title: Morrigan Aensland

text: Morrigan's "Soul Fist" special move (a giant flaming skull projectile) is very similar to the iconic "Hadouken" fireball from "Street Fighter". She is noted to be easy to use and her "Valkyrie Turn" is an especially damaging special move, but is difficult to connect. Her other specials include "Shadow Blade", "Vector Drain", "Shell Kick", "Vernier Dash", "Soul Eraser" and "Darkness Illusion".


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: "Sega Saturn Magazine" wrote about Morrigan in "Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge": "Those thinking that Demitri was the Ryu of the [game] should consider Morrigan to be distinctly Ken-like, as she imitates [his] Dragon Punch expertly ... Easy to use, and with a Valkyrie Turn that'll inflict more damage than you thought possible (despite being difficult to connect), Morrigan remains a firm "Saturn Mag" favourite, not least because of her costume change cheat [code]." "MAXIMUM" opined Morrigan is "a particularly flexible character" whose "speed and power will often overcome the toughest of enemies. That coupled with a special attack that inflicts up to 17 hits on its own makes her a powerful adversary." According to the "Sega Saturn Magazine" guide to "Darkstalkers 3", her "Dragon Punch ripoffs and fast fireballs put her in the Ryu clone corner, but her flight powers, speed and strength make Morrigan the equal of [the game's boss] Jedah. More powerful than her sister and faster than Demitri, this she-vampire is awesome."


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: "EGM2" called Morrigan in "Pocket Fighter" a "well-balanced character," having good Supers with "a lot of hits" and "decent" flash combos. Spanish edition of "Official Dreamcast Magazine" opined Morrigan in "Marvel vs. Capcom 2" is "skillful and strong, but doesn't stand out in any way. The Soul Eraser is her best attack, although the rest of Hyper Combos are not bad." In the original "Marvel vs. Capcom", Morrigan calls upon Lilith to perform her Hyper Combo "Silhouette Blade". In "Marvel vs. Capcom 3", this is replaced by "Shadow Servant", where Morrigan a split version of Morrigan copies all of the attacks of the original one. She also summons Lilith for her "Marvel vs. Capcom" Hyper Combo "Eternal Slumber" wherein Morrigan seduces her opponent behind a stage curtain.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: The 1997 anime OVA series "" features Morrigan more like her game appearances, portraying her as an idle rich member of royal family who is more interested in going to Earth than in her duties. She would often leave at will out of mere boredom, much to the frustration of her guardians, elder men of the Aensland family. Her father, Belial, is not mentioned. Morrigan's role as a heroine is a focus, with her activities as a succubus downplayed. Princess Morrigan is shown fighting the werewolf Jon Talbain in the opening of the first three episodes. She seeks to battle the vampire lord Demitri Maximoff when he attempts to return to Makai, but their duel with erotic undertones is interrupted when they are sensed by Huitzil. In the final episode, Morrigan goes to Earth after Demitri was bested by Pyron and she encounters him unconscious in the ruins of his castle. Demitri suddenly awakens and attempts to vampirise Morrigan, but she does not resist, much to his surprise. Morrigan tells Demitri that he may become the leader of Makai after all, since a change of leadership is needed to help its current disarray from falling into destruction. They both later observe Donovan's victory over Pyron. The anime's Morrigan was voiced by Rei Sakuma and dubbed into English by Kathleen Barr.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: In the UDON Comics series "Darkstalkers", Morrigan is portrayed as a malevolent, evil and amoral succubus (unlike the games), who wants nothing more than to visit the human world to eat human souls and dreams, and completely ignores her duty as future ruler of the Makai Realm. Morrigan's attitude annoys her father Belial and gets her two servants, Lucien and Mudo, into trouble. Eventually she hears of Demitri's restoration, and goes to her father to warn him, only to find that he is about to die. She takes on the responsibility that she has often put aside and returns to the human world to fight Demitri, and prove herself worthy of the Makai Realm and the power that Belial sealed away many years ago. In the special issue "Morrigan vs Demitri", it is implied that had Belial not sealed away her power, Morrigan might have evolved into a being similar to Pyron and destroyed the Earth and Makai. In the comics, Morrigan's bats are the souls of her human victims, which are not destroyed but remain alive inside her body in a state of eternal bliss and pleasure after she drains them. Aside from consuming souls, Morrigan has no qualms about murdering and taking advantage on humans yet despite this, she sees herself as simply taking people's souls in exchange for eternal bliss." She is also prominently featured in the followup series "Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors", in which she, Demitri, Donovan, and Pyron all fight each other. In the later crossover series "Street Fighter vs Darkstalkers", Morrigan keeps killing humans until she meets Lilith and finds out about Jedah's plan. Together with her enemy Chun-Li, as well as other uneasy allies, Morrigan and Lilith fight and defeat Jedah, and then they merge, finally restoring Morrigan to her full power. Despite everything she's done, Morrigan gets away with her crimes and is crowned queen of Makai.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: Morrigan also appears in the comedic "Darkstalkers" drama CDs "Vampire Knight" (ヴァンパイア・ナイト), "Darkness Mission" (ダークネスミッション) and "Dengeki CD Bunko EX: Vampire" (電撃CD文庫EX ヴァンパイア), voiced by Rei Sakuma, Kikuko Inoue and Yumi Tōma, as well as in multiple yonkoma parody comics for that were largely compiled from fan submissions. She is often a lead character in various adaptations of "Darkstalkers", such as the 1995 manga anthology "Dark Angel" (闇天使) and Akihiko Ureshino's series of gaiden novels, in particular in 1995's "Witch of the Crimson Moon" (紅い月の魔女) and 1996's "Where the Souls Go" (魂の還るところ). Morrigan stars in Run Ishida's 1996 manga which was published in English by Viz Comics in two different versions in 1998 and 2000 as "Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge", spending the entire second half of the 2000 tradeback edition fighting Donovan, as well as in Mami Itou's 1997 "Darkstalkers/Red Earth: Maleficarum", a "Red Earth" crossover manga published in English by UDON Comics in 2010 and was re-released in Japan in 2015. Hiroaki Wakamiya's 1996 manga "Victor: Messenger of Doomsday" (終末の使者 ビクトル) has Morrigan use her secret identity human persona of the biotechnology researcher Professor Mori to study the human world.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: In the U.S. made non-canon cartoon series "Darkstalkers", Morrigan was redesigned as character and changed into a villain, voiced by Saffron Henderson. Morrigan's character in the cartoon is jealous, rude, power-hungry and despising humans, especially men. She is implied to actually eat her victims and stated to be a direct descendant of the evil sorceress Morgan le Fay (with the series' protagonist, an original character named Harry Grimoire, being a descendant of Merlin). Her appearance was also altered, making her look slightly older and wear a less revealing costume; GamesRadar commented USA "gave her a look more appropriate for the Wicked Witch of the West than a sexy, soul-sucking, battle-loving demon."


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: Scores of various figures and statuettes of Morrigan were produced by different manufacturers. These include the figures released by Capcom themselves, Bandai, Banpresto, Diamond Select Toys, E246, Epoch, HBC-Brote, Heihachi Zazen, Kotobukiya, Kurushima, Marvel, Max Factory, Mersa, Moby Dick, Modeler's High, Oonishi Kouji, OOXOO, Organic, Pop Culture Shock Collectibles, SOTA Toys, Yamato, Yoiko, and Yujin, among many others.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: Other Morrigan-themed merchandise include Capcom's wall scrolls and posters, T-shirts, covers, a large microfiber towel, and so forth. She is very prominently featured in various "Darkstalkers" art books, including adorning the covers of UDON-published books "Darkstalkers Graphic File", "Darkstalkers Tribute", and "Darkstalkers Official Complete Works", as well as in the collectible card game "Universal Fighting System" for which the starter set Morrigan Collector's Tin was released in 2014.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: According to Kotaku's Mike Fahey in 2012, "Morrigan Aensland from Capcom's "Darkstalkers" is one of the most widely depicted characters in video games. Her distinctive features have spawned dozens of statues, hundreds of cosplays and thousands of pieces of fan art." In anime series "Ultimate Girls", the character Tsubomi makes an appearance dressed up as Morrigan. Morrigan has featured in many doujinshi unofficial self-published content, including erotic comics such as Hiroaki Samura's "Night of the Succubus" (サッカバスの夜) and pornographic films like "Layers Cute Hard: Yuuna". One of the color palettes of the fighting game "Skullgirls" character Ms. Fortune is a homage to Morrigan.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: According to Kotaku's Brian Ashcraft in 2012, "Since debuting in 1994's "Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors", Morrigan Aensland has become one of gaming's most iconic characters. A fan service favorite, Morrigan continues to attract cosplayers, eager to put on succubus's revealing outfit." Already in 1996, Capcom's representatives were quoted as saying: "If we add female characters, it is very popular. Have you ever been to the show in Japan? People dress up as Morrigan or Felicia to [costume-]play the games." Helen McCarthy's 2009 book "500 Essential Anime Movies: The Ultimate Guide" cited Morrigan as an example of the popularity of the "Darkstalkers" character designs, with fans frequently cosplaying as the character at various conventions since the original game's release. In 2010, UGO's Chris Plante called her ""Darkstalkers" most recognizable character [and] also wildly popular with cosplayers" and French television network TF1 included Morrigan among the sexiest video game characters to cosplay and one of the most charismatic. In GameFront's 2011 article showcasing some of Morrigan (and Lilith) cosplayers, Phil Owen called it "probably the sexiest gallery I’ve ever posted." Destructoid's Brittany Vincent wrote in 2014: "For some, Morrigan Aensland is the face of "Darkstalkers". For every cosplayer who runs around in loose-fitting fur as Felicia, there are a hundred Morrigans basking in the glory that only comes from hitting up cons in a winged gymnastics costume."


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: Celebrity cosplayers who portrayed Morrigan include the Filipino Alodia Gosiengfiao (one of her favorite costumes), and the Americans Jessica Nigri and Linda "Vampy" Le, who called Morrigan "just damn amazing" as "favorite by far" character and "the epitome of Succubus chic," but noted it was difficult to make. Another cosplayer, Meg Turney, said she would "love to do Morrigan someday" even as "whoever designed the costume without shoulder straps was either someone who hated cosplayers and wanted them to suffer – or a dude." One famous portrayal of Morrigan was done by Lindze Merritt, who later was hired to portray Morrigan during the official "Marvel Vs. Capcom 3" Fight Club event in 2010. Morrigan was the first cosplay of Spanish cosplayer known as "Judy Helsing", who later portrayed Bayonetta for Nintendo in "Playboy".


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: Morrigan is widely seen as the most iconic character of "Darkstalkers", arguably even more than the franchise itself, and one of the most popular female characters of video games in general. In 1996, "Mean Machines Sega" described her as "one of the most bewitching girl characters ever to appear in gaming, which explains her huge fan base in Japan – comprising men and women!" Morrigan was named the 17th-best character of 1997 by Japanese arcade gaming magazine "Gamest", while the Japanese "Sega Saturn Magazine" ranked her as the seventh-best female character on the Sega Saturn. Later, Japanese magazine "Famitsu" ranked Morrigan as the 12th-best video game heroine of the 1990s. Morrigan was chosen as one of the 20 "muses" of video games by Brazilian magazine "SuperGamePower" in 2001. Featuring her and Felicia in their "Girls of Gaming" special in 2003, "play" introduced the two are famous for how they "unified the haunting with the erotic, along with previously unseen level of animation and creature design." Kotaku's Luke Plunkett wrote he has "always found Morrigan a fascinating character. "Darkstalkers" is a fairly obscure series, one which few people will have played on a regular basis, and yet Morrigan is always front and centre when it comes to fan art and cosplay." "EGM" even reported on a newborn girl given Morrigan's name as a tribute. Tom Goulter of GamesRadar wrote in 2013: "Few characters have consumed as much fan-ink as "Darkstalkers" seductive succubus and the "Street Fighter" series' high-kicking bunhead. Both have sustained popularity for decades (Morrigan's 20th anniversary comes next year), and they outlasted countless imitators to become standouts of the Capcom cast." GamesRadar staff included Morrigan among the 30 best characters in the three decades of Capcom's history (since 1983), commenting "it’s hard to think of any more famous for their beauty" and noting "she has a deeper backstory than some fan art would lead you to believe."


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: According to GameSpot, "Morrigan has been a mainstay in the Capcom crossover fighting games and is definitely a fan favorite." "Play" featured her in the "Girls of Anime" special, later regretting her absence in "Capcom Fighting Evolution" in their "Girls of Gaming" special. Crunchyroll's Nate Ming described Morrigan as the "FACE of the series," and "GamesTM" commented that Capcom's choice of Anakaris instead of Morrigan or Talbain to represent "Darkstalkers" in the 2005 game "Capcom Fighting Jam" was "a strange selection, to say the least." Her costume was one of the two added to "We Love Golf!" by popular vote in a poll among players. Kotaku's Fahey, calling "Cross Edge" an "RPG fan's wet dream," stated that "a game with Etna and Morrigan together alone is worth eleventy million dollars." In 2010, "Game Informer" chose Morrigan as one of the twenty Capcom characters they would like to see in a rumored crossover fighting game "Namco Vs Capcom", her Namco side counterpart being Ivy Valentine. In 2012, "Complex" ranked the "super sexual but also super deadly" Morrigan as the 13th "most dominant" fighting game character, further including "Capcom vs. DC Universe" as third fighting game crossover idea they would like to see the most, for a battle between Morrigan and Wonder Woman. That same year, Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar ranked her as the fourth-best character in the fighting game genre's history. Obi Anyanwu of "Complex" placed Morrigan ninth in his 2012 list of video game characters that deserve a spin-off and Mike Andronico of Gamenguide named her as number one "fiercest female in today's fighting games" who "has stood the test of time as one of fighting games' most iconic faces" by 2013. In 2016, Crunchyroll's Brittany Vincent described Morrigan as "a perennial "Darkstalkers" favorite, and for good reason. She's gorgeous, powerful, and all-around awesome."


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: Morrigan was often noted as one of the most sexy characters of fighting games and gaming in general. In 2003, GameSpy's Bryan Johnson ranked this "embodiment of sexual temptation" as the third top "babe in games", calling her and Capcom's answer to SNK's Mai Shiranui. GameDaily placed Morrigan number nine on their 2008 list of "hottest game babes", while UGO ranked Morrigan fourth in their 2011 list of the "foxiest fighting females to ever be pixelated." GameFront staff featured her twice on their 2011 list of "greatest boobs in video game history", at 37th (for the "Darkstalkers" version, called the "reason 12-year-olds packed arcades into the late '90s") and 11th (for the "Marvel Vs. Capcom" version, being "50% of all Comic Con costumes"), while China's NetEase put Morrigan at fifth spot on their list of top ten big-chested "sex goddesses" in video games. Morrigan's breasts were also ranked as the eight-best in gaming history by Rich Shivener of Joystick Division that same year, with Italian edition of Tom's Games ranking Morrigan's cleavages as the second-best neckline in video game history in 2012, as well included among "the hottest video game breasts of all time" by "Playboy". In 2012, Morrigan was ranked as the "third-hottest" character video game history by Larry Hester of "Complex", as the fifth-sexiest woman in video games by Spanish IGN, and as the "17th-hottest" female video game character by Kristie Bertucci of Gadget Review, In 2013, Scott Marley of "Daily Record" declared Morrigan the eighth-most attractive female video game character, and Steve Jenkins of CheatCodes.com ranked her as the "seventh-hottest video game girl" of all time. She was included among the "old school hotties that still got it" by Travis Hubert of Cheat Code Central in 2014, Similarly, Vietnam's "Thanh Niên" ranked her as the seventh-most sexy female video game character in 2015.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: UGO included Morrigan on their 2008 list of 11 "hottest babes to ever hit the video game world," stating that "one thing that video game babes have over the real-life variety is that it's much easier for a girl who's made of pixels to rock an absolutely ludicrous outfit and still look hot ... she doesn't look a year of her 300, and her appearances across the Capcom fighting franchises prove that the company has an excellent eye for the female form," as well as in the 2011 list of fifty "hottest girls in games". In 2009, Gelo Gonzales of Filipino "FHM" listed the "undeniably seductive" Morrigan among the nine sexiest "bad girls of videogame land", while Manolith included her on their top lists of "sexiest video game women" and "hottest female video game protagonists". Johnny Firecloud of CraveOnline featured this "iconic succubus" on his 2010 list of ten "hottest video game girls of all time", commenting that she "is more than just an anatomic wonder – she's also one of the single most sexually stylistic ladies in gaming land." Japanator.com's Bob Muir included her on the list of "Japanese gaming's top ten hottest girls", stating: "In fact, Morrigan is so popular that many people know of her sultry looks who have never touched a "Darkstalkers" game." In 2012, she was listed as one of ten sexiest video game characters by Fernando DaQuino of Tecmundo, MSN Malaysia included this "shameless succubus" among the twenty "hottest women in video game history", and UGO included her among the 99 "hottest" fictional women of the year, calling her inclusion the best thing about "Marvel Vs. Capcom 3". John Corpuz of Tom's Guide included her on his 2013's list of twenty "hottest video game babes" and stated that "when it comes to 90s fighting games, "Darkstalkers"’ Morrigan is the definitive poster girl." A poll for the most erotic girl in the history of fighting games conducted by Japanese web portal Goo had had Morrigan take the fourth place out of 50 contesters in 2016; she was later voted the third in a 2018 poll.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: In 2008, Morrigan was included on a list of top "chicks behaving badly" by IGN's Scott Cullura for her "penchant for magic and kick-ass fighting moves," her outfit described as "one that would make even Jenna Jameson blush." While Zoomin Games named her costume as the second-most sexy outfit in games, Charlie Barratt of GamesRadar cited Morrigan as one example of what they considered "the most shameless—and least surprising—character cliché of all time" which is "the half-naked woman." Morrigan was featured in a list of ten "babes who shouldn't meet your mom" by GameDaily in 2008, as well as in a list of ten "game girls you wouldn't dare to date" by Virgin Media in 2010. In 2011, Rich Knight of "Complex" pitted her against Agent Rayne in the "battle of the beauties" feature, comparing them to "the sexy goth girls you were too afraid to ask out in high school" and choosing Morrigan, but Richard Coombs of Blistered Thumbs ranked her as number one video game woman "you wouldn’t want to be with" as "that would probably be the scariest romance you could ever be in." "Complex" featured "Morrigan's bloodlust" on their list of "14 aspects of our perfect Valentine—one video game girl at a time" to build a perfect woman on Valentine's Day 2012. Game Revolution included an alleged rumor of Morrigan's romance with Nintendo's Princess Daisy in their 2014 April Fools' Day feature.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: Despite her popularity, Morrigan, along with the "Darkstalkers" cast in general, has not been as well-received for her presence in the 1995 cartoon series. Rachel Jagielski of VentureBeat described her as the otherwise "normally sensual succubus" who "looked, if not terrible, really boring" in the show. Ryan Winterhalter of GamesRadar called the character "old and creepy," and Hardcore Gaming 101 opined she "look[ed] frightening in most close-ups." 411mania.com called this version of Morrigan "awful" and her Scottish accent therein "inappropriately wrong", castigating the show itself as "the worst video game cartoon in history". has been received much better; for instance, Bryn Williams of "Gamers' Republic" chose the "extremely erotic" scene of Morrigan taking a bath as the "highlight moment" in his review of the third episode.


title: Morrigan Aensland

text: Her comic version has been received badly by fans, mostly because of her unfaithful and infamous portrayal in the comics.


title: Julie Brown

text: Julie Ann Brown (born August 31, 1958) is an American actress, comedian, screen/television writer, singer-songwriter, and television director. Brown is known for her work in the 1980s, where she often played a quintessential valley girl character. Much of her comedy has revolved around the mocking of famous people (with a strong and frequently revisited focus on Madonna).


title: Julie Brown

text: Julie Brown was born in Van Nuys, California, the daughter of Irish-Catholic parents Celia Jane (née McCann) and Leonard Francis Brown. Her father worked at NBC TV studios in the advertising accounting "Traffic" department, and her mother was a secretary at the same studio complex. Both of Brown's grandfathers had worked in the Hollywood film business. Her great-grandfather was character actor Frank O'Connor. She attended a Catholic elementary school as a child, and later Van Nuys High School where she was chosen princess of the homecoming court. Brown's parents said "whatever you do, don't become an actress", but after attending Los Angeles Valley College she enrolled in the well-known San Francisco acting school, American Conservatory Theater, where she met future collaborator Charlie Coffey.


title: Julie Brown

text: Julie Brown began her career performing in nightclubs. She was a contestant on the game show "Whew!" (as Annie Brown). She started working on television with a guest spot on the sitcom "Happy Days". She also appeared in the 1981 cult film "Bloody Birthday". After a small role in the Clint Eastwood comedy film "Any Which Way You Can", comedian Lily Tomlin saw Brown at a comedy club and gave her her first big break, a part in her 1981 film "The Incredible Shrinking Woman". Tomlin and Brown eventually became close friends. A string of guest starring appearances in a variety of television shows followed, including: "Laverne & Shirley", "Buffalo Bill", "The Jeffersons" and "Newhart". Brown also appeared in short films such as "Five Minutes, Miss Brown".


title: Julie Brown

text: In 1984, she released her first EP, a five-song album called "Goddess in Progress". The album, parodies of popular '80s music combined with her valley girl personality, was quickly discovered by the Dr. Demento Show. The songs "'Cause I'm a Blonde" and "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" were given radio airplay across the world. The latter was a spoof on stereotypical 1950s' teen tragedy songs, with cheerleaders' heads and pompoms being blown to pieces.


title: Julie Brown

text: In 1987, Brown released her first full-length album, "Trapped in the Body of a White Girl". The album highlighted her comedic talent and valley girl personality. The album's highlights were "I Like 'em Big and Stupid" and she reprised "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" (the album was reissued on CD in 2010 by Collector's Choice Music on its Noble Rot label). Music videos were recorded and received heavy airplay on MTV. In 1989, Brown starred in that cable network's comedy and music-video show "Just Say Julie". She played the role of a demanding, controlling, and pessimistic glamour-puss from the valley, making fun of popular music acts, while at the same time introducing their music videos (she was also known as "Miss Julie Brown" at the time to differentiate her from Downtown Julie Brown, who was on the network at the same time).


title: Julie Brown

text: Brown's film career began in 1988 with the release of the film "Earth Girls Are Easy", written, produced by, and starring Brown, it was based loosely on a song by the same name from her debut EP. The film also starred Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. Brown cast then-unknown comedians Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans. In 1990 Brown had a brief part in the movie "The Spirit of '76", as an intellectual stripper.


title: Julie Brown

text: NBC commissioned a half-hour pilot, ultimately unsold and airing Sunday, July 28, 1991, at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, titled "The Julie Show". Created by Brown, Charlie Coffey, and director and executive producer David Mirkin, it was a comedy about actress Julie Robbins (Brown), who in this initial story, goes to great lengths to land an interview with teen singer Kiki (played by Kim Walker) in the hopes of getting hired as a tabloid-TV celebrity journalist. Developed under the working title "The Julie Brown Show", it also starred Marian Mercer as Julie's mother, June; DeLane Matthews as Debra Deacon, a reporter on the fictional series "Inside Scoop"; Susan Messing as Julie's roommate Cheryl; and Kevin O'Rourke as "Inside Scoop" producer Tony Barnow. Brown was also a producer, with John Ziffren, and performed and co-wrote the theme song. Walker, Don Sparks, Robin Angers, and Deborah Driggs were guest performers in this production from Mirkinvision and New World Television.


title: Julie Brown

text: Another pilot was filmed for CBS in 1989 called, "Julie Brown: The Show", and featured a similar theme, in which Brown was the hostess of a talk show and she would interview actual celebrity guests, interspersed with scripted scenarios. The pilot was aired, but the show was not picked up; years later, it leaked onto the Internet.


title: Julie Brown

text: In 1992, Brown starred in her own Fox sketch comedy show, "The Edge"; two of its regulars, Jennifer Aniston and Wayne Knight, later became sitcom stars, while Tom Kenny went on to voice "SpongeBob SquarePants". That same year, she released the Showtime television movie "", a satire about Madonna and her backstage documentary, "". (Brown's co-star was Kathy Griffin.)


title: Julie Brown

text: Brown followed with another satire, "Attack of the 5 Ft. 2 In. Women", which lampooned the violence of ice skater Tonya Harding toward rival Nancy Kerrigan, as well as that of widely publicized castrator Lorena Bobbitt.


title: Julie Brown

text: She has continued to make television guest appearances and contributed voices to various cartoons, including "Animaniacs" (as the voice of Minerva Mink)," " "Aladdin" as bratty mermaid Saleen, and as the original voice of Zatanna in the "" cartoon. Prior to this, she also guest starred on a "Tiny Toon Adventures" episode as Julie Bruin, a cartoon bear version of herself, in which she guest-starred in her own segment "Just Say Julie Bruin", a reference to her music video show. The "Just Say Julie Bruin" cartoon also was a music video show and in her segment Elmer Fudd guest-starred as Fuddonna, a parody of Madonna and a reference to Julie Brown herself regularly mocking her.


title: Julie Brown

text: Brown appeared as Coach Millie Stoeger in the film "Clueless", reprising that role on ABC's 1996–1999 spin-off TV series, for which she was also a writer, producer and director. Two regulars from the series, Donald Faison and Elisa Donovan, later found similarly successful roles, as would featured player Christina Milian who had a recurring role on the series during its UPN years. In 1998, Brown appeared in the parody movie "Plump Fiction". In 2000, she created the series "Strip Mall" for the Comedy Central network; it ran two seasons.


title: Julie Brown

text: Since 2004, Brown has been a commentator on E! network specials, including "101 Reasons the '90s Ruled", "101 Most Starlicious Makeovers", "101 Most Awesome Moments in Entertainment", and "50 Most Outrageous TV Moments".


title: Julie Brown

text: In 2005, Brown purchased the rights to her "Trapped" album back from the record label and reissued it herself. She also self-released a single, "I Want to Be Gay". In late 2007, she also purchased the rights to her 1984 E.P. "Goddess in Progress" and re-released it as a full-length record with compiled unreleased tracks recorded during that era. Brown began touring in late 2007 with her one-woman show, "Smell the Glamour".


title: Julie Brown

text: In 2008, she co-wrote and appeared as Dee La Duke in the Disney Channel original movie "Camp Rock", which starred Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers. Brown also joined the cast of the Canadian television series "Paradise Falls" that same year.


title: Julie Brown

text: In late 2008 Brown began releasing one-track digital singles, starting with "The Ex-Beauty Queen's Got a Gun"; it was a rewrite of "Homecoming Queen" with lyrics about Sarah Palin. This was first aired in September, 2008 on "The Stephanie Miller Show." In 2011 she released an album called "Smell The Glamour", which features satires of Lady Gaga, Kesha and updated versions of her "Medusa" songs.


title: Julie Brown

text: In the 2010–2011 television season, Brown began a recurring role as Paula Norwood, a neighbor and friend of the Heck family, on the ABC comedy "The Middle". From 2010 to 2015 she was a writer for "Melissa & Joey", and played a gym teacher in one episode of the show. In 2012 she appeared with Downtown Julie Brown as a guest judge on "RuPaul's Drag Race".


title: Julie Brown

text: In 1983, Brown married writer and actor Terrence E. McNally, another frequent collaborator. They co-produced her first single, "I Like 'Em Big and Stupid". They divorced after six years. In 1994, Brown married Ken Rathjen, and together they have one son. She said in 2007 that she had recently divorced for the second time.


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: The "Kidd"-class destroyers were a series of four guided-missile destroyers (DDGs) based on the . In contrast to their predecessor's focus on anti-submarine warfare, the "Kidd"s were designed as more advanced multipurpose ships with the addition of considerably enhanced anti-aircraft capabilities. Originally ordered for the former Imperial Iranian Navy, the contracts were canceled when the 1979 Iranian Revolution began, and the ships were completed for the United States Navy. They were decommissioned in 1999 and sold to the Republic of China Navy as the "Kee Lung" class.


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: These destroyers were originally ordered by the last Shah of Iran for service in the Persian Gulf in an air defence role around 1973/74. The original order of six ships was tentatively assigned hull numbers DD 993–998 by the U.S. Navy but it was reduced to four ships after U.S. Congress declined to halt the original production run of 30 "Spruance" ships. Compared to the preceding "Spruance" class, they retained the former's anti-submarine capabilities while adding two Tartar-D missile launchers for the Mark 26/Standard anti-aircraft missile system. In order to operate more effectively in the Middle East, they also had four air conditioning plants to the Spruances' three, additional dust separators on their gas turbines' air intakes, and increased water distillation capacity. The Shah was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution, prior to Iran accepting delivery of the ships, causing the United States Navy to integrate the vessels into its own fleet in 1981-82 as the "Kidd"-class.


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: On February 3, 1979, the Iranian government canceled the second two ships in the class, signing a memorandum of understanding indicating that they were available for acquisition by the U.S. Navy. On February 21. 1979, the Iranian Prime Minister notified the U.S. government that Iran intended to terminate the contract of the first two ships, officially cancelling delivery on March 8, 1979.


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: Each ship in the class was named after a U.S. Navy Admiral who had died in combat in the Pacific in World War II:


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: Because they were equipped with heavy-duty air conditioning and other features that made them suitable in hot climates, they tended to be used in the Middle East, specifically the Persian Gulf itself. During their service with the U.S. Navy from the 1980s to the late 1990s, the ships were popularly known as the "Ayatollah" class.


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: In 1988–90, the "Kidd"s received the "New Threat Upgrade", which allowed cooperative engagement with Aegis cruisers, enabling the cruisers to control the "Kidd"s surface-to-air missiles in flight while the destroyers remained electronically silent. However, the arrival of the Aegis-equipped destroyers led to the accelerated retirement of the "Kidd" class.


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: All four ships were decommissioned from the U.S. Navy in the late 1990s and were initially offered for sale to Australia in 1997 for A$30 million each. The Royal Australian Navy was a strong supporter of buying the "Kidd"-class destroyers to replace the "Perth"-class as their air warfare ships. In 1999, the offer was rejected, based on extensive problems the Royal Australian Navy had encountered during the acquisition of two surplus s from the U.S. Navy in 1994. In the early 1990s the Labor government of Paul Keating chose to maintain the Royal Australian Navy's existing "Adelaide"-class frigates instead of replacing them with the more expensive and much more labour-intensive, but more capable "Kidd"-class destroyers. Under the succeeding Liberal government of John Howard, in the mid-1990s they commenced the SEA 1390, also known as the FFG Upgrade Project, to improve the "Adelaide" frigates' capabilities; however, this project ran over costs and was behind schedule.


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: In 2001, the U.S. authorized the reactivation and sale of all four ships to Taiwan (Republic of China). All four have been transferred to the Republic of China Navy under the Kuang Hua VII program. They were sold for a total price of US$732 million with upgraded hardware, overhaul, activation, and training, and included a reduced missile loadout of 148 SM-2 Block IIIA and 32 RGM-84L Block II Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The reactivation was done in Charleston, South Carolina, by VSE/BAV.


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: The first two ships, ex-"Scott" and ex-"Callaghan", arrived at Su-ao, a military port in eastern Taiwan, in December 2005, and were named and in a commissioning ceremony on 17 December 2005. Following the tradition of ship class naming, ROCN has referred to these vessels as Kee Lung-class destroyers, with the ships named after military ports in Taiwan. The remaining two units, ex-"Kidd" and ex-"Chandler", were delivered in 2006, and named and , respectively.


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: The opposition-led Legislature Yuan originally allocated only enough money to purchase half of the SM-2 missiles that the destroyers can carry; a further purchase of 100 supplemental SM-2MRs was included in the 2007 annual budget to ensure all four ships had a full load of SM-2.


title: Kidd-class destroyer

text: By end of 2008, "Su Ao" was spotted to have eight HF-3 AShMs installed in place of eight Harpoon AShMs. It has been speculated from 2014 on that a navalized Sky Bow missile system, currently planned for an upcoming shipbuilding programme that involves the procurement of up to 15 general purpose frigates and three or four air defense destroyers, will also be replacing the Standard Missile system on these vessels. No plan for any Mk 26-compatible version of the Sky Bow III missile is ever known to have existed.


title: Zeta

text: Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; , , classical or "zē̂ta"; "zíta") is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician letter zayin . Letters that arose from zeta include the Roman Z and Cyrillic З.


title: Zeta

text: Unlike the other Greek letters, this letter did not take its name from the Phoenician letter from which it was derived; it was given a new name on the pattern of beta, eta and theta.


title: Zeta

text: The word "zeta" is the ancestor of "zed", the name of the Latin letter Z in Commonwealth English. Swedish and many Romanic languages (such as Italian and Spanish) do not distinguish between the Greek and Roman forms of the letter; ""zeta"" is used to refer to the Roman letter Z as well as the Greek letter.


title: Zeta

text: The sound represented by zeta in Greek before 400 BC is disputed. See Ancient Greek phonology and Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching.


title: Zeta

text: Most handbooks agree on attributing to it the pronunciation (like "Mazda"), but some scholars believe that it was an affricate (like adze). The modern pronunciation was, in all likelihood, established in the Hellenistic age and may have already been a common practice in Classical Attic; for example, it could count as one or two consonants metrically in Attic drama.


title: Zeta

text: Zeta has the numerical value 7 rather than 6 because the letter digamma (also called 'stigma' as a Greek numeral) was originally in the sixth position in the alphabet.


title: Zeta

text: The uppercase zeta is not used, because it is normally identical to Latin Z. The lower case letter can be used to represent:


title: Zeta

text: These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style.


title: Tess Harper

text: Tessie Jean Harper ("née" Washam; born August 15, 1950) is an American actress. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her first film role in 1983's "Tender Mercies", and for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1986 film "Crimes of the Heart". Her other film appearances include "Flashpoint" (1984), "Ishtar" (1987), "Far North" (1988), and "No Country for Old Men" (2007). She also had a recurring role on the first three seasons of "Breaking Bad" (2008–2010).


title: Tess Harper

text: Harper was born in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas, the daughter of Rosemary and Ed Washam, who operated Washam's Hardware. Harper has a brother and sister. She attended Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) in Springfield, Missouri, graduated with a degree in education, and taught ninth-grade English in Springfield, Missouri.


title: Tess Harper

text: Harper began acting in theater productions, theme parks (including Dogpatch, USA and Silver Dollar City), dinner theater, and children's theater. She moved to Texas in order to appear in television commercials. The institution wanted to produce a TV spot and asked her to be in the spot, which she accepted. In a twist of fate, a casting person with "Tender Mercies" had to spend the night in Dallas and saw Harper's spot on TV. She called Robert Duvall and arranged an audition. Director Bruce Beresford was impressed with Harper and cast her in the lead female role of Rosa Lee, the young widow and mother who marries country singer Mac Sledge. Beresford said that Harper brought a kind of rural quality to the role without coming across as simple or foolish. He said of Harper, "She walked into the room and even before she spoke, I thought, 'That's the girl to play the lead.'" Harper did not realize this, and recalled shortly after the film's release, "After I did the final screen test, I went to see "Breaker Morant" and started sobbing uncontrollably halfway through it. A friend had to take me home, and I kept crying, 'You don't understand! They're not gonna let me do this part!'"


title: Tess Harper

text: "Tender Mercies" was Harper's feature film debut. She earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for the role.


title: Tess Harper

text: Harper appeared in the TV mini-series "Chiefs" (1983) and "Celebrity" (1984), as well as many television movies including "" (1983) and "Reckless Disregard" (1985). In 1983, she appeared in the full-length feature "Silkwood". In 1986, Harper was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work as Chick Boyle in "Crimes of the Heart", which was directed by her "Tender Mercies" director Bruce Beresford. She later played parts in "Ishtar" (1987), "Far North" (1988), "The Man in the Moon" (1991), "The Jackal" (1997) and "Loggerheads" (2005). She also took part in Michael Jackson's music video "Black or White" (1991), playing the mother.


title: Tess Harper

text: From 1994 - 1995 Harper had a regular role on the CBS series "Christy", playing mountain woman Fairlight Spencer. She also had a recurring role on another CBS television series, "Early Edition", from 1996 to 2000. She portrayed the mother of lead character Gary Hobsen. Harper shared a Screen Actors Guild Award (in the Best Ensemble Cast category) with her fellow cast members in the Oscar-winning film "No Country for Old Men", in which she played the wife of Tommy Lee Jones's character.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Bydgoszcz ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Poland, straddling the meeting of the River Vistula with its left-bank tributary, the Brda. With a city population of 339,053 as of December 2021 and an urban agglomeration with more than 470,000 inhabitants, Bydgoszcz is the eighth-largest city in Poland. It is the seat of Bydgoszcz County and the co-capital, with Toruń, of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The city is part of the Bydgoszcz–Toruń metropolitan area, which totals over 850,000 inhabitants. Bydgoszcz is the seat of Casimir the Great University, University of Technology and Life Sciences and a conservatory, as well as the Medical College of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. It also hosts the Pomeranian Philharmonic concert hall, the Opera Nova opera house, and Bydgoszcz Airport. Being between the Vistula and Oder (Odra in Polish) rivers, and by the Bydgoszcz Canal, the city is connected via the Noteć, Warta, Elbe and German canals with the Rhine, a river linked to the Mediterranean and Black Seas by canals and flowing into the North Sea.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Bydgoszcz is an architecturally rich city, with gothic, neo-gothic, neo-baroque, neoclassicist, modernist and Art Nouveau styles present, for which it has earned the nickname of "Little Berlin". The notable granaries on Mill Island and along the riverside belong to one of the most recognized timber-framed landmarks in Poland.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Bydgoszcz, originally Bydgoszcza (feminine), is a pronoun name the second part of which – 'goszcz' comes from 'gost-jь' possibly or 'gost-ja' an old Slavic root which refers to an urban or suburban trading settlement. There are also a number of other Polish place-names which make use of the 'goszcz' suffix: i.e. Małogoszcz and Skorogoszcz. Bydgoszcz, however, has a long, rich history of etymological change: in 1239 known as Bidgosciam, in 1242 as "castrum quod Budegosta vulgariter nuncupatur" (castle, which is colloquially called Bydgoszcza), in 1279 as Bidgoscha, since 1558 as Bydgoszcz, that is, until the 16th century, and as Bydgoszcza "fishing village or campsite belonging to Bydgosta".


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The name 'Byd-gost' contains archaic elements of the Proto-Slavonic root 'byd' which existed as a variant of the verb 'to raise' (Ancient Russian 'vъzbydati' = stimulating, Proto-Slavonic 'bъděti' / 'bъd 'ǫ' = no sleep, to watch), and the common Slavic root 'Goszcz' (fireplace). Some people identify the name of the town as 'Budorgis', a name from the second century which is listed as being next to the village Calisia on the amber route.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The etymology of the German name of the town developed later and derives from the river "Brahe" (Brda in Polish), on banks of which the place sits, and "berg", elevation, mount(ain), combined to 'Brahenberg', with 'a' pronounced in East Pomeranian Low German rather like 'å', later contracted to "Bromberg", dropping the weak 'h', with the 'n' assimilated as 'm' to the following labial sound 'b'.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: During the early Slavic period a fishing settlement called "Bydgozcya" ("Bydgostia" in Latin), became a stronghold on the Vistula trade routes. The gród of Bydgoszcz was built between 1037 and 1053 during the reign of Casimir I the Restorer. In the 13th century it was the site of a castellany, mentioned in 1238, probably founded in the early 12th century during the reign of Bolesław III Wrymouth. In the 13th century, the church of Saint Giles was built as the first church of Bydgoszcz. The Germans subsequently demolished it in the late 19th century.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: During the Polish–Teutonic War (1326–1332), the city was captured and destroyed by the Teutonic Knights in 1330. Briefly regained by Poland, it was occupied by the Teutonic Knights from 1331 to 1337 and annexed to their monastic state as "Bromberg". In 1337, it was recaptured by Poland and was relinquished by the Knights in 1343 at their signing of the Treaty of Kalisz along with Dobrzyń and the remainder of Kuyavia. King Casimir III of Poland, granted Bydgoszcz city rights (charter) on 19 April 1346. The king granted a number of privileges, regarding river trade on the Brda and Vistula and the right to mint coins, and ordered the construction of the castle, which became the seat of the castellan. Bydgoszcz was an important royal city of Poland located in the Inowrocław Voivodeship.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The city increasingly saw an influx of Jews after that date. In 1555, however, due to pressure from the clergy, the Jews were expelled and returned only with their annexation to Prussia in 1772. After 1370, Bydgoszcz castle was the favourite residence of the grandson of the king and his would-be successor Duke Casimir IV, who died there in 1377. In 1397 thanks to Queen Jadwiga of Poland, a Carmelite convent was established in the city, the third in Poland after Gdańsk and Kraków.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: During the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War in 1409 the city was briefly captured by the Teutonic Knights. In the mid-15th century, during the Thirteen Years' War, King Casimir IV of Poland often stayed in Bydgoszcz. At that time, the defensive walls were built and the Gothic parish church (the present-day Bydgoszcz Cathedral). The city was developing dynamically thanks to river trade. Bydgoszcz pottery and beer were popular throughout Poland. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Bydgoszcz was a significant location for wheat trading, one of the largest in Poland. The first mention of a school in Bydgoszcz is from 1466.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: In 1480, a Bernardine monastery was established in Bydgoszcz. The Bernardines erected a new Gothic church and founded a library, part of which has survived to this day. A Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland was held in Bydgoszcz in 1520. In 1522, after a decision taken by the Polish king, a salt depot was established in Bydgoszcz, the second in the region after Toruń. In 1594, Stanisław Cikowski founded a private mint, which in the early 17th century was transformed into a royal mint, one of the leading mints in Poland.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: In 1621, on the occasion of the Polish victory over the Ottoman Empire at Chocim, one of the most valuable and largest coins in the history of Europe was minted in Bydgoszcz – 100 ducats of Sigismund III Vasa. In 1617 the Jesuits came to the city, and subsequently established a Jesuit college.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: During the year 1629, shortly before the end of the Polish-Swedish War of 1626–29, the town was conquered by Swedish troops led by king Gustav II Adolph of Sweden personally. During this war, the town suffered destruction. The town was conquered a second and third time by Sweden in 1656 and 1657 during the Second Northern War. On the latter occasion, the castle was destroyed completely and has since remained a ruin. After the war only 94 houses were inhabited, 103 stood empty and 35 had burned down. The suburbs had also been considerably damaged.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The Treaty of Bromberg, agreed in 1657 by King John II Casimir Vasa of Poland and Elector Frederick William II of Brandenburg-Prussia, created a military alliance between Poland and Prussia while marking the withdrawal of Prussia from its alliance with Sweden.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: After the Convocation Sejm of 1764, Bydgoszcz became one of three seats of the Crown Tribunal for the Greater Poland Province of the Polish Crown alongside Poznań and Piotrków Trybunalski. In 1766 royal cartographer Franciszek Florian Czaki, during a meeting of the Committee of the Crown Treasury in Warsaw, proposed a plan of building a canal, which would connect the Vistula via the Brda with the Noteć river. Józef Wybicki, Polish jurist and political activist best known as the author of the lyrics of the national anthem of Poland, worked at the Crown Tribunal in Bydgoszcz.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: In 1772, in the First Partition of Poland, the town was acquired by the Kingdom of Prussia as Bromberg and incorporated into the Netze District in the newly established province of West Prussia. At the time, the town was seriously depressed and semi-derelict. Under Frederick the Great the town revived, notably with the construction of a canal from Bromberg to Nakel (Nakło) which connected the north-flowing Vistula River via the Brda to the west-flowing Noteć, which in turn flowed to the Oder via the Warta. During the Kościuszko Uprising, in 1794 the city was briefly recaptured by Poles, commanded by General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, and the local Polish administration was co-organized by Józef Wybicki.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: In 1807, after the defeat of Prussia by Napoleon and the signing of the Treaty of Tilsit, Bydgoszcz became part of the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw. With Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Nations in 1815, the town was re-annexed by Prussia as part of the Grand Duchy of Posen (Poznań), becoming the capital of the Bromberg Region. In 1871 the Province of Posen, along with the rest of the Kingdom of Prussia, became part of the newly formed German Empire. During German rule, the oldest church of the city (church of Saint Giles), the remains of the castle, and the Carmelite church and monastery were demolished. In the mid-19th century, the city saw the arrival of the Prussian Eastern Railway. The first stretch, from Schneidemühl (Piła), was opened in July 1851.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: During World War I, Poles in Bydgoszcz formed secret organizations, preparing to regain control of the city in the event of Poland regaining its independence. After the war, Bydgoszcz was assigned to the recreated Polish state by the 1919 Versailles Treaty. Now officially Bydgoszcz again, the city belonged to the Poznań Voivodeship. The local populace was required to acquire Polish citizenship or leave the country. This led to a drastic decline in ethnically German residents, whose number within the town decreased to 11,016 in 1926. A Nazi German youth organization was subsequently founded, which distributed Nazi propaganda books from Germany among the German minority. In 1938, the city was made part of the Polish Greater Pomerania.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: During the invasion of Poland, at the beginning of World War II, on September 1, 1939, Germany carried out air raids on the city. The Polish 15th Infantry Division, which was stationed in Bydgoszcz, fought off German attacks on September 2, but on September 3 was forced to retreat. During the withdrawal of Poles, as part of the diversion planned by Germany, local Germans opened fire on Polish soldiers and civilians. Polish soldiers and civilians were forced into a defensive battle in which several hundred people were killed on both sides. The event, referred to as the "Bloody Sunday" by the propaganda of Nazi Germany, which exaggerated the number of victims to 5,000 "defenceless" Germans, was used as an excuse to carry out dozens of mass executions of Polish residents in the Old Town Market Square and in the Valley of Death. Only on September 3–10, 1939, the Germans executed 192 Poles in the city.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: On September 5, while the Wehrmacht entered the city, German-Polish skirmishes still took place in the Szwederowo district, and the German occupation of the city began. The German "Einsatzgruppe IV", "Einsatzkommando 16" and SS-Totenkopf-Standarte "Brandenburg" entered the city to commit atrocities against the Polish population, and afterwards some of its members co-formed the local German police. Many of the murders were carried out as part of the "Intelligenzaktion", aimed at exterminating the Polish elites and preventing the establishment of a Polish resistance movement. On September 24, the local German "Kreisleiter" called local Polish city officials to a supposed formal meeting in the city hall, from where they were taken to a nearby forest and exterminated. The "Kreisleiter" also ordered the execution of their family members to "avoid creating martyrs". By decision from September 5, 1939, one of the first three German special courts in occupied Poland was established in Bydgoszcz.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The Germans established several camps and prisons for Poles. As of September 30, 1939, over 3,000 individuals were imprisoned there, and in October and November, the Germans carried out further mass arrests of over 7,200 people. Many of those people were then murdered. Poles from Bydgoszcz were massacred at various locations in the city, at the Valley of Death and in the nearby village of Tryszczyn. The victims were both men and women, including activists, school principals, teachers, priests, local officials, merchants, lawyers, and also boy and girl scouts, gymnasium students and children as young as 12. The executions were presented as punishment for supposedly "murdering Germans" and "destroying peace", and were used by Nazi propaganda to show the world that it was alleged "Polish terror" that forced Hitler to start the war. On the Polish National Independence Day, November 11, 1939, the Germans symbolically publicly executed Leon Barciszewski, the mayor of Bydgoszcz. On November 17, 1939, the commander of the local SD-EK unit declared there was no more Polish intelligentsia capable of resistance in the city.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The city was annexed to the newly formed province of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia as the seat of the district or county ("kreis") of Bromberg. However, the annexation was not recognised in international law. Extermination of the inhabitants continued throughout the war, and in total, around 10,000 inhabitants, mostly Poles, but also Polish Jews, were killed. Some Polish inhtabitants were also murdered in the village of Jastrzębie in January 1940, and local teachers were also among Polish teachers murdered in both Mauthausen and Dachau concentration camps. The history of Jews in Bydgoszcz ended with the German invasion of Poland and the Holocaust. The city's Jewish citizens, who constituted a small community in the city (about two percent of the prewar population) and many of whom spoke German, were sent to extermination camps or murdered in the town itself. The city renamed "Bromberg" was the site of Bromberg-Ost, a women's subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp. A deportation camp was situated in Smukała village, now part of Bydgoszcz. On February 4, 1941, the first mass transport of 524 Poles came to the Potulice concentration camp from Bydgoszcz. The local train station was one of the locations, where Polish children aged 12 and over were sent from the Potulice concentration camp to slave labor. The children reloaded freight trains.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: During the occupation, the Germans destroyed some of the city's historic buildings to erect new structures in the Nazi style. The Germans built a huge secret dynamite factory ("DAG Fabrik Bromberg") hidden in a forest in which they used the slave labor of several hundred forced laborers, including Allied prisoners of war from the Stalag XX-A POW camp in Toruń. In 1943, local Poles managed to save some kidnapped Polish children from the Zamość region, by buying them from the Germans at the local train station.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: In spring 1945, Bydgoszcz was occupied by the advancing Red Army. Those German residents who had survived were expelled and the city was returned to Poland.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: In the same year 1945, the city was made the seat of the Pomeranian Voivodship, the northern part of which was soon separated to form Gdańsk Voivodship. The remaining part of the Pomeranian Voivodship was renamed Bydgoszcz Voivodeship in 1950. In 1973, the former town of Fordon, located on the left bank of the Vistula, was included in the city limits and became the easternmost district of Bydgoszcz. In March 1981, Solidarity's activists were violently suppressed in Bydgoszcz.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Currently, Bydgoszcz is the biggest center of NATO headquarters in Poland, the most known being the Joint Force Training Centre.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The oldest building in the city is the Cathedral of St Martin and St Nicolas, commonly known as Fara Church. It is a three-aisle late Gothic church, erected between 1466 and 1502, which boasts a late-Gothic painting entitled "Madonna with a Rose" or "the Holy Virgin of Beautiful Love" from the 16th century. The colourful 20th-century polychrome is also especially worthy of note.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The Church of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin, commonly referred to as "The Church of Poor Clares," is a famous landmark of the city. It is a small, Gothic-Renaissance (including Neo-Renaissance additions), single-aisle church built between 1582 and 1602. The interior is rather austere since the church has been stripped of most of its furnishings. This is not a surprising fact, considering that in the 19th century the Prussian authorities dissolved the Order of St Clare and turned the church into a warehouse, among other uses. Nonetheless, the church is worth visiting. In particular, the original wooden polychrome ceiling dating from the 17th century draws the attention of every visitor.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: "Wyspa Młyńska" (Mill Island) is among the most spectacular and atmospheric places in Bydgoszcz. What makes it unique is the location in the very heart of the city centre, just a few steps from the old Market Square. It was the 'industrial' centre of Bydgoszcz in the Middle Ages and for several hundred years thereafter, and it was here that the famous royal mint operated in the 17th century. Most of the buildings which can still be seen on the island date from the 19th century, but the so-called "Biały Spichlerz" (the White Granary) recalls the end of the 18th century. However, it is the water, footbridges, historic red-brick tenement houses reflected in the rivers, and the greenery, including old chestnut trees, that create the unique atmosphere of the island.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: "Hotel pod Orłem" (Hotel Adler or The Eagle Hotel), an icon of the city's 19th-century architecture, was designed by the distinguished Bydgoszcz architect Józef Święcicki, the author of around sixty buildings in the city. Completed in 1896, it served as a hotel from the very beginning and was originally owned by Emil Bernhardt, a hotel manager educated in Switzerland. Its façade displays forms characteristic of the Neo-baroque style in architecture.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Saint Vincent de Paul's Basilica, erected between 1925 and 1939, is the largest church in Bydgoszcz and one of the biggest in Poland. It can accommodate around 12,000 people. This monumental church, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome, was designed by the Polish architect Adam Ballenstaedt. The most characteristic element of the neo-classical temple is the reinforced concrete dome 40 metres in diameter.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The three granaries in Grodzka Street, picturesquely located on the Brda River near the old Market Square, are the official symbol of the city. Built at the turn of the 19th century, they were originally used to store grain and similar products, but now house exhibitions of the city's Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The city is mostly associated with water, sports, Art Nouveau buildings, waterfront, music, and urban greenery. It is worth noting that Bydgoszcz boasts the largest city park in Poland (830 ha). The city was also once famous for its industry.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Unfortunately, some great monuments have been destroyed, for example, the church in the Old Market Square and the Municipal Theatre. Additionally, the Old Town lost a few characteristic tenement houses, including the western frontage of the Market Square. The city also lost its Gothic castle and defensive walls. In Bydgoszcz, there are a great number of villas in the style of typical garden suburbs.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: In the city, there are 38 banks represented through a network of 116 branches (including the headquarters of the Bank Pocztowy SA), whilst 37 insurance companies also have offices in the city. JP Morgan Chase, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, has established a branch in Bydgoszcz. Most industrial complexes are scattered throughout the city, however, the 'Zachem' chemical works deserve attention, covering tens of square kilometers in the south-east of the city, the remnants of the German explosives factory built in World War II occupy an area which has its own rail lines, internal communication, housing, and large forested area. the open-air museum, Exploseum, was built on its base.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Since 2001, Bydgoszcz has been annually subjected to international 'verification' ratings. In February 2008 the Agency 'Fitch Ratings', recategorised the city, increasing its rating from BBB-(stable forecast) to BBB (stable estimate).


title: Bydgoszcz

text: In 2004, Bydgoszcz launched an Industrial and Technology Park of 283 hectares, an attractive place for doing business as companies that relocate there receive tax breaks, 24-hour security, access to large plots of land and to the media, the railway line Chorzów Batory – Tczew (passenger, coal), the DK5 and DK10 national roads, and future freeways S10 and S5. Bydgoszcz Airport is also close by.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The city has, in recent years, become one of Poland's most important economic centres. This is especially true for the role the city plays in the economy of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, of which it is, along with Toruń, capital


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Bydgoszcz is a major cultural centre in the country, especially for music. Traditions of the municipal theatre date back to the 17th century, when the Jesuit college built a theatre. In 1824, a permanent theatre building was erected, and this was rebuilt in 1895 in a monumental form by the Berlin architect Heinrich Seeling. The first music school was established in Bydgoszcz in 1904; it had close links to the very well-known European piano factory of Bruno Sommerfeld. Numerous orchestras and choirs, both German (Gesangverein, Liedertafel) and Polish (St. Wojciech Halka, Moniuszko), have also made the city their home. Since 1974, Bydgoszcz has been home to a very prestigious Academy of Music. Bydgoszcz is also an important place for contemporary European culture; one of the most important European centers of jazz music, the Brain club, was founded in Bydgoszcz by Jacek Majewski and Slawomir Janicki.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Muzeum Okręgowe im. Leona Wyczółkowskiego (Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum) is a municipally-owned museum. Apart from a large collection of Leon Wyczółkowski's works, it houses permanent as well as temporary exhibitions of art. It is based in several buildings, including the old granaries on the Brda River and Mill Island and the remaining building of the Polish royal mint. Exploseum, a museum built around the World War II Nazi Germany munitions factory, is also part of it.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: In Bydgoszcz, the Pomeranian Military Museum specializes in documenting 19th- and 20th-century Polish military history, particularly the history of the Pomeranian Military District and several other units present in the area.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The city has many art galleries, two symphony orchestras, many chamber orchestras and choirs. Bydgoszcz's cultural facilities also include libraries, including the Provincial and Municipal Public Library with an extensive collection of volumes from the 15th to the 19th centuries. The municipally-owned Palaces and park ensemble in Ostromecko near the city contains the Andrzej Szwalbe Collection of Historical Pianos, one of the largest such collections in Poland.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Teatr Polski im Hieronima Konieczki (Hieronim Konieczka's Polish Theatre): Despite its name, the theatre offers a wide variety of shows both of national and foreign origin. It also regularly plays host to a large number of touring shows. Founded in 1949, since 2002 the theatre has taken part in the "Festiwal Prapremier" where the most renowned Polish theatres stage their latest works. There are also a number of private theatre companies operating in Bydgoszcz.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: From 1960 to 1986, there was an outdoor theater, the reactivation of which is currently being pursued by the Theatre Culture Association, "Fides" and the Acting School A. Grzymala-Siedlecki.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The Pomeranian Philharmonic named after Ignacy Jan Paderewski has existed since 1953. The concert hall, which can hold 920 people is classified, in terms of sound, as one of the best in Europe, which is confirmed by well-known artists and critics (including J. Waldorff). Due to the phenomenon of acoustics, it attracts the interest of many famous artists. Bydgoszcz's stage has been frequented by many global celebrities, including Arthur Rubinstein, Benjamin Britten, Witold Małcużyński, Luciano Pavarotti, Shlomo Mintz, Mischa Maisky, Kevin Kenner, Kurt Masur, Kazimierz Kord, Jerzy Maksymiuk and Antoni Wit. In recent years, the city has also hosted an excellent range of bands such as the BBC Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, and others.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: The Opera Nova, in existence since 1956, started the construction of a new building in 1974 which was to consist of three main halls, situated on the Brda. The Opera Nova has become a cultural showcase of Bydgoszcz in the world. Considering the short history of the Opera, its success has been astounding; a large number of famous opera singers have performed there and theatrical troops from the Wrocław Opera, Theatre of Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, and Gulbenkian Foundation of Lisbon have also made appearances.


title: Bydgoszcz

text: Bydgoszcz is one of the biggest railway junctions in Poland, with two important lines crossing there – the east–west connection from Toruń to Pila and the north–south line from Inowrocław to Gdańsk (see: Polish Coal Trunk-Line). There are also secondary-importance lines stemming from the city, to Szubin and to Chełmża. Among rail stations located in the city, there are:


title: Bydgoszcz

text: It is also said that Pan Twardowski spent some time in the city of Bydgoszcz, where, in his memory, a figure was recently mounted in a window of a tenement, overseeing the Old Town. At 1:13 p.m. and 9:13 p.m. the window opens and Pan Twardowski appears, to the accompaniment of weird music and devilish laughter. He takes a bow, waves his hand, and then disappears. This little show gathers crowds of amused spectators.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Lauren Elizabeth Jackson (born 11 May 1981) is an Australian professional basketball player. The daughter of two national basketball team players, Jackson was awarded a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in 1997, when she was 16. In 1998, she led the AIS team that won the Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) championship. Jackson joined the Canberra Capitals for the 1999 season when she turned 18 and played with the team off and on until 2006, winning four more WNBL championships. From 2010 to 2016, Jackson played with the Canberra Capitals, which she did during the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) offseason during the time she continued WNBA play.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson made the Australian under-20 team when she was only 14 years old and was first called up to the Australian Women's National Basketball Team (nicknamed The Opals) when she was 16 years old. She was a member of the 2000 Summer Olympics and 2004 Summer Olympics teams and captain of the 2008 Summer Olympics team, winning three silver medals. She was also part of the Australian team that won the bronze at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Jackson was a member of the Australian Senior Women's Team that won a silver medal at the 2002 FIBA World Championship for Women in China, co-captain of the team that won a gold medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and captain of the team that won a gold medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship for Women in Brazil.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In 2001, Jackson entered the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) draft and was selected by the Seattle Storm, which viewed Jackson as a franchise player. She won two WNBA titles with the Storm, in 2004 and 2010, the latter also earning Jackson the WNBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award. Jackson ranks among the top WNBA players in played games, minutes played, field goals, three-point shots, and turnover percentage.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson played club basketball in Europe with WBC Spartak Moscow in Russia and Ros Casares Valencia in Spain. She also played in the Women's Korean Basketball League, where she was named the league's Most Valuable Player and set a league record scoring 56 points, and in the Women's Chinese Basketball Association. Jackson announced her retirement from basketball on 31 March 2016, citing a persistent knee injury as the reason for her decision. Besides her basketball career, Jackson is in the process of attaining her university degree at the Macquarie University, majoring in gender studies.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Lauren Elizabeth Jackson, whose nicknames include "Loz", "Jacko" and "LJ", was born in Albury, New South Wales, on Monday, 11 May, 1981, the oldest of two children of Gary Jackson and his wife Maree Bennie. Both her parents played for Australia's national basketball teams and Jackson inherited her height from both parents. Her father, Gary, played for the Boomers in 1975, while her 6ft 2in mother, Maree, played for the Opals from 1974 to 1982. Bennie played in two World Championships, and for the women's basketball team at Louisiana State in the late 1980s, wearing the number 15, the number Jackson wears in her mother's honour. Bennie was one of the first Australians to play in the American collegiate system, where she was known for her aggressive style of play and was nicknamed "the assassin". Her parents continued to play basketball locally on the social level when Lauren and her brother were young, and her family had a basketball court in their backyard when Jackson was growing up. Her grandfather played for the Western Suburbs Magpies.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson grew up in Albury, where she attended Murray High School. She earned her Higher School Certificate in Canberra while she was training with the Australian Institute of Sport. Jackson studied for a psychology degree at Lomonosov Moscow State University and continued via correspondence from America. In 2007, she was working on a university course in business management.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In 2010, she was taking classes at Macquarie University in Sydney. Her coursework was centred in cultural studies and included topics like women's rights and racism. Injuries have prevented her from studying around 2010, but in 2012, she was back working on her degree, and her aspirations have included becoming a United Nations diplomat. She has also considered becoming an advocate for women. Her interests regarding gender studies were inspired by a book regarding the rape during the Rwandan Genocide, and Jackson is even an ambassador of a foundation that seeks to empower the abused women of that war. By 2015, Jackson was trying to get a Bachelor of Gender and Diversity at the University of Canberra, mostly through distance education.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: As a youngster, Jackson was active in other sports. She was involved in athletics at school and played tennis, which she gave up because competitions conflicted with her ability to play basketball. Similarly, she played on her school netball team, until the age of 14, giving it up because of basketball commitments. In the off season, Jackson trains by pumping weights.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson is tall. She was this tall by the time she turned 16, after she gained in height when she was 15 years old.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Lauren is the most famous basketball player in Australia, a position she reached by 2003. Prior to this, Australia's most famous player was Michelle Timms, who played internationally. She was recognised as one of the world's best basketball players by the time she was 21. She has been described as Australia's best female player to ever step on a basketball court, and the best female basketball player in the world. She has said regarding being the best female basketball player in the world: "I don't really think about it. Nobody really talks to me like that. It's not something I'm conscious of. My family and people who have known me all my life, they see me for who I am, and crack open a beer or a bottle of wine with me. They know I have to train, but the rest of it is really laid-back."


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson plays two positions, forward and centre, and has the ability to make jump shots and spinning bank shots.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson started playing basketball at the Albury Sports Centre when she was four years old. As a six-year-old, she told others that she would one day play for the Australian national team in Basketball. Her mother taught her how to play. She first played competitive basketball as a six-year-old she played on a local under-10 side. Her mother was her coach for two years. This was difficult for both mother and daughter in order to change their personal dynamics. As an 11-year-old, Jackson was not the best player in Albury, but she played in the under-14 Australian Country Championships. Her team made it to the Grand Final one year, and she played in the match despite having hurt her knee. She was upset after the event. In response to this, her parents sat down with her and explained she did not need to continue to play if she did not want to. Following this conversation, she went to her room and typed a message on her computer that said "from this day on, nothing will stand in my way..."


title: Lauren Jackson

text: When she was 14 years old, Jackson led her New South Wales side to a national championship gold. Her performance in the tournament attracted the attention of the national team selectors. Tom Maher said of the game: "Right then and there, I said, 'Is this the best thing I've ever seen?' It was just unbelievable. Those old guys had seen a lot of basketball, and they were drooling." As a competitor at the 1999 Australian Under-20 national championships, she won the Bob Staunton Award for the tournament MVP. She was described as a basketball prodigy by the time she was seventeen years old.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson has played with Robyn Maher, Michelle Timms and Shelley Gorman, whom she admired during her youth. They all won bronze medals at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Jackson had a rivalry with American basketball player Lisa Leslie. Both women dislike each other, a dislike that goes back to when Jackson was on tour in the United States with the Opals as a 16-year-old. The rivalry intensified in 2000 at the Olympics in the gold medal match when Jackson purposely pulled off Leslie's hair extension while both were trying to grab a rebound. Jackson treated the incident as a joke, saying "It was something to joke about even though we lost the gold medal." Leslie did not feel the same way about the extension pulling incident. The rivalry continued when Jackson transitioned to the WNBA and her Seattle Storm team played Leslie's Los Angeles Sparks, who at the time were the best team in the league. The rivalry was so intense that their coaches had to coach around it, sometimes choosing to keep one off the floor when the other was on. The coaches feared if they left the players on the floor together, their own player would foul out in an attempt to get the best of the other player. Leslie and Jackson have played together as team members in the WNBA's All-Star game. Their rivalry thawed somewhat by 2007 but they did not become friends.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In 2007, Jackson played in the Women's Korean Basketball League and was named the league's Most Valuable Player. She played for Samsung Bichumi (Samsung Insurance) in Seoul, South Korea. Her stint with the team was only four months, and she was the only international player on the team. She averaged 30.2 points per game. No one else on the team spoke English. Jackson claimed this allowed her to play drama free basketball. In a game with Samsung Bichumi against the Kumho Redwings, she scored 56 to set a league record in her team's 96–76 victory. This was a personal best for her in her career. Two weeks prior to the 56-point record, she scored 47 points in a single game. She competed in the league's all star game and was declared the Most Valuable Player of the match. She played two games a week with the league.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson has played club basketball in Europe. She first signed with a European side at the end of the 2005 WNBA season, and went to Russia on a lucrative contract. In 2007, she was paid six figures in American dollars, four times her WNBA base salary, to play with WBC Spartak Moscow Region for one month. Her teammates included other international basketball Olympians: Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, and Tina Thompson. While playing for the team, she lived in a mansion owned by the team's owner with a view of a nuclear power plant. As a member of the team, she helped Spartak win the 2007 Russian Superleague title. Subsequently, she continued playing for Spartak and won two more Russian Superleague titles with the team, in 2008 and 2009. She scored 35 points in a EuroLeague Women 2008 in an 11 April 2008 game against UMMC Ekaterinburg while playing for Spartak. This was the highest number of points that she scored in a single game in a Euroleague game. Later on, Jackson played for Spartak in the EuroLeague Women finals in Brno, which her team won. She finished the 2008 season with an average of 23.6 points per game and 7.1 rebounds per game.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In 2009, Jackson had an option of extending her contract with Spartak for two more years. First, it looked likely that Jackson would stay with Spartak. However, following the assassination of Shabtai Kalmanovich, the owner of the team, she announced in November 2009 that she would stop playing for the team and not extend her contract She subsequently changed her mind and returned to play with the Spartak in 2010. In the 2009/2010 season games she averaged 15.2 points per game and 5.7 rebounds per game. On 3 December 2010 while playing with Spartak, she was named the EuroLeague Women Player of the Week. Playing in the team's second match against a Kaunas Lithuanian side, she scored 28 points, had two blocks and had five rebounds while playing 31 minutes to lead her team to victory after having missed the first game where her team lost.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In the 2010/2011 season, Jackson played for Spartak, where she averaged 17.3 points per game and 8.4 rebounds per game. She left the team in early January 2011 because of an injury, returning to Australia for her recovery. Part of her treatment involved getting an MRI. According to Jackson, she left Russia for Australia because "I couldn't move, the swelling was very obvious, and the pain was just a little bit too painful. That's when I got home to all these messages and e-mails from people back in Australia who had seen the scans and said 'you need to come back (to Australia) and start your rehab right away'."


title: Lauren Jackson

text: She played for the Ros Casares Valencia, Spain, in 2011 and 2012. She joined the team in 2011. It was her first year with a Spanish team. She played in the power forward position with the team. She ranked 16th in the league for three-point field goal shooting percentage at 41.5%. She ranked 17th in the league for three-point field foals made per game at 1.4. In the game against Spartak, she played in a season-high 31 minutes. She missed the game against Galatasaray MP, playing zero minutes. She scored 16 points in a 29 March 2012 game against Sparta&K M.R. Vidnoje, her highest total number of points in a single game in the 2011/2012 season. Casares plays in the Spanish Liga Femenina and the EuroLeague Women. After a February 2012 game, her Spanish team's general manager Carme Lluveras described her performance as perfect. She has not started all games in the 2011/2012 season, coming off the bench on a few occasions because her team was stacked with talent. She was averaging 20 minutes, 8.0 points, and 2.9 rebounds a game as of 10 February 2012. During the 2011/2012 season, she scored 14 points against Bourges, 15 points in an away game against UMMC Ekaterinburg, and six against Galatasaray at a home game. In the game against the Turkish Galatasary, she scored an important three-pointer near the end of the game that helped stop a come-from-behind attempt by the opposition.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Seattle viewed Jackson as a franchise player. On the court in the WNBA, she was known for her sharp and stinging comments directed at other players. Opposition players knew they could get at Jackson by giving her sneaky fouls and nettling her back with some trash talk. While playing in the WNBA, she has dyed her hair different colours several times. She ranks 35th in the league for total played games with 308. She has played 9,958 minutes in the league and ranks 16th all time in this category. In her career, she has made 2056 field goals, ranking third all time in this category. She ranked fifth all time in the league with 4,456 field goal attempts. She ranked 34th overall career wise in the league with a field goal percentage of 46.1%. Career wise, she ranks 10th overall for three-point field goals with 430. She attempted 1219 three-point field goals in her career, ranking 10th on the league's all time leaderboard. She was ranked second all time in the league for turnover percentage with 9.4.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In 2001, she was drafted first when she entered the WNBA draft in the fifth year of the league having a draft and was selected by the Seattle Storm. Her parents stayed with her in Seattle for the first month she played in the WNBA in 2001. Jackson's first season included 32 games played over the course of 11 weeks, a much more difficult competition in terms of total games compared to Australia's domestic league. She played in 21 games. She ranked eighth in the league with 406 field goal attempts. In her debut game with the team, she scored 21 points. On 3 July 2001, she set a WNBA record for most minutes played in a single game with 55 in a game against Washington that had four overtime periods. That season, she averaged 15.2 points per game, came in second for the WNBA's Rookie of the Year award. At the end of the first season with the Storm, Jackson required surgery on her right shoulder. She attempted 129 three-point field goals this season, ranking 8th in the league. She had a player efficiency rating of 22.5. She ranked seventh in the league in this category for the season, and was a WNBA All Star.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson was a WNBA All Star again in 2002, and played in the All Star Game. She averaged 17.2 points per game. She was the team's captain, the youngest in the WNBA at the time. During one game which was attended by 11,000 fans, the fans loudly chanted her name. In 2002, Carrie Graf, who had been an assistant coach on the Australian national team from when Jackson for played for it, changed coaching positions in the WNBA from Phoenix to Seattle specifically to make Jackson feel more comfortable playing for the team. She was estimated to have earned $200,000 to play for the Storm in 2002.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In the second game of the 2002 final series against the Los Angeles Sparks, Jackson's scored only four points in a loss by her team, after being kneed in the groin by Lisa Leslie. In 2002, she only earned one technical foul the whole season. Her mother spent two weeks in Seattle with Jackson during this season. At the end of the second season with the Storm, she had severe pain as a result of shin splints. Jackson and Sue Bird first played together this season and would continue to play together for the Storm into the 2010 season. During the 2002 season, Jackson's team got into a fight when they played the Los Angeles Sparks.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In the 2002 season, Jackson played in 28 games, averaging 31.5 minutes per game. She averaged 2.9 blocks per game. and attempted 120 three-point field goals this season, ranking 10th in the league. She ranked second in the league with 462 field goal attempts, and made 186 field goals, ranking 6th in the league in this category. She had a player efficiency of 24.5. She ranked fourth in the league in this category this season. She was ranked first in the league for turnover percentage with 8.6.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson was a WNBA All Star again in 2003, and was named to the 2003 All-WNBA First Team. This season, she averaged 21.2 points per game. By the end of the season, she had scored 1,000 points in the league, the youngest player to date to score that many points in the league. She was named the league's MVP, and was one of the top five women in the league for average number of rebounds per games and blocks per game. She called Tom Maher and her Seattle Storm coach Anne Donovan after winning the award, and cried for an hour after learning she won. She was the first non-American to be named the league's MVP and the youngest player to earn this honour.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In the 2003 season, Jackson played in 33 games, averaging 33.6 minutes per game. She averaged 1.9 blocks per game. She ranked first in the league for field goals, with 254, for total points with 698, for field goal attempts with 526, and for win shares with 9.2, and offensive win shares with 6.7. She also ranked first in the league with 21.2 points per game average, and had a player efficiency of 32.1, likewise ranking first in the league, and led the league with win share per 48 minutes with 40.0%. She ranked third in the league with a field goal percentage of 48.3%, and for total minutes played with 1,109.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In 2004, her Seattle Storm team won the WNBA Championship. She was again named to the 2004 All-WNBA First Team. This season, she averaged 20.5 points per game. She played in 31 games, averaging 34.5 minutes per game. She averaged 2.0 blocks per game. She made 220 field goals and ranked second in the league in this category. She ranked fourth in the league with 460 field goal attempts. She ranked seventh in the league with a field goal percentage of 47.8%, and her three-point field goal shooting percentage was 45.2%, ranking third in the league. She ranked first in the league for total points with 634, and for points per game with 20.52 points on average, and had a player efficiency of 28.0, second in the league in this category. She ranked third in the league with a true shooting percentage of 59.0%, and ranked first in the league for offensive win shares with 6.1.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson was a WNBA All Star again in 2005, and was named to the 2005 All-WNBA First Team. This season, she played in 34 games, averaging 34.6 minutes per game. She averaged 17.6 points per game, and 2.0 blocks per game. She ranked third in the league for her 34 total games, and for her 206 field goals. She ranked fifth in the league for total minutes played with 1,176, and for field goal attempts, with 450. She attempted 118 three-point field goals this season, ranking eighth in the league, and was ranked first for total defensive rebounds with 217. She had a player efficiency of 26.7. She ranked first in the league in this category this season. She was also ranked first in the league for turnover percentage with 10.0, in the offensive rating category with 117.6, for offensive win shares with 6.0, for win shares with 8.2, and with win share per 48 minutes with 33.3%.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson was still with the Seattle Storm in 2006, coached by Anne Donovan. She was a WNBA All Star again in 2006, and was named to the 2006 All-WNBA First Team. In 2006, she was named to the WNBA All-Decade Team. Jackson of this said "That was cool. It was brilliant to be recognised like that in America. It's a tough, emotionally draining lifestyle there but it's fun." She ranked first in the league with the number of free throws with 170.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: This season, she averaged 19.5 points per game, she played in 30 games, averaging 28.4 minutes per game. She averaged 1.7 blocks per game. She made 193 field goals and ranked seventh in the league. She ranked second in the league with a field goal percentage of 53.5% She had a player efficiency of 34.9, and ranked first in the league in that category that season.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: She ranked first in the league with a true shooting percentage of 65.8%. In effective field goal percentage, she finished first in the league with 57.5%. She ranked first in the league in the offensive rating category with 135.3. She ranked first in the league for offensive win shares with 7.4. She ranked first in the league for win shares with 8.8. She ranked first in the league with win share per 48 minutes with 50.0%. At the end of the season, she had stress fractures in both of her shins, and her team exited the post season before making it to the league championship series.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson was a WNBA All Star for the sixth time in 2007. On 24 July 2007, she scored 47 points in a game against Washington and set a league high single game scoring total that she currently shares. In 2007, she was named the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year. She was also named to the 2007 All-WNBA First Team. She averaged 23.8 points per game, the most points she had averaged per game for a season in the WNBA. She was also named the league's Most Valuable Player. In voting, she received 473 points, with her nearest vote-getting competitor, Becky Hammon, getting only 254. In 2007, she became the first WNBA player to score 4,000 total points the youngest player, as well as the fastest woman to reach the milestone; being named the league MVP gave her a $18,238 bonus and a Tiffany & Co. designed trophy.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson played in 31 games in 2007. She averaged 32.9 minutes per game. Her field goal percentage was 51.9%. She averaged 22.4 points, 2.16 blocks, and 9.3 rebounds per game at the time of the All-Star Break, leading the league in points and blocks, and was second for rebounds. At the All-Star break, she had a three-point shooting percentage of 40.5%. At the end of the season, she expressed an interest in ending her WNBA career with the Storm as she could not see herself playing elsewhere. Her three-point field goal percentage was 40.2%. She had a free throw shooting percentage of 88.3%. She averaged 2.0 blocks per game. She made 258 field goals, ranking second in the league in this category. She ranked third in the league with 497 field goal attempts. She ranked third in the league, with a field goal percentage of 51.9%. She ranked first in the league in defensive rebounds, with 220, for total rebounds, with 300, and for total average number of rebounds per game, with 9.7.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson had a player efficiency rating of 35.0, ranking first in the league in this category this season. She ranked first in the league with a true shooting percentage of 63.3%. In effective field goal percentage, she finished first in the league, with 56.8%. She was also ranked first in the league for turnover percentage, with 8.8, for her offensive rating category of 127.7, for offensive win shares with 7.9, win shares with 9.5, and win share per 48 minutes with 44.6%. In all, she finished the season ranked in the top ten players in no less than twenty-eight different statistical categories.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In 2008, Jackson averaged 20.2 points per game. In July 2008, she scored 33 points for the Seattle Storm in an 84–71 win against Washington. This was her season-high scoring high. On the same day she was officially named to the 2008 Australian Olympic squad, and the Seattle Storm went out of the post season in the first round. In 2008, she played in 21 games. She averaged 33.1 minutes per game. Her field goal percentage was 45.2%, and her three-point field goal percentage was 29.5%. She had a free throw shooting percentage of 93.4%, averaged 1.6 blocks per game, and had a player efficiency of 26.7, ranking third in the league in this category this season.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In 2009, Jackson became a WNBA All Star for the seventh time and was named to the 2009 All-WNBA First Team. This season, she averaged 19.4 points per game. She played in 26 games, in which she averaged 32.3 minutes per game. Her field goal percentage was 46.3%. Her three-point field goal percentage was 43.0%, she had a free throw shooting percentage of 79.7%, and her three-point field goal shooting percentage was 43.0%, ranking fifth in the league. Her player efficiency was 26.1, the highest efficiency of any player that season, and her win share of 33.3% per 48 minutes was the highest also.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson played for the WNBA All-Stars at the Stars at the Sun game in 2010, and her Seattle Storm team won the WNBA Championship. She was named to the 2010 All-WNBA First Team. This season, she averaged 20.5 points per game. On 2 September 2010, Jackson was presented her third MVP Award at the Seattle Storm's Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against the Phoenix Mercury. On 17 September 2010, the Storm beat the Atlanta Dream to win the WNBA championship for the second time. Jackson was named the finals MVP. In 2011, she was voted in by fans as one of the Top 15 players in the fifteen-year history of the WNBA.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson played in 32 games. She averaged 31.0 minutes per game, with a field goal percentage of 46.2%, and a three-point field goal percentage of 34.6%. She had a free throw shooting percentage of 91.0%, She made 220 field goals, ranking sixth in the league, and ranked fifth in the league with 476 field goal attempts. She attempted 156 three-point field goals this season, ranking eighth in the league. She had a player efficiency of 27.9, ranking first in the league in this category this season. She also ranked first in the league in the offensive rating category with 126.3, for offensive win shares with 6.1, for win shares with 8.3, and for win share per 48 minutes with 40.0%. In the locker room, Jackson would talk to her teammates about topics like women's rights and Lady Gaga.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: In 2011, Jackson had to deal with a number of injuries that kept her out for most of the season. She injured her hip in a game against the Tulsa Shock, and had surgery for it on 30 June. That season, she played in only 13 games. She missed 20 games in a season that is 34 games long. After she came back from her surgery, her team won 8 out of her first 9 games. She averaged 24.9 minutes per game. Her field goal percentage was 39.6%, her three-point field goal percentage was 31.1%, and had a free throw shooting percentage of 88.4%. In June 2011, she signed a three-year contract with the team.


title: Lauren Jackson

text: Jackson opted to sit out the early part of the 2012 season as she wanted to concentrate on making the national team and competing in the Olympics. She returned in September and helped the Storm in two blowout wins against the Tulsa Shock, but then an injury sustained during the Olympic preparations sidelined Jackson for three games. Upon her return on 21 September, Jackson became the fourth WNBA player to reach 6,000 points. Jackson wound up playing just 167 minutes on the regular season. The Storm saw an early playoff exit in their series against the Minnesota Lynx, with Jackson attempting a buzzer beater in the third game but falling short. This turned out to be Jackson's final game in the WNBA.