Out of the Ark' music, and contained a more upbeat melody than the version released in 2007. It was recorded at Hook Studios, Hook, Surrey, by the Out of the Ark Choir, which is completely made up of children. The children in the video wear Stella McCartney's special edition Comic Relief T-shirts, and was filmed in black and white so that only the red stood out.


title: Comic Relief

text: There has been some concern about the lack of gender equality in the causes supported by Comic Relief, with much funding going to politicised women's charities or charities focusing on women. Writing in "The Spectator", Ross Clark raised the question, 'Why do all these women's charities...feel the need to disguise their fundraising in the prat-fest that is Comic Relief, rather than appealing directly to the public?' He added, 'Are they worried that if the British public realised where their money was going, they would be less inclined to be so generous?'


title: Comic Relief

text: The British Stammering Association criticised comedian Lenny Henry over his opening sketch for the 2011 telethon, during which he spoofed the film "The King's Speech" and grew impatient with Colin Firth in his portrayal of King George VI as he stammered over his speech. "The Sun" reported that the British Stammering Association had branded the sketch as 'a gross and disgusting gleefulness at pointing out someone else's misfortune'.


title: Comic Relief

text: In December 2013, an edition of the BBC One series "Panorama" pointed out that between 2007 and 2009, millions of pounds donated to Comic Relief had been invested in funds which appeared 'to contradict several of its core aims', with shares in tobacco, alcohol and arms firms.


title: Comic Relief

text: The 2017 event was highly criticised by viewers for various technical issues, glitches and having two adult-oriented skits shown before the 9 pm watershed, one where Vic Reeves showed a fake penis to "Good Morning Britain" presenter Susanna Reid, and another featuring a scene in which presenter Graham Norton asks model Cara Delevingne why she had sex on a plane. The event was also criticised for two pre-watershed instances of profanity, one involving a Mrs. Brown's Boys skit where the titular character does a V sign (a gesture that is deemed profane in the United Kingdom), and another involving Russell Brand after a technical blunder caused him to swear and say "Fuck" after being cut off. Over 151 complaints were issued to Ofcom.


title: Comic Relief

text: In 2017, a video featuring Ed Sheeran meeting and rescuing a child in Liberia for Comic Relief was criticised as 'poverty porn' and was given the 'Rusty Radiator' award for the 'most offensive and stereotypical fundraising video of the year'.


title: Comic Relief

text: Writing in The Guardian in 2017, Labour MP David Lammy argued that Comic Relief perpetuated problematic stereotypes of Africa, and that they had a responsibility to use its powerful position to move the debate on in a more constructive way by establishing an image of African people as equals.


title: Comic Relief

text: In 2018, in response to Lammy's comments and the backlash to Sheeran's video, Comic Relief announced they would take steps towards change by halting their use of celebrities for appeals.


title: Comic Relief

text: However, in February 2019, Lammy also criticised Stacey Dooley for posting on social media about her trip to Uganda for Comic Relief, saying that 'the world does not need any more white saviours', and that she was perpetuating 'tired and unhelpful stereotypes' about Africa. The pressure group 'No White Saviours' argued that Comic Relief had pledged to make changes to their celebrity campaigns in the past, and now needed to put them into practice.


title: Comic Relief

text: The remarks by Lammy were believed to have damaged coverage of Red Nose Day; viewership dropped and the donations received for the broadcast in March 2019 fell by £8 million and the money raised that year was the lowest since 2007. In 2020, as a result of Lammy's intervention, Comic Relief announced that it would no longer send celebrities to Africa nor portray Africa with images of starving people or critically ill children. Instead, they would be using local film makers to provide a more “authentic” perspective and give agency back to African people.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: Manohar Parrikar (born Manohar Gopalkrishna Prabhu Parrikar; 13 December 1955 – 17 March 2019) was an Indian politician and leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party who served as Chief Minister of Goa from 14 March 2017 until his death. Previously, he was Chief Minister of Goa from 2000 to 2005 and from 2012 to 2014 and from 2017 to 2019. He also served as the Minister of Defence from October 2014 to March 2017. In January 2020, he was posthumously awarded Padma Bhushan.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: Parrikar proposed the name of Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate before 2013 BJP parliamentary elections convention in Goa. He served in the National Democratic Alliance government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Defence Minister of India from 2014 to 2017. He was a former member of Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: He was the first IIT alumnus to serve as MLA of an Indian state, the first IITian to become the Chief Minister of a state in India, the first Goan to become a cabinet-rank minister at the Centre, and also the first Chief Minister of a state to continue in office for over a year despite being diagnosed with terminal-stage cancer.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: Manohar Parrikar was born to a Gaud Saraswat Brahmin family in Mapusa, Goa. He studied at Loyola High School, Margao. Parrikar completed his 10th Standard Board Examination at G.S. Amonkar Vidya Mandir, Mapusa which was previously known as New Goa High school. He completed his secondary education in Marathi and went on to graduate in Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT Bombay), in 1978. He was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award by IIT Bombay in 2001.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: Parrikar joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at a young age and became a "mukhya shikshak" (chief instructor) in the final years of his schooling. After graduating from IIT, he resumed RSS work in Mapusa while maintaining a private business, and became a "sanghchalak" (local director) at the age of 26. He was active in the RSS's North Goa unit, becoming a key organiser of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. He was seconded by RSS to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with the objective of fighting the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party. He is sometimes described as having been a pracharak of the RSS.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: As a member of the BJP, Parrikar was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Goa in 1994. He was leader of the opposition from June to November 1999. He successfully contested the election to become Chief Minister of Goa for the first time on 24 October 2000, but his tenure lasted only until 27 February 2002. In 2001, the Parrikar government had turned over fifty-one government primary schools in rural areas to Vidya Bharati, the educational wing of the Hindu nationalist group Sangh Parivar, inviting criticism from certain educationists.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: On 5 June 2002, he was re-elected and served another term as Chief Minister. On 29 January 2005, his government was reduced to a minority in the Assembly after four BJP MLAs resigned from the House. Pratapsing Rane of the Indian National Congress would subsequently replace Parrikar as Chief Minister.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: In 2007, the Parrikar led BJP was defeated in the Goa state elections by the Congress led by Digambar Kamat. BJP and their party-allies won twenty-four seats against the Congress' nine in the Goa Assembly Elections held in March 2012. In 2014, Parrikar drew criticism for approving a junket costing at least for six MLAs from the ruling party, including three ministers, to attend the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. The Indian National Congress termed the trip "wasteful expenditure" and criticized the lack of other government officials or soccer experts in the delegation.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: On 14 March 2017, Parrikar was sworn in as Chief Minister of Goa. Goa Forward Party led by Vijai Sardesai, one of the parties who allied with BJP in Goa after election results were announced, had said that it would extend support to the BJP only if Parrikar was brought back to the state as Chief Minister.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: In the 2014 general elections, BJP won both the Lok Sabha seats in Goa. Parrikar was reluctant to leave Goa and move to Delhi in November 2014, by his own admission but was persuaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to join central government.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: Parrikar was preceded by Laxmikant Parsekar as Goa's CM. Parrikar had represented the Panaji constituency in the Goa Legislative Assembly when he was a player in the state politics.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: In November 2014, Parrikar was chosen as the Minister of Defence replacing Arun Jaitley, who, till then, held additional charge of the Ministry. His entry into the parliament was facilitated by choosing him as the party's candidate for the elected Rajya Sabha seat from Uttar Pradesh.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: In 2001, the Parrikar government turned over fifty-one government primary schools in rural areas to Vidya Bharati, the educational wing of the Sangh Parivar, inviting criticism from educationists. He also drew criticism for approving a junket costing at least for six government MLAs from the ruling party, including three ministers, to attend the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. The Indian National Congress termed the trip "wasteful expenditure" and criticized the lack of other government officials or football experts in the delegation.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: Parrikar often made remarks of controversial nature. In wake of the debate on religious intolerance in India and actor Aamir Khan stating that his wife Kiran Rao had asked to move out of India, Parrikar made a controversial remark that "if anyone speaks like this, he has to be taught a lesson of his life". He later clarified that he had not targeted any specific individual. In August 2016, Parrikar stated that going to Pakistan is the same thing as "going to hell". In November 2016, Parrikar, while serving as Minister of Defence of India, raised a question about why India should bind itself to the no first use policy.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: In 2019, an audio tape of Poriem MLA Vishwajit Rane surfaced where he spoke to an unknown person claiming that the Dassault Rafale Aircraft deal papers were in then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's bedroom. Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi attempted to play the alleged audio tape in the Lok Sabha but was not allowed to do so.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: During March–June 2018, Parrikar was undergoing treatment for what would turn out to be pancreatic cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, USA. He returned to India and in September was admitted in the AIIMS, Delhi for treatment. On 27 October 2018, the Government of Goa announced that Parrikar had pancreatic cancer.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: He died on 17 March 2019 at the age of 63 from pancreatic cancer at his residence in Panaji. His death was announced by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind in a tweet condoling his death. His death was condoled by PM Narendra Modi, HM Rajnath Singh, BJP president Amit Shah, INC president Rahul Gandhi, and several other political leaders from all over Goa and India.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: In June 2020, a biography titled "An Extraordinary Life : A Biography of Manohar Parrikar" was published by Penguin Random House India. The book, penned by journalists Sadguru Patil and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar, documents Parrikar's life and ascent to power.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: The Indian Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses was renamed the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in February of 2020.


title: Manohar Parrikar

text: In December 2022, the New International Airport at Mopa, Goa was named Manohar Parrikar International Airport.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: Karafuto Prefecture (, "Karafuto-chō"; ), commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a prefecture of Japan located in Sakhalin from 1907 to 1949.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: Karafuto became territory of the Empire of Japan in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War when the portion of Sakhalin south of 50°N was ceded from the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Portsmouth. Karafuto was established in 1907 as an external territory until being upgraded to an "Inner Land" of the Japanese metropole in 1943. Ōtomari (Korsakov) was the capital of Karafuto from 1905 to 1908 and Toyohara (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk) from 1908 to August 1945 when the Japanese administration ceased to function in the invasion of South Sakhalin by the Soviet Union after the surrender of Japan in World War II. Karafuto Prefecture was de facto replaced with Sakhalin Oblast, although it continued to exist de jure under Japanese law until it was formally abolished as a legal entity by Japan on 1 June 1949.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: The Japanese name "Karafuto" purportedly comes from Ainu () which means "the island a god has created on the estuary (of Amur River)". It was formerly known as "Kita Ezo", meaning Northern Ezo (Ezo was the former name for Hokkaido). When the Japanese administered the prefecture, "Karafuto" usually meant Southern Sakhalin only. For convenience, the northern part of the island was sometimes called "Sagaren".


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: In Russian, the entire island was named "Sakhalin" or "Saghalien". It is from Manchu "sahaliyan ula angga hada", meaning "peak of the mouth of Amur River". The southern part was simply called "Yuzhny Sakhalin" ("South Sakhalin"). In Korean, the name is "Sahallin" or "Hwataedo", with the latter name in use during Korea under Japanese rule.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: Japanese settlement on Sakhalin dates to at least the Edo period. Ōtomari was established in 1679, and cartographers of the Matsumae domain mapped the island, and named it "Kita-Ezo". Japanese cartographer and explorer Mamiya Rinzō established that Sakhalin was an island through his discovery of what is now named Mamiya Strait (Strait of Tartary) in 1809. Japan unilaterally proclaimed sovereignty over the whole island in 1845.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: The 1855 Treaty of Shimoda acknowledged that both Russia and Japan had joint rights of occupation to Sakhalin, without setting a definite territorial demarcation. As the island became settled in the 1860s and 1870s, this ambiguity led to increasing friction between settlers. Attempts by the Tokugawa shogunate to purchase the entire island from the Russian Empire failed, and the new Meiji government was unable to negotiate a partition of the island into separate territories. In the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875), Japan agreed to give up its claims on Sakhalin in exchange for undisputed ownership of the Kuril Islands.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: Japan invaded Sakhalin in the final stages of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, but per the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth was allowed to retain only the southern portion of the island below the 50° N parallel. Russia retained the northern portion, although the Japanese were awarded favorable commercial rights, including fishing and mineral extraction rights in the north. In 1907, Karafuto Prefecture was officially established, with the capital at Ōtomari. In 1908, the capital was relocated to Toyohara.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: In 1920, Karafuto was officially designated an external territory of Japan, and its administration and development came under the aegis of the Ministry of Colonial Affairs. Following the Nikolaevsk Incident in 1920, Japan briefly seized the northern half of Sakhalin, and occupied it until the establishment of formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1925; however, Japan continued to maintain petroleum and coal concessions in northern Sakhalin until 1944. In 1943, the status of Karafuto was upgraded to that of an "inner land", making it an integral part of the Empire of Japan.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: As Japan was extending its influence over East Asia and the Pacific through the establishment of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Imperial Japanese Army as part of its offensive contingency plans to invade the Soviet Union if it either became involved in the Pacific War or collapsed due to the ongoing German invasion, proposed the annexation of the remaining northern half of Sakhalin to Japan.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: In August 1945, after repudiating the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April, and according to the signed agreements of Yalta, in which Stalin pledged that the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific War three months after the defeat of Germany, the Soviet Union invaded Karafuto. The Soviet attack started on 11 August 1945, three weeks before the surrender of Japan. The Soviet 56th Rifle Corps, part of the 16th Army, consisting of the 79th Rifle Division, the 2nd Rifle Brigade, the 5th Rifle Brigade and the 214 Armored Brigade, attacked the Japanese 88th Infantry Division. Although the Soviet Red Army outnumbered the Japanese by three to one, they advanced only slowly due to strong Japanese resistance. It was not until the 113th Rifle Brigade and the 365th Independent Naval Infantry Rifle Battalion from Sovetskaya Gavan landed on Tōro, a seashore village of western Karafuto on 16 August that the Soviets broke the Japanese defense line. Japanese resistance grew weaker after this landing. Actual fighting continued until 21 August. Between 22 and 23 August, most remaining Japanese units agreed to a ceasefire. The Soviets completed the conquest of Karafuto on 25 August 1945, by occupying the capital of Toyohara.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: There were over 400,000 people living in Karafuto when the Soviet offensive began in early August 1945. Most were of Japanese or Korean extraction, though there was also a small White Russian community as well as some Ainu indigenous tribes. By the time of the ceasefire, approximately 100,000 civilians had managed to escape to Hokkaidō. The military government established by the Soviet Army banned the local press, confiscated cars and radio sets and imposed a curfew. Local managers and bureaucrats were made to aid Russian authorities in the process of reconstruction, before being deported to labor camps, either on North Sakhalin or in Siberia. In schools, courses in Marxism–Leninism were introduced, and Japanese children were obliged to sing songs in praise of Stalin.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: Step by step Karafuto lost its Japanese identity. Sakhalin Oblast was created in February 1946, and by March all towns, villages and streets were renamed with Russian names. More and more colonists began to arrive from mainland Russia, with whom the Japanese were obliged to share the limited stock of housing. In October 1946 the Soviets began to repatriate all remaining Japanese. By 1950 most had been sent, willing or not, to Hokkaidō, though they had to leave all of their possessions behind, including any currency they had, Russian or Japanese. Today some keep alive the memory of their former home in the meetings of the "Karafuto Renmei", an association for former Karafuto residents.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: In 1945, with the defeat of Japan in World War II, the Japanese administration in Karafuto ceased to function. The Japanese government formally abolished Karafuto Prefecture as a legal entity on 1 June 1949. In 1951, at the Treaty of San Francisco, Japan renounced its rights to Sakhalin, but did not formally acknowledge Soviet sovereignty over it. Since that time, no final peace treaty has been signed between Japan and Russia, and the status of the neighboring Kuril Islands remains disputed.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: The pre-war economy of Karafuto was based on fishing, forestry and agriculture, together with extraction of coal and petroleum. In terms of industry, the paper industry and the charcoal production industry was well developed. Karafuto suffered from a labor shortage through most of its history, and tax incentives were provided to encourage immigration. During World War II, a large number of Koreans were also forcibly relocated to Karafuto.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: An extensive railway network was constructed in Karafuto to support the extraction of natural resources. The maintained 682.6 kilometers of track in four main lines and an additional 58.2 kilometers of track.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: Karafuto was administered from the central government in Tokyo as the under the of the Home Ministry. The Colonization Bureau became the


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: When the Ministry of Colonial Affairs was absorbed into the new Ministry of Greater East Asia in 1942, the administration of Karafuto was separated, and Karafuto became an integral part of the Japanese archipelago.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: As of 1945, Karafuto was divided into four subprefectures, which in turn were subdivided into 11 districts, in turn divided into 41 municipalities (one city, 13 towns, and 27 villages).


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: Karafuto's largest city was Toyohara, while other major cities included Esutoru in the north central and Maoka in the south central region.


title: Karafuto Prefecture

text: The list below are the towns and the city of the prefecture. These in "italics" are the corresponding current Russian names.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is available for Mac OS X Snow Leopard up to macOS Mojave. Apple ceased support for the Windows version of QuickTime in 2016, and ceased support for QuickTime 7 on macOS in 2018.


title: QuickTime

text: As of Mac OS X Lion, the underlying media framework for QuickTime, QTKit, was deprecated in favor of a newer graphics framework, AVFoundation, and completely discontinued as of macOS Catalina.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime is bundled with macOS. QuickTime for Microsoft Windows is downloadable as a standalone installation, and was bundled with Apple's iTunes prior to iTunes 10.5, but is no longer supported and therefore security vulnerabilities will no longer be patched. Already, at the time of the Windows version's discontinuation, two such zero-day vulnerabilities (both of which permitted arbitrary code execution) were identified and publicly disclosed by Trend Micro; consequently, Trend Micro strongly advised users to uninstall the product from Windows systems.


title: QuickTime

text: Software development kits (SDK) for QuickTime are available to the public with an Apple Developer Connection (ADC) subscription.


title: QuickTime

text: It is available free of charge for both macOS operating systems. There are some other free player applications that rely on the QuickTime framework, providing features not available in the basic QuickTime Player. For example, iTunes can export audio in WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, and Apple Lossless. In addition, macOS has a simple AppleScript that can be used to play a movie in full-screen mode, but since version 7.2 full-screen viewing is now supported in the non-Pro version.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime Player 7 is limited to only basic playback operations unless a QuickTime Pro license key is purchased from Apple. Until Catalina, Apple's professional applications (e.g. Final Cut Studio, Logic Studio) included a QuickTime Pro license. Pro keys are specific to the major version of QuickTime for which they are purchased and unlock additional features of the QuickTime Player application on macOS or Windows. The Pro key does not require any additional downloads; entering the registration code immediately unlocks the hidden features.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7 is still available for download from Apple, but as of mid-2016, Apple stopped selling registration keys for the Pro version.


title: QuickTime

text: Mac OS X Snow Leopard includes QuickTime X. QuickTime Player X lacks cut, copy and paste and will only export to four formats, but its limited export feature is free. Users do not have an option to upgrade to a Pro version of QuickTime X, but those who have already purchased QuickTime 7 Pro and are upgrading to Snow Leopard from a previous version of Mac OS X will have QuickTime 7 stored in the Utilities or user defined folder. Otherwise, users will have to install QuickTime 7 from the "Optional Installs" directory of the Snow Leopard DVD after installing the OS.


title: QuickTime

text: Mac OS X Lion and later also include QuickTime X. No installer for QuickTime 7 is included with these software packages, but users can download the QuickTime 7 installer from the Apple support site. QuickTime X on later versions of macOS support cut, copy and paste functions similarly to the way QuickTime 7 Pro did; the interface has been significantly modified to simplify these operations, however.


title: QuickTime

text: On September 24, 2018, Apple ended support for QuickTime 7 and QuickTime Pro, and updated many download and support pages on their website to state that QuickTime 7 "will not be compatible with future macOS releases."


title: QuickTime

text: As of early 2008, the framework hides many older codecs listed below from the user although the option to "Show legacy encoders" exists in QuickTime Preferences to use them. The framework supports the following file types and codecs natively:


title: QuickTime

text: Due to macOS Mojave being the last version to include support for 32-bit APIs and Apple's plans to drop 32-bit application support in future macOS releases, many codecs will no longer be supported in newer macOS releases, starting with macOS Catalina, which was released on October 7, 2019.


title: QuickTime

text: PictureViewer is a component of QuickTime for Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 operating systems. It is used to view picture files from the still image formats that QuickTime supports. In macOS, it is replaced by Preview.


title: QuickTime

text: As of version 7.7.9, the Windows version requires one to go to their "Windows Uninstall Or Change A Program" screen to "modify" their installation of QuickTime 7 to include the "Legacy QuickTime Feature" of "QuickTime PictureViewer."


title: QuickTime

text: The native file format for QuickTime video, QuickTime File Format, specifies a multimedia container file that contains one or more tracks, each of which stores a particular type of data: audio, video, effects, or text (e.g. for subtitles). Each track either contains a digitally encoded media stream (using a specific format) or a data reference to the media stream located in another file. The ability to contain abstract data references for the media data, and the separation of the media data from the media offsets and the track edit lists means that QuickTime is particularly suited for editing, as it is capable of importing and editing in place (without data copying).


title: QuickTime

text: Other file formats that QuickTime supports natively (to varying degrees) include AIFF, WAV, DV-DIF, MP3, and MPEG program stream. With additional QuickTime Components, it can also support ASF, DivX Media Format, Flash Video, Matroska, Ogg, and many others.


title: QuickTime

text: On February 11, 1998, the ISO approved the QuickTime file format as the basis of the MPEG‑4 file format. The MPEG-4 file format specification was created on the basis of the QuickTime format specification published in 2001. The MP4 (codice_1) file format was published in 2001 as the revision of the MPEG-4 Part 1: Systems specification published in 1999 (ISO/IEC 14496-1:2001). In 2003, the first version of MP4 format was revised and replaced by MPEG-4 Part 14: MP4 file format (ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003). The MP4 file format was generalized into the ISO Base Media File Format ISO/IEC 14496-12:2004, which defines a general structure for time-based media files. It in turn is used as the basis for other multimedia file formats (for example 3GP, Motion JPEG 2000). A list of all registered extensions for ISO Base Media File Format is published on the official registration authority website www.mp4ra.org. This registration authority for code-points in "MP4 Family" files is Apple Computer Inc. and it is named in Annex D (informative) in MPEG-4 Part 12.


title: QuickTime

text: By 2000, MPEG-4 formats became industry standards, first appearing with support in QuickTime 6 in 2002. Accordingly, the MPEG-4 container is designed to capture, edit, archive, and distribute media, unlike the simple file-as-stream approach of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 6 added limited support for MPEG-4, specifically encoding and decoding using Simple Profile (SP). Advanced Simple Profile (ASP) features, like B-frames, were unsupported (in contrast with, for example, encoders such as XviD or 3ivx). QuickTime 7 supports the H.264 encoder and decoder.


title: QuickTime

text: Because both MOV and MP4 containers can use the same MPEG-4 codecs, they are mostly interchangeable in a QuickTime-only environment. MP4, being an international standard, has more support. This is especially true on hardware devices, such as the Sony PSP and various DVD players, on the software side, most DirectShow / Video for Windows codec packs include a MP4 parser, but not one for MOV.


title: QuickTime

text: In QuickTime Pro's MPEG-4 Export dialog, an option called "Passthrough" allows a clean export to MP4 without affecting the audio or video streams. QuickTime 7 now supports multi-channel AAC-LC and HE-AAC audio (used, for example, in the high-definition trailers on Apple's site), for both .MOV and .MP4 containers.


title: QuickTime

text: Apple released the first version of QuickTime on December 2, 1991 as a multimedia add-on for System 6 and later. The lead developer of QuickTime, Bruce Leak, ran the first public demonstration at the May 1991 Worldwide Developers Conference, where he played Apple's famous 1984 advertisement in a window at 320×240 pixels resolution.


title: QuickTime

text: The first commercial project produced using QuickTime 1.0 was the CD-ROM From Alice to Ocean. The first publicly visible use of QuickTime was Ben & Jerry's interactive factory tour (dubbed "The Rik & Joe Show" after its in-house developers). "The Rik and Joe Show" was demonstrated onstage at MacWorld in San Francisco when John Sculley announced QuickTime.


title: QuickTime

text: Apple released QuickTime 1.5 for Mac OS in the latter part of 1992. This added the SuperMac-developed Cinepak vector-quantization video codec (initially known as Compact Video). It could play video at 320×240 resolution at 30 frames per second on a 25 MHz Motorola 68040 CPU. It also added "text" tracks, which allowed for captioning, lyrics and other potential uses.


title: QuickTime

text: Apple contracted San Francisco Canyon Company to port QuickTime to the Windows platform. Version 1.0 of QuickTime for Windows provided only a subset of the full QuickTime API, including only movie playback functions driven through the standard movie controller.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 1.6 came out the following year. Version 1.6.2 first incorporated the "QuickTime PowerPlug" which replaced some components with PowerPC-native code when running on PowerPC Macs.


title: QuickTime

text: Apple released QuickTime 2.0 for System Software 7 in June 1994—the only version never released for free. It added support for music tracks, which contained the equivalent of MIDI data and which could drive a sound-synthesis engine built into QuickTime itself (using a limited set of instrument sounds licensed from Roland), or any external MIDI-compatible hardware, thereby producing sounds using only small amounts of movie data.


title: QuickTime

text: Following Bruce Leak's departure to Web TV, the leadership of the QuickTime team was taken over by Peter Hoddie.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 2.0 for Windows appeared in November 1994 under the leadership of Paul Charlton. As part of the development effort for cross-platform QuickTime, Charlton (as architect and technical lead), along with ace individual contributor Michael Kellner and a small highly effective team including Keith Gurganus, ported a subset of the Macintosh Toolbox to Intel and other platforms (notably, MIPS and SGI Unix variants) as the enabling infrastructure for the QuickTime Media Layer (QTML) which was first demonstrated at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in May 1996. The QTML later became the foundation for the Carbon API which allowed legacy Macintosh applications to run on the Darwin kernel in Mac OS X.


title: QuickTime

text: The next versions, 2.1 and 2.5, reverted to the previous model of giving QuickTime away for free. They improved the music support and added sprite tracks which allowed the creation of complex animations with the addition of little more than the static sprite images to the size of the movie. QuickTime 2.5 also fully integrated QuickTime VR 2.0.1 into QuickTime as a QuickTime extension. On January 16, 1997, Apple released the QuickTime MPEG Extension (PPC only) as an add-on to QuickTime 2.5, which added software MPEG-1 playback capabilities to QuickTime.


title: QuickTime

text: In 1994, Apple filed suit against software developer San Francisco Canyon for intellectual property infringement and breach of contract. Apple alleged that San Francisco Canyon had helped develop Video for Windows using several hundred lines of unlicensed QuickTime source code. They were contracted by Intel to help make Video for Windows better use system resources on Intel processors, which was subsequently unilaterally removed. Microsoft and Intel were added to the lawsuit in 1995. The suit ended in a settlement in 1997.


title: QuickTime

text: The release of QuickTime 3.0 for Mac OS on March 30, 1998 introduced the now-standard revenue model of releasing the software for free, but with additional features of the Apple-provided MoviePlayer application that end-users could only unlock by buying a QuickTime Pro license code. Since the "Pro" features were the same as the existing features in QuickTime 2.5, any previous user of QuickTime could continue to use an older version of the central MoviePlayer application for the remaining lifespan of Mac OS to 2002; indeed, since these additional features were limited to MoviePlayer, any other QuickTime-compatible application remained unaffected.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 3.0 added support for graphics importer components that could read images from GIF, JPEG, TIFF and other file formats, and video output components which served primarily to export movie data via FireWire. Apple also licensed several third-party technologies for inclusion in QuickTime 3.0, including the Sorenson Video codec for advanced video compression, the QDesign Music codec for substantial audio compression, and the complete Roland Sound Canvas instrument set and GS Format extensions for improved playback of MIDI music files. It also added video "effects" which programmers could apply in real-time to video tracks. Some of these effects would even respond to mouse clicks by the user, as part of the new movie interaction support (known as wired movies).


title: QuickTime

text: During the development cycle for QuickTime 3.0, part of the engineering team was working on a more advanced version of QuickTime to be known as QuickTime interactive or QTi. Although similar in concept to the wired movies feature released as part of QuickTime 3.0, QuickTime interactive was much more ambitious. It allowed any QuickTime movie to be a fully interactive and programmable container for media. A special track type was added that contained an interpreter for a custom programming language based on 68000 assembly language. This supported a comprehensive user interaction model for mouse and keyboard event handling based in part on the AML language from the Apple Media Tool.


title: QuickTime

text: The QuickTime interactive movie was to have been the playback format for the next generation of HyperCard authoring tool. Both the QuickTime interactive and the HyperCard 3.0 projects were canceled in order to concentrate engineering resources on streaming support for QuickTime 4.0, and the projects were never released to the public.


title: QuickTime

text: Apple released QuickTime 4.0 on June 8, 1999 for Mac OS 7.5.5 through 8.6 (later Mac OS 9) and Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT. Three minor updates (versions 4.0.1, 4.0.2, and 4.0.3) followed.


title: QuickTime

text: On December 17, 1999, Apple provided QuickTime 4.1, this version's first major update. Two minor versions (4.1.1 and 4.1.2) followed. The most notable improvements in the 4.1.x family were:


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 5 was one of the shortest-lived versions of QuickTime, released in April 2001 and superseded by QuickTime 6 a little over a year later. This version was the last to have greater capabilities under Mac OS 9 than under Mac OS X, and the last version of QuickTime to support Mac OS versions 7.5.5 through 8.5.1 on a PowerPC Mac and Windows 95. Version 5.0 was initially only released for Mac OS and Mac OS X on April 14, 2001, and version 5.0.1 followed shortly thereafter on April 23, 2001, supporting the classic Mac OS, Mac OS X, and Windows. Three more updates to QuickTime 5 (versions 5.0.2, 5.0.4, and 5.0.5) were released over its short lifespan.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 6 was initially available for Mac OS 8.6 – 9.x, Mac OS X (10.1.5 minimum), and Windows 98, Me, 2000, and XP. Development of QuickTime 6 for Mac OS slowed considerably in early 2003, after the release of Mac OS X v10.2 in August 2002. QuickTime 6 for Mac OS continued on the 6.0.x path, eventually stopping with version 6.0.3.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 6.1 & 6.1.1 for Mac OS X v10.1 and Mac OS X v10.2 (released October 22, 2002) and QuickTime 6.1 for Windows (released March 31, 2003) offered ISO-Compliant MPEG-4 file creation and fixed the CAN-2003-0168 vulnerability.


title: QuickTime

text: Apple released QuickTime 6.2 exclusively for Mac OS X on April 29, 2003 to provide support for iTunes 4, which allowed AAC encoding for songs in the iTunes library. (iTunes was not available for Windows until October 2003.)


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 6.4, released on October 16, 2003 for Mac OS X v10.2, Mac OS X v10.3, and Windows, added the following:


title: QuickTime

text: On December 18, 2003, Apple released QuickTime 6.5, supporting the same systems as version 6.4. Versions 6.5.1 and 6.5.2 followed on April 28, 2004 and October 27, 2004. These versions would be the last to support Windows 98 and Me. The 6.5 family added the following features:


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 6.5.3 was released on October 12, 2005 for Mac OS X v10.2.8 after the release of QuickTime 7.0, fixing a number of security issues.


title: QuickTime

text: Initially released on April 29, 2005 in conjunction with Mac OS X v10.4 (for version 10.3.9 and 10.4.x), QuickTime 7.0 featured the following:


title: QuickTime

text: After a couple of preview Windows releases, Apple released 7.0.2 as the first stable release on September 7, 2005 for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Version 7.0.4, released on January 10, 2006 was the first universal binary version. But it suffered numerous bugs, including a buffer overrun, which is more problematic to most users.


title: QuickTime

text: Apple dropped support for Windows 2000 with the release of QuickTime 7.2 on July 11, 2007. The last version available for Windows 2000, 7.1.6, contains numerous security vulnerabilities. References to this version have been removed from the QuickTime site, but it can be downloaded from Apple's support section. Apple has not indicated that they will be providing any further security updates for older versions. QuickTime 7.2 is the first version for Windows Vista.


title: QuickTime

text: Apple dropped support for Flash content in QuickTime 7.3, breaking content that relied on Flash for interactivity, or animation tracks. Security concerns seem to be part of the decision. Flash flv files can still be played in QuickTime if the free Perian plugin is added.


title: QuickTime

text: In QuickTime 7.3, a processor that supports SSE is required. QuickTime 7.4 does not require SSE. Unlike versions 7.2 and 7.3, QuickTime 7.4 cannot be installed on Windows XP without service packs or with Service Pack 1/1A installed (its setup program checks if Service Pack 2 is installed).


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7.5 was released on June 10, 2008. QuickTime 7.5.5 was released on September 9, 2008, which requires Mac OS X v10.4 or higher, dropping 10.3 support. QuickTime 7.6 was released on January 21, 2009. QuickTime 7.7 was released on August 3, 2011.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7.6.6 is available for OS X, 10.6.3 Snow Leopard until 10.14 Mojave, as 10.15 Catalina will only support 64-bit applications. There is a 7.7 release of QuickTime 7 for OS X, but it is only for Leopard 10.5.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7.7.6 is the last release for Windows XP. As it's since version 7.4, they can be installed here only when Service Pack 2 or 3 is installed.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7.7.9 is the last Windows release of QuickTime. Apple stopped supporting QuickTime on Windows afterwards.


title: QuickTime

text: Safari 12, released on September 17, 2018 for macOS Sierra and macOS High Sierra (and the default browser included on macOS Mojave released on September 24, 2018), which drops support for NPAPI plug-ins (except for Adobe Flash) dropped its support for QuickTime 7's web plugin. On September 24, 2018, Apple dropped support for the macOS version of QuickTime 7. This effectively marked the end of the technology in Apple's codec and web development.


title: QuickTime

text: Starting with macOS Catalina, QuickTime 7 applications, image, audio and video codecs will no longer be compatible with macOS or supported by Apple.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime X (pronounced "QuickTime Ten") was initially demonstrated at WWDC on June 8, 2009, and shipped with Mac OS X v10.6.


title: QuickTime

text: It includes visual chapters, conversion, sharing to YouTube, video editing, capture of video and audio streams, screen recording, GPU acceleration, and live streaming.


title: QuickTime

text: But it removed support for various widely used formats, in particular the omission of MIDI caused significant inconvenience and trouble to many musicians and their potential audiences.


title: QuickTime

text: In addition, a screen recorder is featured which records whatever is on the screen. However it is not possible to capture certain Digital rights management protected content. This includes iTunes/Apple TV video purchases, or any content protected by Apple's FairPlay DRM technology. While Safari uses FairPlay, Google Chrome, and Firefox use Widevine for DRM, whose content is not protected from QuickTime screen capturing.


title: QuickTime

text: The reason for the jump in numbering from 7 to 10 (X) was to indicate a similar break with the previous versions of the product that Mac OS X indicated. QuickTime X is fundamentally different from previous versions, in that it is provided as a Cocoa (Objective-C) framework and breaks compatibility with the previous QuickTime 7 C-based APIs that were previously used. QuickTime X was completely rewritten to implement modern audio video codecs in 64-bit. QuickTime X is a combination of two technologies: QuickTime Kit Framework (QTKit) and QuickTime X Player. QTKit is used by QuickTime player to display media. QuickTime X does not implement all of the functionality of the previous QuickTime as well as some of the codecs. When QuickTime X attempts to operate with a 32-bit codec or perform an operation not supported by QuickTime X, it will start a 32-bit helper process to perform the requested operation. The website "Ars Technica" revealed that QuickTime X uses QuickTime 7.x via QTKit to run older codecs that have not made the transition to 64-bit.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime X does not support .SRT subtitle files. It has been suggested using the program Subler to interleave the MP4 and SRT files will fix this oversight, which can be downloaded at Bitbucket.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7 may still be required to support older formats on Snow Leopard such as QTVR, interactive QuickTime movies, and MIDI files. In such cases, a compatible version of QuickTime 7 is included on Snow Leopard installation disc and may be installed side-by-side with QuickTime X. Users who have a Pro license for QuickTime 7 can then activate their license.


title: QuickTime

text: The software got an increment with the release of Mavericks, and as of August 2018, the current version is v10.5. It contains more sharing options (email, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr etc.), more export options (including web export in multiple sizes, and export for iPhone 4/iPad/Apple TV (but not Apple TV 2). It also includes a new way of fast forwarding through a video and mouse support for scrolling.


title: QuickTime

text: Starting with macOS Catalina, Apple only provides QuickTime X, as QuickTime 7 was never updated to 64-bit, affecting many applications, image, audio, and video formats utilizing QuickTime 7, and compatibility with these codecs in QuickTime X.


title: QuickTime

text: Since the release of macOS 10.15, AVKit and AVFoundation are used instead (due to the removal of 32-bit audio and video codecs, as well as image formats and APIs supported by QuickTime 7).


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime consists of two major subsystems: the Movie Toolbox and the Image Compression Manager. The Movie Toolbox consists of a general API for handling time-based data, while the Image Compression Manager provides services for dealing with compressed raster data as produced by video and photo codecs.


title: QuickTime

text: Developers can use the QuickTime software development kit (SDK) to develop multimedia applications for Mac or Windows with the C programming language or with the Java programming language (see QuickTime for Java), or, under Windows, using COM/ActiveX from a language supporting this.


title: QuickTime

text: The COM/ActiveX option was introduced as part of QuickTime 7 for Windows and is intended for programmers who want to build standalone Windows applications using high-level QuickTime movie playback and control with some import, export, and editing capabilities. This is considerably easier than mastering the original QuickTime C API.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7 for Mac introduced the QuickTime Kit (aka QTKit), a developer framework that is intended to replace previous APIs for Cocoa developers. This framework is for Mac only, and exists as Objective-C abstractions around a subset of the C interface. Mac OS X v10.5 extends QTKit to full 64-bit support. The QTKit allows multiplexing between QuickTime X and QuickTime 7 behind the scenes so that the user need not worry about which version of QuickTime they need to use.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7.4 was found to disable Adobe's video compositing program, After Effects. This was due to the DRM built into version 7.4 since it allowed movie rentals from iTunes. QuickTime 7.4.1 resolved this issue.


title: QuickTime

text: Versions 4.0 through 7.3 contained a buffer overflow bug which could compromise the security of a PC using either the QuickTime Streaming Media client, or the QuickTime player itself. The bug was fixed in version 7.3.1.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7.5.5 and earlier are known to have a list of significant vulnerabilities that allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds memory access and application crash) on a targeted system. The list includes six types of buffer overflow, data conversion, signed vs. unsigned integer mismatch, and uninitialized memory pointer.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7.6 has been found to disable Mac users' ability to play certain games, such as "Civilization IV" and "The Sims 2". There are fixes available from the publisher, Aspyr.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7 lacks support for H.264 Sample Aspect Ratio. QuickTime X does not have this limitation, but many Apple products (such as Apple TV) still use the older QuickTime 7 engine. iTunes previously utilized QuickTime 7, but as of October 2019, iTunes no longer utilizes the older QuickTime 7 engine.


title: QuickTime

text: QuickTime 7.7.x on Windows fails to encode H.264 on multi-core systems with more than approximately 20 threads, e.g. HP Z820 with 2× 8-core CPUs. A suggested solution is to disable hyper-threading/limit CPU cores. Encoding speed and stability depends on the scaling of the player window.


title: QuickTime

text: On April 14, 2016, Christopher Budd of Trend Micro announced that Apple has ceased all security patching of QuickTime for Windows, and called attention to two Zero Day Initiative advisories, ZDI-16-241


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: "Vesperia" is set in the world of Terca Lumireis, which uses an energy source called aer that is regulated by devices called Blastia. This powers much of the magic of the world, including creating protective barriers around its cities. The story focuses on Yuri Lowell, a former Imperial soldier who forms a guild called Brave Vesperia to aid Estelle, a noble woman he encounters on a mission. As they explore the world, Brave Vesperia are challenged by factions who have different plans related to the abuse of blastia resources, and Yuri is forced to confront his friend and former comrade Flynn.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: Preliminary work on "Vesperia" began in 2005, with full development starting the following year, lasting approximately two years. Returning staff included producer Yoshito Higuchi, composers Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura, and character designer Kōsuke Fujishima. The writers included Takashi Hasegawa and Hideo Baba. Developed by the same team that made "Tales of Symphonia" and "Tales of the Abyss", it was designed for the Xbox 360 as the PlayStation 3 had yet to be shown to the company and the former console was achieving international popularity. The anime cutscenes were created by Production I.G, with an art style influenced by cel-shaded animation. The game's theme song, "Ring a Bell / Kane o Narashite", is by Bonnie Pink. The game received positive reviews and has sold over 1.5million copies worldwide across all platforms. Further media related to the world of "Vesperia" have been released, including the prequel film "".


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: "Tales of Vesperia" is an action role-playing game set in a fantasy world featuring three-dimensional environments and characters. The game's environments are split into two types. On the field map, the main characters navigate reduced-scale environments. A compass and mini-map are displayed, along with towns, other named locations, and enemy icons. Striking an enemy icon triggers a battle, while interacting with a town causes the party to enter it. In battle and towns or similar locations, characters move around environments built on a lifelike scale relative to the human characters. In these areas, the party may interact with non-player characters. Within these environments, items such as crates can be moved by the currently assigned character. After a certain point in the game, an item called the Sorcerer's Ring is given to the party, enabling them to shoot bolts of energy. These bolts can be used to activate switches, move objects, and attack enemies from a distance. Save points can be found in dungeons and towns. Items such as equipment and weapons are purchased with Gald, the in-game currency. While in environments, players can trigger optional character conversations called Skits. In Skits, characters are represented by head-and-shoulder portraits, and the conversations can range from dramatic to comedic.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: Characters have several different stats and gauges: their health, a magic meter stocked by Technical Points, and Learning Points for learning skills, raising a character's respective agility or luck, and how a character reacts to attacks. Attack types are physical and magical, while defense is limited to physical attacks. Characters gain experience levels through accumulating experience points. Experience Points and Gald is earned through battles, along with recovering a degree of Technical Points and occasionally items dropped by defeated enemies. Skills, attributes that change different stats, can be assigned to each character. The number of skills that can be assigned is calculated by the number of skill points each character has available. Battling with equipment associated with a particular skill enables that character to learn it when they have filled their Learning Points meter. Cooking, creating meals with ingredients found in battle or around explored environments, can also be used by individual characters to restore their Health and Technical Points and grant temporary enhancements. Recipes are learned from a character called the Wonder Chef.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: "Vesperia" uses a variation on the series' trademark action-oriented Linear Motion Battle System, which plays out in a similar way to a fighting game. The variation used in "Vesperia" is called the "Evolved Flex-Range Linear Motion Battle System". Battles take place in an isolated battle arena within the environment, with the battle party being made up of one player-controlled character and three characters controlled by the game's artificial intelligence. The AI commands can be customized from a set of skills, with their assigned tasks affecting their actions and placement on the battlefield. "Vesperia" also features a local four-player multiplayer option: up to four players can connect to a single Xbox 360 console through both wired and wireless controllers. While no online multiplayer is available, players can use Xbox Live to post their respective scores, including damage chains and consecutive hit numbers, on online leaderboards. The boards can be updated by players while saving the game.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: Enemies, encountered in environments as icons, react differently depending on how they are approached and attacked: using the right attack or approaching them unawares grants the party an advantage in battle. If other groups of enemies are close by, they are also drawn into the initiated battle. For both player characters and enemies, battle skills and character performance can be affected by elemental attributes. Status ailments can also be inflicted by both the party and enemies. They are divided into physical ailments and magical ailments, which have a variety of negative effects: physical effects can be effects like slowing or poisoning a character, while magical ailments can cause units to turn on their allies or automatically recover a knocked-out party member. Items used on characters can restore TP or HP, or remove status ailments. Characters learn new skills during battles, along with Titles that affect aspects of characters.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: In battle, players can perform multiple actions: walking or running along a fixed axis, freely running around the battlefield, jumping in any direction, guarding against attacks, and pausing the battle to select a different enemy to attack. Characters can launch various attacks, from standard strikes to strikes that can interrupt enemy attacks. The player character's attacks can be chained together to create combo attacks, which create a continual flow of attacks without giving the enemy a chance to attack. Continual strikes activate the chance for a Fatal Strike, which kills normal enemies and heavily damages bosses. Landing successive Fatal Strikes grants bonuses at the end of the battle. During battle, landing successive strikes without taking hits fill an Over Limit meter. Once the meter is full, the player character can perform continual attacks and cast Artes without casting time during the Over Limit's duration. During battles, Secret Mission can be triggered by performing unspecified actions. Completing Secret Missions grants a bonus to the battle grade or acquire an item. All characters can use Artes, special physical and magical abilities which can range from standard attacks to healing magic. Learned by leveling up a character, Artes can be both specifically directed and have a general area of effect. Four Artes can be assigned to each character, and each Arte can be assigned to a hot key. Some Artes can be used outside battle to cure characters. In addition to standard Artes, each character can access Mystic Arts, extra-powerful cinematic attacks.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: The people of Terca Lumireis rely on an energy source called "blastia", devices created by the Krytia from using the crystallized remains of a powerful race known as the Entelexeia. Blastia are powered using a mystical substance known as "aer" and were used to provide resources and protection to major cities. In ancient times, misuse of blastia by the Krytia prompted the Entelexeia to absorb the excess aer generated by blastia abuses: consuming too much aer to handle, a group of Entelexeia transformed into a monster known as the Adephagos, which would consume every living thing on the planet by converting it into aer and absorbing it. Sacrificing humans with the innate ability to convert aer into magical energy, known as "Children of the Full Moon", they created a barrier to seal away the Adephagos. The remaining Children of the Full Moon and the Entelexeia decided on the new arrangement of the world: in future times, an unnamed Empire rules over large portions of Terca Lumireis, with the Children's descendants being its ruling family. Ten years prior to the events of "Vesperia", a new form of blastia was developed that could seriously damage Terca Lumireis' ecosystem and potentially release the Adephagos. The Entelexeia attempted to warn humanity in vain, and when they attempted to destroy the new blastia, they were defeated in a war. One of the veterans of the Great War, Duke, is utterly disillusioned with humanity after his Entelexeia companion Elucifer is seen as a potential threat and killed.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: In the present, former Imperial knight Yuri Lowell goes on a mission to retrieve his neighborhood's blastia core from a nobleman when their reservoir fails. While on his mission, he encounters a noble woman called Estelle, and flees with her from the capital in pursuit of the blastia thief. On their journey, they also meet Karol, a trainee hunter separated from his guild; a blastia researcher named Rita; Raven, a Great War veteran; Judith, a Krytia who seeks to destroy the blastia harming the aer balance; and exclusive to the PS3 version only, seemingly the descendant of a legendary pirate Aifread named Patty Fleur. Together, the group recover the stolen core from a corrupt guild leader and return it to Yuri's friend and former fellow knight Flynn. Yuri and Karol then decide to form an independent guild called Brave Vesperia. Shortly after this, Estelle is attacked by an Entelexeia called Phaeroh, who accuses her of poisoning the planet. After investigating and meeting a second time with Phaeroh, Brave Vesperia learn that Estelle is a Child of the Full Moon, capable of converting aer into magic without the aid of a blastia core, and that her actions are causing the aer krene, the sources of aer, to overproduce aer with deadly results. Alongside these events, Yuri sees that the Imperial authorities are powerless to act against powerful figures involved in blastia abuse: he takes matters into his own hands and murders two officials connected to the abuses. These acts put a strain on his friendship with Flynn.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: After this, Estelle is kidnapped by Raven, revealed to be an agent of Commandant Alexei, leader of the Knights and the mastermind behind the blastia thefts: Alexei intends to use Estelle's power and the replica of a magical sword to activate an ancient weapon called the Enduring Shrine of Zaude and remake the world, erasing the harmful blastia. After Raven decides to remain with Brave Vesperia after helping Estelle to escape with them, the group travel to Zaude to stop Alexei. They fail, and as Zaude is activated, it is revealed to be a barrier generator which kept the Adephagos sealed off from the world. As the Adephagos is released, Alexei is killed as Zaude collapses and Yuri is separated from the group after one of Flynn's subordinates attempts to kill him without Flynn's knowledge. Rescued by Duke, Yuri decides to stop the Adephagos. During his absence, Rita discovers a means of converting blastia cores into spirits, which can process aer into a less-dangerous alternate energy called mana, stabilizing the aer krene and keeping Estelle's powers in check. In turn, the mana could power a weapon capable of destroying the Adephagos. After receiving permission from the world's leaders to carry out their plan, Brave Vesperia must confront Duke aboard the city-sized weapon Tarqaron. Duke intends to convert all of human life, including himself, into energy to power the weapon and destroy the Adephagos, returning the world to a more primal state of being. While they share some goals, they are forced to fight due to their conflicting methods. After defeating Duke, Yuri attempts to use the converted blastia energy against Adephagos, but it proves insufficient. Moved by Brave Vesperia's efforts, Duke provides the extra power and Adephagos is destroyed. The Entelexeia that formed the Adephagos are then converted into spirits to revitalize the planet. A post-credits scene shows Brave Vesperia continuing their adventures and helping the world adjust to life without blastia.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: Preliminary work for "Tales of Vesperia" began in 2005 during the later development stages of "Tales of the Abyss", which released that year. Due to the success of "Abyss", "Vesperia" was initially planned as a title for the PlayStation 2. However, upon seeing the projected lifespan of sixth-generation consoles, the executives at Namco Bandai informed the team that "Abyss" would be the last "Tales" title of that generation. In addition to this, the team felt limited by the previous generation's hardware. In response, they decided to make the next flagship installment on next-generation hardware. At the time when a platform was chosen, the PlayStation 3 had yet to be shown to the company and the Xbox 360 was highly popular in the west, so they settled on the latter. Being on that platform, the team were also able to make use of Xbox Live, enabling achievements and online ranking implementation. During areas of development, the team were in communication with Microsoft about how to best utilize the platform. Full development began in May 2006, taking approximately two years to complete. The development team, dubbed "Team Symphonia", was the same group that developed "Abyss" and the 2003 entry "Tales of Symphonia". While designing the battle system, the team drew inspiration from the version used in "Abyss".


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: During the early production phases, the team was torn between a cel-shaded anime or realistic style of art direction: they eventually settled on an anime style and production went fairly smoothly from there on. The shaders for the characters were designed using the game's drawing engine, as opposed to the hand-drawn shaders of characters in "Abyss". The game's director Yoshito Higuchi originally wanted a realistic feel after the cartoon-like styling and shader techniques of "Abyss" and the Wii spin-off title "". One of the challenges this presented for the background designers was adjusting for the advent of LCD televisions. The positive aspect of this was that more colors could be displayed than on cathode ray tubes. In hindsight, it was felt that the final effect lacked the desired polish. The anime cutscenes were created by Production I.G, with the number and length increasing from previous titles.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: The scenario was written by Takashi Hasegawa, who had written for multiple series entries since "Tales of Eternia"; Koki Matsumoto, who had written the scenario of "Tales of Legendia"; Hideo Baba, who had previously done work on "Tales of Rebirth"; and Takaaki Okuda, a newcomer to the series. The game's title, meant to be indicative of the games' theme of justice, was derived from "Vesper", a name referring to the planet Venus. Its general meaning was to depict the protagonists and their ship as a newly born star shining on the land, similar to Venus in the evening sky. The logo was also design to convey this, and the term ""Vesperia"" was used in-game for the party's airship. The game's main protagonist, Yuri Lowell, was created to be a more mature, evolved protagonist than Kyle Dunamis in "Tales of Destiny 2" or Luke fon Fabre in "Abyss". His role was to facilitate the growth of the other characters, and to have a sense of justice that did not take account of the law. Veteran "Tales" character designer, Kōsuke Fujishima, was brought in to design the main characters. Fujishima found designing Yuri difficult, while Flynn proved one of the easiest designs. One of the intentions for Flynn and Yuri was for their designs to contrast with each other. A main character not designed by Fujishima was Repede, who was designed by the art director Daigo Okumura.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: The music was composed by Motoi Sakuraba, who had composed for nearly all the previous "Tales" games, and his regular partner Shinji Tamura, the latter working under the alias Hibiki Aoyama. While creating the soundtrack, Sakuraba was caught in the transition between sequenced to prerecorded streamed music, the latter of which gave room for rearrangements and improvisation mid-production. Sequenced music had been used up to "Abyss", so it was the first time in the series that Sakuraba used this method, although he had done so for all his other projects at the time. For some tracks, a heavy piano element was used, with Sakuraba playing the instrument. Tamura worked with Sakuraba to create different feelings for the various tracks: character themes were melodic, dungeon themes were given a simple and minimalist mood, while town themes struck a balance between these two approaches. In addition to original tracks, three remixed tracks from other Namco Bandai Games were included.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: The game's theme song, "Ring a Bell / Kane o Narashite", was sung by Japanese singer-songwriter Bonnie Pink, and was the first theme song to be shared by both the Japanese and western versions of a "Tales" game with the English version used in the Western release and the Japanese version used in the Japanese release. The song's subject matter, inspired by the game's story and themes, focused on deep friendship between men, and by extension love between men and women. Bonnie Pink was chosen by the producers after a long period of internal consultation. They contacted Warner Music Japan, Bonnie Park's label company, fairly early in the game's production, and discussed the theme song's connection to the story at great length. Bonnie Pink was also chosen as part of the team's plans for an international release, as they wanted to create an English version of the song for the Western release. Bonnie both wrote the original lyrics and translated them into English. Arrangements of "Ring a Bell / Kane o Narashite" are used in some tracks in the main soundtrack, but the song itself is not included on the soundtrack album.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: "Vesperia" was first announced in December 2007 at that year's Jump Festa for a 2008 release in Japan, although its planned platform was not revealed. The game's characteristic genre name, a recurring feature for the series representative of the game's theme, is . It represents Yuri's feelings and personal goals. It was announced for a 2008 overseas release on Xbox 360 in February 2008. It was later confirmed that it would release for that platform in Japan. In a first for the series, the team wanted to have a simultaneous worldwide release for the title, and so were developing the localized version alongside the original. This process proved exhausting. The team were able to make the skits, the game's extra conversation pieces, fully voice in the western version, which they were not able to do for "Abyss" or "Symphonia" because of time constraints. The translation was done by 8-4, and dubbed by Cup of Tea Productions.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: The game released in Japan on August 7, 2008. Alongside the standard release, the game was packaged with an Xbox 360 Premium Edition. The game released in North America on August 26, just under three weeks after its Japanese release. In July, a demo for the game was released via Xbox Live. Along with the standard edition, a Special Edition bundled with a CD featuring selected music from previous games was released to celebrate the series' tenth anniversary in the west. The European release, which came nearly a year after the game's North American release, was handled by Atari. The game released in Europe on June 26, 2009. The game was released in Australia on June 25, 2009.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: A port of the game for the PlayStation 3 was announced in April 2009. The port features full voice acting, containing nearly twice as much voice work as the original voice script, which covers previously unvoiced cutscenes in the 360 version. The game also features various new characters, has Flynn as a permanent playable character, and adds a new playable character in the form of Patty Fleur. Development on the port began in 2008, after the release of the original version. Speaking on why the port was being developed, a developer who worked on "Vampire Rain" said that companies like Namco Bandai first developed for the Xbox 360 due to superior funding and development support when compared to Sony, then ported to PS3 with minimal effort so they could recoup development costs and add features that needed to be cut from the original game.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: The port was released on September 17, 2009. It was later re-released as part of Sony's budget series release on August 2, 2012. Speaking in January 2010, Namco Bandai announced that they had no plans to release the port overseas. Later that year, Yuri's English voice actor Troy Baker said that he had been recording new English dialogue for the PS3 port. A report from a Namco Bandai employee sparked speculation that the reason behind the lack of a localization was due to a deal with Microsoft to keep the game as an Xbox 360 exclusive in western territories. Later, she retracted this statement, apologizing for creating false impressions. Series producer Hideo Baba later said that the main factor in this decision was the strain put on the team with the simultaneous release of the original, meaning a Japan-exclusive release was chosen to lessen the burden. This also coincided with poor marketing feedback for the series in western territories.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: A remastered version, Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, known in Japan and Asia as , was announced at E3 2018 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Microsoft Windows via Steam. Designed to celebrate the game's tenth anniversary, "Definitive Edition" includes upscaled graphics, all content from the Japan-exclusive PS3 version, and English and Japanese voice tracks. Some members of the English voice cast, including Troy Baker, were not asked to reprise their roles for "Definitive Edition", with different actors voicing their characters for new content. "Definitive Edition" was released on January 11, 2019.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: The game garnered a generally positive reception, according to review aggregator Metacritic. In IGN's Best of 2008 awards, "Vesperia" was nominated for Best RPG and Best Original Score in the Xbox 360 category. In GameSpot's own similar awards, it was nominated for awards in the "Special Achievement - Best Story" and "Special Achievement - Best Graphics, Artistic" categories. The year after its release, Technology Tell cited it as one of the best "Tales" games to have come overseas.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: "Famitsu" gave the game a strong review, with one reviewer calling it "[one] of the most outstanding games in the series", giving it a Platinum award and giving it the highest score out of the games reviewed in that edition of the magazine. Eurogamer's Simon Parkin said that, while lacking the big-budget look of other JRPG series and sticking to many of the genre's conventions, "Namco is to be applauded for updating the series with no small amount of consideration and flair, an effort that has resulted in the strongest entry to the aging series yet". "Edge" praised the cast's strength and the battle system, saying that the development team's focus in other areas was what made the game enjoyable and easy to play. Andrew Fitch, writing for 1UP.com, greatly enjoyed the technical improvement over "Abyss" and enjoyed the battle system and other elements including some mature plot elements, but noted translation issues in the English script and a lack of end-game content. As part of his review, he called it "perhaps the finest franchise entry to date". Matt Miller of "Game Informer" was less positive than most other reviewers, finding the story and gameplay lacking while appreciating the graphical polish.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: IGN's Ryan Geddes called it "a strong anime-style Japanese RPG", generally citing the game as an enjoyable experience. Francesca Reyes, writing for "Official Xbox Magazine", found some aspects of the battle system frustrating, but stated that most other aspects of the game made up for this deficiency. Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot was positive overall, despite noting a lack of strategy in a lot of battles and similarity to previous "Tales" games. "Hardcore Gamer"s Steve Hannley called the game a good starting point for the series on then-current consoles. RPGFan's Ashton Liu said that, while it stood as perhaps the best entry in the series, he also noted that it had not evolved very much mechanically when compared to other RPG series. GameSpy's Gabe Graziani cited it as a graphical improvement over other JRPGs on the console, and praised the characters despite citing the story as being conventional, and called it "[a] superior blend of style and production value".


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: "Famitsu" gave the PS3 port a positive review, noting its expanded content when compared to the original and sharing many sentiments with their original review. Japanese gaming website 4Gamer.net recommended the PS3 port to both veterans of the series and to newcomers, and positively noting its expanded content. James Quentin Clark, reviewing the port for RPGFan, said that the added features had made "Vesperia" the best JRPG of its console generation. In conclusion, he called it "the most complete package game in the series and a must-have for fans of action RPGs".


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: In its debut week, "Vesperia" reached #4 in "Famitsu"s sales charts, selling around 120,000 units. An alternate assessment by Media Create placed the game at #4 with sales of 108,000 units. The game helped boost sales of its console in Japan: sales rose to just under 25,000 over roughly 5,000 during the previous week, doubling the console's sales when compared to the PS3. By the beginning of 2009, the game had sold just over 161,000, reaching #82 in "Famitsu"s list of 100 top-selling games of 2008. It was also the only Xbox 360 game to appear in the list. As of April 2010, the game's Japanese sales have reached 204,305 units for the Xbox 360. This makes it the second best-selling Xbox 360 game in Japan, behind "" and ahead of "Blue Dragon".


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: In North America, "Vesperia" sold 33,000 copies during the 4 days after its launch. In its debut week, the Premium and Standard editions were placed first and second in North American sales charts. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at #35 in the country's gaming charts. According to Namco Bandai's fiscal report for that financial year, the game sold a combined total of 410,000 units in the United States and Europe, becoming the company's third best-selling title in that period. Combined, the Xbox 360 version sold units worldwide.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: During its first day on sale, the PS3 port sold 140,000 units, more than the first month's sales of the original version and nearly equal to its lifetime sales at the time. The port sold 407,000 units by September 2011, making it one of the better-selling "Tales" games on PlayStation consoles at the time. The budget series release of the port sold a further 7,229 units in its first week, and eventually sold 57,717 units. In total, the PS3 version has sold 465,888 units in Japan.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: In February 2019, Bandai Namco announced via the Japanese Tales account that "Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition" shipments have surpassed 500,000 units worldwide. Combined, all versions of the game have collectively sold a total of over units worldwide.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: In October 2009, an anime film titled "" was released in Japanese cinemas, roughly coinciding with the release of the PS3 version of the game. The anime is prequel to the game showing Yuri Lowell's time as an Imperial Knight. It was released as a Blu-ray/DVD bundle in Japan with downloadable content for the PS3 version in May 2010. The game was also released in Japan on Universal Media Disc. An English localization of the anime was released on Blu-ray and DVD in 2012. Speaking in 2009 after the theatrical release of "The First Strike", Makoto Yoshizumi, the publishing general manager for Namco Bandai, said that there was a possibility of sequels to both "Tales of Vesperia" and "The First Strike", but as yet nothing has materialized.


title: Tales of Vesperia

text: "Tales of Vesperia" spawned five manga adaptations: one specially produced anthology collection, one traditional adaptation, one yonkoma titled an adaptation of the last segment of the game titled and an adaptation of "The First Strike". Ichijinsha was the publisher for all but "Trajectory of Venus", which was published by ASCII Media Works. Three novel adaptations have also been made: a four-part novelization of the game, a four-part series focusing on Raven titled and a two-part series focusing on Judith titled An episodic audio novel adaptation following Yuri and Flynn's childhood, "Tales of Vesperia: Genealogy of the Condemned", began release on Android and iOS in April 2014. Multiple CD dramas have also been produced: these include an audio adaptation of "Vesperia", comic dramas focused around Brave Vesperia, a prequel to "Mask of the Void", and a prequel to "The First Strike".


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: Brandenburg-Prussia (; ) is the historiographic denomination for the early modern realm of the Brandenburgian Hohenzollerns between 1618 and 1701. Based in the Electorate of Brandenburg, the main branch of the Hohenzollern intermarried with the branch ruling the Duchy of Prussia, and secured succession upon the latter's extinction in the male line in 1618. Another consequence of the intermarriage was the incorporation of the lower Rhenish principalities of Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg after the Treaty of Xanten in 1614.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) was especially devastating. The Elector changed sides three times, and as a result Protestant and Catholic armies swept the land back and forth, killing, burning, seizing men and taking the food supplies. Upwards of half the population was killed or dislocated. Berlin and the other major cities were in ruins, and recovery took decades. By the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648, Brandenburg gained Minden and Halberstadt, also the succession in Farther Pomerania (incorporated in 1653) and the Duchy of Magdeburg (incorporated in 1680). With the Treaty of Bromberg (1657), concluded during the Second Northern War, the electors were freed of Polish vassalage for the Duchy of Prussia and gained Lauenburg–Bütow and Draheim. The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1679) expanded Brandenburgian Pomerania to the lower Oder.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: The second half of the 17th century laid the basis for Prussia to become one of the great players in European politics. The emerging Brandenburg-Prussian military potential, based on the introduction of a standing army in 1653, was symbolized by the widely noted victories in Warsaw (1656) and Fehrbellin (1675) and by the Great Sleigh Drive (1678). Brandenburg-Prussia also established a navy and German colonies in the Brandenburger Gold Coast and Arguin. Frederick William, known as "The Great Elector", opened Brandenburg-Prussia to large-scale immigration (""Peuplierung"") of mostly Protestant refugees from all across Europe (""Exulanten""), most notably Huguenot immigration following the Edict of Potsdam. Frederick William also started to centralize Brandenburg-Prussia's administration and reduce the influence of the estates.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: In 1701, Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg, succeeded in elevating his status to "King in Prussia". This was made possible by the Duchy of Prussia's sovereign status outside the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, and approval by the Habsburg emperor and other European royals in the course of forming alliances for the War of the Spanish Succession and the Great Northern War. From 1701 onward, the Hohenzollern domains were referred to as the Kingdom of Prussia, or simply Prussia. Legally, the personal union between Brandenburg and Prussia continued until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. However, by this time the emperor's overlordship over the empire had become a legal fiction. Hence, after 1701, Brandenburg was "de facto" treated as part of the Prussian kingdom. Frederick and his successors continued to centralize and expand the state, transforming the personal union of politically diverse principalities typical for the Brandenburg-Prussian era into a system of provinces subordinate to Berlin.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: The Margraviate of Brandenburg had been the seat of the main branch of the Hohenzollerns, who were prince-electors in the Holy Roman Empire, since 1415. In 1525, by the Treaty of Krakow, the Duchy of Prussia was created through partial secularization of the State of the Teutonic Order. It was a vassal of the Kingdom of Poland and was governed by Duke Albert of Prussia, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern. On behalf of her mother Elisabeth of the Brandenburgian Hohenzollern, Anna Marie of Brunswick-Lüneburg became Albert's second wife in 1550, and bore him his successor Albert Frederick. In 1563, the Brandenburgian branch of the Hohenzollern was granted the right of succession by the Polish crown. Albert Frederick became duke of Prussia after Albert's death in 1568. His mother died in the same year, and thereafter he showed signs of mental disorder. Because of the duke's illness, Prussia was governed by Albert's nephew George Frederick of Hohenzollern-Ansbach-Jägersdorf (1577–1603). In 1573, Albert Frederick married Marie Eleonore of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, with whom he had several daughters.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: In 1594, Albert Frederick's then 14-year-old daughter Anna married the son of Joachim Frederick of Hohenzollern-Brandenburg, John Sigismund. The marriage ensured the right of succession in the Prussian duchy as well as in Cleves. Upon George Frederick's death in 1603, the regency of the Prussian duchy passed to Joachim Frederick. Also in 1603, the Treaty of Gera was concluded by the members of the House of Hohenzollern, ruling that their territories were not to be internally divided in the future.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: The Electors of Brandenburg inherited the Duchy of Prussia upon Albert Frederick's death in 1618, but the duchy continued to be held as a fief under the Polish Crown until 1656/7. Since John Sigismund had suffered a stroke in 1616 and as a consequence was severely handicapped physically as well as mentally, his wife Anna ruled the Duchy of Prussia in his name until John Sigismund died of a second stroke in 1619, aged 47.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: From 1619 to 1640, George William was elector of Brandenburg and duke of Prussia. He strove, but proved unable to break the dominance of the Electorate of Saxony in the Upper Saxon Circle. The Brandenburg-Saxon antagonism rendered the defense of the circle ineffective, and it was subsequently overrun by Albrecht von Wallenstein during the Thirty Years' War. While George William had claimed neutrality before, the presence of Wallenstein's army forced him to join the Catholic-Imperial camp in the Treaty of Königsberg (1627) and accept garrisons. When the Swedish Empire entered the war and advanced into Brandenburg, George William again claimed neutrality, yet Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden compelled George William to join Sweden as an ally by occupying substantial territory in Brandenburg-Prussia and concentrating an army before the town walls of Berlin. George William did not conclude an alliance, but granted Sweden transit rights, two fortresses and subsidies. Consequently, Roman Catholic armies repeatedly ravaged Brandenburg and other Hohenzollern lands.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: During the Thirty Years' War, George William was succeeded by Frederick William, born 1620, who became known as "The Great Elector" ("Der Große Kurfürst"). The character of the young elector had been stamped by his Calvinist nurturer Calcum, a long stay in the Dutch Republic during his grand tour, and the events of the war, of which a meeting with his uncle Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in Pomerania was among the most impressive.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: Frederick William took over Brandenburg-Prussia in times of a political, economical and demographic crisis caused by the war. Upon his succession, the new elector retired the Brandenburgian army, but had an army raised again in 1643/44. Whether or not Frederick William concluded a truce and neutrality agreement with Sweden is disputed: while a relevant 1641 document exists, it was never ratified and has repeatedly been described as a falsification. However, it is not disputed that he established the growth of Brandenburg-Prussia.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: At the time, the forces of the Swedish Empire dominated Northern Germany, and along with her ally France, Sweden became guarantee power of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Swedish aim of controlling the Baltic Sea by establishing dominions on the coastline (""dominium maris baltici"") thwarted Frederick William's ambitions to gain control over the Oder estuary with Stettin (Szczecin) in Pomerania.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: The Brandenburgian margraves had long sought to expand northwards, connecting land-locked Brandenburg to the Baltic Sea. The Treaty of Grimnitz (1529) guaranteed Brandenburgian succession in the Duchy of Pomerania upon the extinction of the local House of Pomerania, and would have come into effect by the death of Pomeranian duke Bogislaw XIV in 1637. By the Treaty of Stettin (1630) however, Bogislaw XIV had also effectively handed over control of the duchy to Sweden, who refused to give in to the Brandenburgian claim. The Peace of Westphalia settled for a partition of the duchy between Brandenburg and Sweden, who determined the exact border in the Treaty of Stettin (1653). Sweden retained the western part including the lower Oder (Swedish Pomerania), while Brandenburg gained the eastern part (Farther Pomerania). Frederick William was dissatisfied by this outcome, and the acquisition of the whole Duchy of Pomerania was to become one of the main goals of his foreign policy.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: In the Peace of Westphalia, Frederick William was compensated for Western Pomerania with the secularized bishoprics of Halberstadt and Minden and the right of succession to the likewise secularized Archbishopric of Magdeburg. With Halberstadt, Brandenburg-Prussia also gained several smaller territories: the Lordship of Derenburg, the County of Regenstein, the Lordship of Klettenberg and the Lordship of Lohra. This was primarily due to French efforts to counterbalance the power of the Habsburg emperor by strengthening the Hohenzollern, and while Frederick William valued these territories lower than Western Pomerania, they became step-stones for the creation of a closed, dominant realm in Germany in the long run.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: Of all Brandenburg-Prussian territories, the Electorate of Brandenburg was among the most devastated at the end of the Thirty Years' War. Already before the war, the population density and wealth in the electorate had been low compared to other territories of the empire, and the war had destroyed 60 towns, 48 castles and about 5,000 villages. An average of 50% of the population was dead, in some regions only 10% survived. The rural population, due to deaths and flight to the towns, had dropped from 300,000 before the war to 75,000 thereafter. In the important towns of Berlin-Cölln and Frankfurt an der Oder, the population drop was one third and two-thirds, respectively. Some of the territories gained after the war were likewise devastated: in Pomerania, only one third of the population survived, and Magdeburg, once among the wealthiest cities of the empire, was burned down with most of the population slain. Least hit were the Duchy of Prussia, which was only peripherally involved in the war, and Minden.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: Despite efforts to resettle the devastated territories, it took some of them until the mid-18th century to reach the pre-war population density.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: In June 1651, Frederick William broke the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia by invading Jülich-Berg, bordering his possessions in Cleves-Mark at the lower Rhine river. The Treaty of Xanten, which had ended the War of the Jülich succession between Brandenburg and the count palatines in 1614, had partitioned the once united Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg among the belligerents, and Jülich-Berg was since ruled by the Catholic counts of Palatinate-Neuburg. After the Thirty Years' War, Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg, disregarded a 1647 agreement with Frederick William which had favored the Protestants in the duchies, while Frederick William insisted that the agreement be upheld. Besides these religious motives, Frederick William's invasion also aimed at territorial expansion.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: The conflict had the potential to spark another international war since Wolfgang William wanted to have the still not demobilized army of Lorraine, which continued to operate in the region despite the Peace of Westphalia, to intervene on his side, and Frederick William sought support of the Dutch Republic. The latter however followed a policy of neutrality and refused to aid Frederick William's campaign, which was furthermore opposed by the Imperial estates as well as the local ones. Politically isolated, Frederick William aborted the campaign after the Treaty of Cleves negotiated by Imperial mediators in October 1651. The underlying religious dispute was only solved in 1672. While military confrontations were avoided and the Brandenburg-Prussian army was primarily occupied with stealing cattle (hence the name), it considerably lowered Frederick William's reputation.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: Due to his wartime experiences, Frederick William was convinced that Brandenburg-Prussia would only prevail with a standing army. Traditionally, raising and financing army reserves was a privilege of the estates, yet Frederick William envisioned a standing army financed independently of the estates. He succeeded in getting the consent and necessary financial contributions of the estates in a "landtag" decree of 26 July 1653. In turn, he confirmed several privileges of the knights, including tax exemption, assertion of jurisdiction and police powers on their estates ("Patrimonialgerichtsbarkeit") and the upholding of serfdom ("Leibeigenschaft", "Bauernlegen").


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: Initially, the estates' contributions were limited to six years, yet the Frederick William obliged the estates to continue the payments thereafter and created a dedicated office to collect the contributions. The contributions were confirmed by the estates in 1662, but transformed in 1666 by decree from a real estate tax to an excise tax. Since 1657, the towns had to contribute not soldiers, but monetary payments to the army, and since 1665, the estates were able to free themselves from contributing soldiers by additional payments. The initial army size of 8,000 men had risen to 25,000 to 30,000 men by 1688. By then, Frederick William had also accomplished his second goal, to finance the army independently of the estates. By 1688, these military costs amounted to considerable 1,500,000 talers or half of the state budget. Ensuring a solid financial basis for the army, undisturbed by the estates, was the foremost objective of Frederick William's administrative reforms. He regarded military success as the only way to gain international reputation.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: The Swedish invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the following year started the Second Northern War. Frederick William offered protection to the Royal Prussian towns in the Treaty of Rinsk, but had to yield Swedish military supremacy and withdraw to his Prussian duchy. Pursued by Swedish forces to the Prussian capital, Frederick William made peace and allied with Sweden, taking the Duchy of Prussia and Ermland (Ermeland, Warmia) as fiefs from Charles X Gustav of Sweden in the Treaty of Königsberg in January 1656. The alliance proved victorious in the Battle of Warsaw in June, enhancing the elector's international reputation. Continued pressure on Charles X Gustav resulted in him conceding full sovereignty in Ducal Prussia and Ermland to Frederick William by the Treaty of Labiau in November to ensure the maintenance of the alliance. The Treaty of Radnot, concluded in December by Sweden and her allies, further awarded Greater Poland to Brandenburg-Prussia in case of a victory.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: When the anti-Swedish coalition however gained the upper hand, Frederick William changed sides when Polish king John II Casimir Vasa confirmed his sovereignty in Prussia, but not in Ermland, in the Treaty of Wehlau-Bromberg in 1657. The duchy would legally revert to Poland if the Hohenzollern dynastic line became extinct. Hohenzollern sovereignty in the Prussian duchy was confirmed in the Peace of Oliva, which ended the war in 1660. Brandenburg-Prussian campaigns in Swedish Pomerania did not result in permanent gains.


title: Brandenburg-Prussia

text: In 1672, the Franco-Dutch War broke out, with Brandenburg-Prussia involved as an ally of the Dutch Republic. This alliance was based on a treaty of 1669, and resulted in French occupation of Brandenburg-Prussian Cleves. In June 1673, Frederick William abandoned the Dutch alliance and concluded a subsidy treaty with France, who in return withdrew from Cleves. When the Holy Roman Empire declared war on France, a so-called "Reichskrieg", Brandenburg-Prussia again changed sides and joined the imperial forces. France pressured her ally Sweden to relieve her by attacking Brandenburg-Prussia from the north. Charles XI of Sweden, dependent on French subsidies, reluctantly occupied the Brandenburgian Uckermark in 1674, starting the German theater of the Scanian War (Brandenburg-Swedish War). Frederick William reacted promptly by marching his armies from the Rhine to northern Brandenburg, and encountered the rear of the Swedish army, which was in the process of crossing a swamp, in the Battle of Fehrbellin (1675). Though a minor skirmish from a military perspective, Frederick William's victory turned out to be of huge symbolic significance. The "Great Elector" started a counter-offensive, pursuing the retreating Swedish forces through Swedish Pomerania.