title: Mobbing

text: From an organizational perspective, it has been suggested that mobbing behavior can be curtailed by acknowledging behaviors as mobbing behaviors and that such behaviors result in harm and/or negative consequences. Precise definitions of such traits are critical due to ambiguity of unacceptable and acceptable behaviors potentially leading to unintentional mobbing behavior. Attenuation of mobbing behavior can further be enhanced by developing policies that explicitly address specific behaviors that are culturally accepted to result in harm or negative affect. This provides a framework from which mobbing victims can respond to mobbing. Lack of such a framework may result in a situation where each instance of mobbing is treated on an individual basis with no recourse of prevention. It may also indicate that such behaviors are warranted and within the realm of acceptable behavior within an organization. Direct responses to grievances related to mobbing that are handled outside of a courtroom and training programs outlining antibully-countermeasures also demonstrate a reduction in mobbing behavior.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (; 8 September 685 – 3 May 762), personal name Li Longji, was the seventh emperor of the Tang dynasty in China, reigning from 712 to 756 CE. His reign of 44 years was the longest during the Tang dynasty. In the early half of his reign he was a diligent and astute ruler. Ably assisted by capable chancellors like Yao Chong, Song Jing and Zhang Yue, he was credited with bringing the Tang dynasty to a pinnacle of culture and power. Emperor Xuanzong, however, because of his interest in his two beloved concubines who were involved in governmental matters (Consort Wu and later with her death; was succeeded by Yang Guifei) and was blamed for over-trusting Li Linfu, Yang Guozhong and An Lushan during his late reign, with Tang's golden age ending in the An Lushan Rebellion.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Li Longji was born at the Tang dynasty eastern capital Luoyang in 685, during the first reign of his father Emperor Ruizong (Li Dan) – but at that time, Emperor Ruizong's mother Empress Dowager Wu (later known as Wu Zetian), not Emperor Ruizong, was in actual control of power as empress dowager and regent. Li Longji was the third son of Emperor Ruizong, and his mother was Emperor Ruizong's concubine Consort Dou, who was highly ranked. In 687, as the emperor's son, he was created the Prince of Chu. It was said that he was handsome as a child, and was talented in music. He had two older brothers – Li Chengqi, born of Emperor Ruizong's wife Empress Liu, and Li Chengyi (), as well as three younger brothers – Li Longfan (), Li Longye (), and Li Longti (). He had two full younger sisters, Princess Jinxian () and Princess Yuzhen (), who later became Taoist nuns.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 690, Empress Dowager Wu had her son Emperor Ruizong yield the throne to her, and she took the throne as empress regnant of a new Zhou dynasty, interrupting Tang. She imposed upon Ruizong and his family the surname Wu () to match hers. In 692, Li Longji and his brothers were allowed to have residences outside the palace and were given staffs at their mansions. In 693, both his mother Consort Dou and Li Dan's wife Crown Princess Liu (Li Dan's having been reduced to crown prince rank at that point) were killed by Wu Zetian inside the palace after Wu Zetian's lady-in-waiting Wei Tuan'er () falsely accused them of using witchcraft against Wu Zetian – and not even their bodies were recovered. Subsequently, all of Li Dan's sons were reduced in title, and Li Longji's title was reduced to Prince of Linzi. He and his brothers, along with their cousins Li Guangshun () the Prince of Yifeng, Li Shouli the Prince of Yong, and Li Shouyi () the Prince of Yong'an (the sons of their uncle Li Xián, formerly crown prince but who had been forced by Wu Zetian to commit suicide in 684), were kept inside the palace and not allowed to have contact with outsiders until 699, when they were allowed to leave the palace and take up residences outside.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 705, Wu Zetian was overthrown in a coup, and Li Longji's uncle Li Xiǎn (note different person than the father of Li Guangshun, Li Shouli, and Li Shouyi), who was at that time crown prince (Li Dan having yielded that title to him in 698 and taken the title of Prince of Xiang), who had been briefly emperor prior to Li Dan, returned to the throne (as Emperor Zhongzong). Li Longji was made the deputy minister of military supplies (衛尉少卿, "Weiwei Shaoqing"). In 708, he was made the secretary general of Lu Prefecture (潞州, roughly modern Changzhi, Shanxi). In 710, he was recalled to the capital Chang'an to attend to Emperor Zhongzong when Emperor Zhongzong was sacrificing to heaven and earth. Meanwhile, sorcerers engaged by Emperor Zhongzong believed that there was an aura of an emperor at the area of Chang'an where the mansions Li Longji and his uncles were, and Emperor Zhongzong tried to fulfill the vision by visiting Li Longji's mansion and attending a feast there. While Li Longji was back in Chang'an, he spent time to cultivate relationships with imperial guard commanders, as he believed that Emperor Zhongzong's powerful and sly wife Empress Wei, who was in charge of government affairs, would bring harm to the Tang dynasty.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In summer 710, Emperor Zhongzong died suddenly—a death that traditional historians believed to be a poisoning by Empress Wei and her daughter Li Guo'er the Princess Anle so that Empress Wei could become "emperor" like Wu Zetian and Li Guo'er could become crown princess. For the time being, Emperor Zhongzong's son by a concubine, Li Chongmao the Prince of Wen, was named emperor (as Emperor Shang), but Empress Wei retained actual power as empress dowager and regent. Originally, Empress Dowager Wei's clan members, along with Zong, Li Guo'er's husband Wu Yanxiu, and other officials Zhao Lüwen () and Ye Jingneng () were advising her to take the throne, like Wu Zetian did, and they also advised her to eliminate Li Dan and Princess Taiping. The official Cui Riyong leaked their plan to Li Longji. Li Longji responded by conspiring with Princess Taiping, Princess Taiping's son Xue Chongjian (), as well as several low-level officials close to him—Zhong Shaojing, Wang Chongye (), Liu Youqiu, and Ma Sizong ()—to act first. Meanwhile, Empress Wei's nephews Wei Bo () and Gao Song (), who had recently been put in command of imperial guards and who had tried to establish their authority by dealing with the guards harshly, had alienated the guards, and the guard officers Ge Fushun (), Chen Xuanli (), and Li Xianfu () thereafter also joined the plot.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Without first informing Li Dan, the conspirators rose on 21 July, first killing Wei Bo, Gao, and Empress Wei's cousin Wei Gui (). They then attacked the palace. When Empress Dowager Wei panicked and fled to an imperial guard camp, a guard beheaded her. Li Guo'er, Wu Yanxiu, and Lady Helou were killed as well. Li Longji soon slaughtered a number of officials in Empress Dowager's faction as well as her clan, while displaying Empress Dowager Wei's body on the street. At the urging of Princess Taiping, Li Longji, and Li Longji's brother Li Chengqi, Li Dan soon took the throne from Li Chongmao and again became emperor (as Emperor Ruizong).


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Emperor Ruizong once again ascended to the throne, which is different from the first time he was a puppet. This time he truly mastered the power and quickly used it handily. Emperor Ruizong was immediately faced with the issue of whom to make crown prince—as Li Chengqi, as the oldest son overall and the oldest son of his wife, was the appropriate heir under Confucian principles of succession, but Li Longji had been the one whose accomplishments had allowed him to retake the throne. He hesitated. Li Chengqi declined consideration to be crown prince—stating to his father:


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Li Chengqi wept and begged to yield for several days, and after further persuasion by the chancellor Liu Youqiu—who had been part of Li Longji's coup plans—Emperor Ruizong agreed and created Li Longji crown prince. Li Longji submitted a petition offering to yield to Li Chengqi, but Emperor Ruizong rejected it. After he came to the throne, whenever the chancellors and officials discussed political affairs with him, the first sentence he asked was: "Have you ever discussed with Princess Taiping? "If the answer is yes, he will continue to ask: "Have you ever discussed with Li Longji?" If both people have clear opinions, he will make a decision based on this, as a result, he relies heavily on Princess Taiping and Li Longji. Because of his achievements, having the crown prince title and the emperor's trust, Li Longji was active and powerful in the politics of Emperor Ruizong's reign, but, also, whenever Emperor Ruizong called a court meeting, Princess Taiping would listen to the courtiers' conversations with the emperor about the government behind a pearl curtain and had the government under her hands.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Under her ample reputation in the previous reigns, her great achievements in two coups, the trust of Emperor Ruizong's, the vast privileges, attention, independence and wealth that Emperor Ruizong bestowed on her, and having countless allies, Princess Taiping has decision-making power on many serious events in the court and the country matters and was so powerful that she even surpassed Emperor Ruizong. She can often decide the promotion or demotion, deportation or summons of officials with a single sentence, and if the subject is undecided, it is changed or determined by a sentence from her, so most chancellors, forbidden troops, civil and military officials, regional warlords and senior servants of the Imperial palace were her associates. Initially, Princess Taiping agreed to Li Longji's ascension as crown prince despite the fact that Li Longji was not Emperor Ruizong's oldest son and was not born of Emperor Ruizong's wife Empress Liu (Li Chengqi was both—and therefore pursuant to Confucian principles of succession should have been crown prince) as she believed that Li Longji was young (25 at the time he was made crown prince) and would be easy to control. However, once she began to see that Li Longji was strong-willed and criticizes her influences, she became apprehensive and often had officials close to her publicly opine that Li Longji was an improper crown prince. She even spread rumors throughout the empire and tried to cause discontent among the common people, saying: Li Longji is not the eldest son of the emperor, so he should not become the crown prince. She further often paid Li Longji's staff members to spy on him to try to find faults with him. She associated with a group of officials, including the chancellors Dou Huaizhen, Xiao Zhizhong, and Cen Xi, intending to find some way to remove Li Longji, but was unable to get two other chancellors—Wei Anshi and Song Jing—to join her group. When Princess Taiping tried to depose Li Longji in two actions, one with Emperor Ruizong himself and another time by summoning the chancellors at Xuanwu Gate and publicly accusing Li Longji of treason or incompetence, but it did not achieve the desired result.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 711, Song and another chancellor, Yao Yuanzhi, tried to persuade Emperor Ruizong to carry out a plan that they believed would end her plotting and influence. They proposed that the two princes who arguably had superior claims on the throne than Li Longji—Li Chengqi and Li Shouli (whose father Li Xian (note different character than Emperor Zhongzong) was an older brother to both Emperors Zhongzong and Ruizong)—be sent out of the capital Chang'an to serve as prefectural prefects, while Princess Taiping and Wu Youji be sent to live in Luoyang. They also proposed that Li Longji be put in charge of most affairs of state. Emperor Ruizong initially agreed and made the orders as Song and Yao suggested, except that he believed that Luoyang was too far and therefore sent Princess Taiping and Wu Youji only to Pu Prefecture (蒲州, roughly modern Yuncheng, Shanxi). After Princess Taiping found out that the plan was conceived by Song and Yao, however, she was incensed and let Li Longji know her anger, and she mobilized her group to attack Song and Yao and oppose Emperor Ruizong's decision. In fear, Li Longji submitted a petition accusing Song and Yao of alienating him from his brothers Li Chengqi and Li Shouli (who was actually a cousin but was raised with Emperor Ruizong's sons) and aunt Princess Taiping, asking that the two be put to death. Emperor Ruizong, in response, demoted Song and Yao and recalled Princess Taiping, Li Chengqi, and Li Shouli to the capital. In the aftermaths, Li Longji submitted another request to yield the crown prince position to Li Chengqi, but Emperor Ruizong declined it. Also in 711, Emperor Ruizong posthumously honored both Empress Liu and Li Longji's mother Consort Dou as empresses and built a temple for them to be worshipped, but was unable to locate their bodies for reburial, and therefore had to give them a ceremonial reburial without the bodies. But this posthumous honor for Li Longji's mother further displeased Princess Taiping. Emperor Ruizong also ordered that all minor matters be decided by Li Longji, and with this, Emperor Ruizong established Li Longji as his sole successor, but diverted his participation in important matters and focused more on the advice of his sister, Princess Taiping.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: By winter 711 Princess Taiping had become even more powerful than before. Because of her recommendations, Emperor Ruizong carried out a major reorganization of his administration, relieving the chancellors Wei, Guo Yuanzhen, Dou, Li Rizhi, and Zhang Yue of their chancellor positions, instead commissioning a number of chancellors that she recommended — Liu Youqiu, Wei Zhigu, Cui Shi, and Lu Xiangxian. (Cui was a lover of Princess Taiping, and when she offered to recommend him as chancellor, because he admired Lu, he requested to be made chancellor along with Lu, even though Lu was not an associate of Princess Taiping. It was said that Emperor Ruizong, however, was initially unwilling to make Cui chancellor, but relented after Princess Taiping begged in tears, although the account may be somewhat discountable in that neither Liu nor Wei was an associate of Princess Taiping either, and both were close associates of Li Longji.)


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 712, Princess Taiping had astrologers warn Emperor Ruizong that the constellation that symbolized the imperial throne, "Dizuo" (), showed that there would be a change in the emperor's position—believing that Emperor Ruizong would suspect Li Longji of plotting a coup and that she could remove Li Longji this way. Instead, Emperor Ruizong, reasoning that the change in the emperor's position could be accounted by an orderly transition, offered to pass the throne to Li Longji. Princess Taiping fervently opposed it, and Li Longji initially declined, but at Emperor Ruizong's insistence finally accepted and took the throne on 8 September (as Emperor Xuanzong). However, at Princess Taiping's suggestion, Emperor Ruizong retained much of the imperial power as "Taishang Huang" (retired emperor), and his edicts continued to carry greater force than Emperor Xuanzong's.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Emperor Xuanzong made his wife Crown Princess Wang empress. Meanwhile, Princess Taiping continued to be listening to politics with curtains in the court, highly extremely influential in governmental matters through Emperor Ruizong, the group of chancellors openly frequented her house and most chancellors, forbidden troops, officials and warlords were her associates. (Of the seven chancellors at the time, five – Dou Huaizhen, Xiao Zhizhong, Cen Xi, Cui Shi, and Lu Xiangxian – were made chancellors at her recommendation, although Lu was not considered a member of her party.) As a result, the war between her and him continued more seriously. Liu Youqiu and the general Zhang Wei (), with Emperor Xuanzong's approval, planned to mobilize the imperial guards to kill several of those chancellors – Dou Huaizhen, Cui Shi and Cen Xi. However, after Zhang told the plan to the imperial censor Deng Guangbin (), the news was leaked. At the request of Princess Taiping's, Emperor Ruizong issued an order to arrested Liu, and initially set to be executed. But Emperor Xuanzong interceded on his behalf with Emperor Ruizong, and Liu, Zhang, and Deng were spared but exiled.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Later in 712, in one of Princess Taiping's plans to oust him, at her request, Emperor Ruizong decreed that Emperor Xuanzong lead a group of soldiers to examine the northern border. However, the group of conscripted soldiers was disbanded in spring 713, and the plan was never carried out.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: By summer 713, it was said that Princess Taiping, Dou, Cen, Xiao, Cui; along with other officials Xue Ji, Li Jin () the Prince of Xinxing (a grandson of Li Deliang (), a cousin of Tang's founder Emperor Gaozu), Li You (), Jia Yingfu (), Tang Jun (); the generals Chang Yuankai (), Li Ci (), and Li Qin (); and the monk Huifan, were plotting to overthrow Emperor Xuanzong. It was further said that they discussed, with the lady-in-waiting Lady Yuan, to poison the "gastrodia elata" that Emperor Xuanzong routinely took as an aphrodisiac. When this alleged plot was reported to Emperor Xuanzong by Wei Zhigu, Emperor Xuanzong, who had already received advice from Wang Ju (), Zhang Shuo, and Cui Riyong to act first, did so. He convened a meeting with his brothers Li Longfan the Prince of Qi and Li Longye the Prince of Xue (who had changed their names to Li Fan and Li Ye by this point to observe naming taboo for Emperor Xuanzong), Guo Yuanzhen, along with a number of his associates — the general Wang Maozhong (), the officials Jiang Jiao () and Li Lingwen (), his brother-in-law Wang Shouyi (), the eunuch Gao Lishi, and the military officer Li Shoude ()—and decided to act first. On 29 July, Emperor Xuanzong had Wang Maozhong take 300 soldiers to the imperial guard camp to behead Chang and Li Ci. Then, Jia, Li You, Xiao, and Cen were arrested and executed as well. Dou fled into a canyon and committed suicide by hanging. Xue Ji was forced to commit suicide. When Emperor Ruizong heard about this, he quickly ascended the tower at Chengtian Gate () to ascertain what was happening. Guo reported to him Emperor Xuanzong's intentions, and Emperor Ruizong felt compelled to affirm Emperor Xuanzong's actions in an edict. The next day, on July 30, Emperor Ruizong issued an edict transferring all authorities to Emperor Xuanzong. Meanwhile, Princess Taiping, hearing what happened to her associates, fled into a temple in the mountains, only appearing three days later. Emperor Ruizong asked Emperor Xuanzong for her pardon, but he refused. Emperor Xuanzong ordered her to commit suicide at home, and put to death her sons and associates, except for Xue Chongjian. Princess Taiping's assets were confiscated, and it was said that there was so much treasure, livestock, and real estate that it took several years: more than thirty years for the accounting to be complete. Emperor Ruizong moved to a secondary palace, Baifu Hall () and would remain there until his death in 716.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Emperor Xuanzong's "Kaiyuan" era is usually viewed as one of the golden ages of Chinese history – a period of political stability, peace in society, and economic prosperity, in addition to advances in education, literature, music, painting, sculpture, and religion.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, Zhang Yue and Liu Youqiu served as chancellors, but they were soon displaced by Yao Yuanzhi (who then changed his name to Yao Chong) and Lu Huaishen. Changing the system of having a large group of chancellors simultaneous, as had been the case throughout Tang, Emperor Xuanzong reduced the numbers to two (or sometimes three) for the rest of his reign. Yao was considered a highly capable administrator, and with him ruling on most important matters and Lu assisting, the government was said to be highly efficient.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 714, Emperor Xuanzong carried out a series of political reprisals against the cruel secret police officials of Wu Zetian's reign, exiling the ones that were still alive and eventually barring their descendants from holding political offices. At the urging of Jiang Jiao's brother Jiang Hui (), he also exiled a number of chancellors – Wei Sili, Wei Anshi, Zhao Yanzhao, and Li Jiao – from Emperor Zhongzong's reign whom Jiang accused of being unable to curb Empress Wei's abuse of power.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Also in 714, Emperor Xuanzong, wanting to punish the Khitan and the Xi for having defeated Tang forces during Emperor Zhongzong's reign, commissioned the general Xue Ne to attack them, but Xue suffered another devastating loss to them, at the casualty rate of 80–90%. However, later in the year, when the Tibetan Empire attacked, Emperor Xuanzong again commissioned Xue to defend against the attack, and Xue was able to repel the Tibetan forces. Subsequently, though, although both sides tried to invoke the marriage between Li Shouli's daughter Princess Jincheng and Me Agtsom, emperor of the Tibetan Empire, in seeking peace, the two sides could not reach an agreement and remained in border conflict yearly. In response, Emperor Xuanzong established the office of "jiedushi" (military governor) of Longyou Circuit (, headquartered in what is now Haidong, Qinghai), with a centralized command of 12 prefectures under a single military general. Eventually, the establishment of "jiedushi" would be extended to other parts of the empire.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Also in 714, Emperor Xuanzong created Li Siqian, his second son and the son of his then-favorite concubine Consort Zhao, crown prince. (Emperor Xuanzong's wife Empress Wang was sonless.)


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, the Tang relationship with Qapaghan Qaghan of the Göktürks had fluctuated during the first few years of the "Kaiyuan" era, as minor hostilities occurred at the borders as well as contests over vassals' loyalty for the two states, but they were also at times friendly to each other, with Qapaghan requesting at times to marry a Tang princess and Emperor Xuanzong agreeing to the proposal. In 716, however, Qapaghan was killed in battle against the Bayegu (), and from that point on, lacking his efficient leadership, the Göktürks, while remaining an important regional power, posed much less of a threat to China, although at times still capable of dealing serious defeats to Tang forces, as was the case in 720 when the Göktürk general Tonyukuk defeated the Tang garrison at Liang Prefecture (涼州, roughly modern Wuwei, Gansu) and the Tang vassal Basmyl. Meanwhile, Tang, the Tibetan Empire, and the Umayyad Caliphate were constantly engaging in a three-way tug of war for influence in the Xiyu (i.e., modern Xinjiang and former Soviet Central Asia) region. In 715, for example, when the king of Bahanna () was expelled by a new king supported by the Tibetan Empire and the Umayyad Caliphate, Tang forces commanded by the general () attacked the new king and restored the old king. General Tang Jiahui led the Chinese to defeat the following Arab-Tibetan attack in the Battle of Aksu (717). The attack on Aksu was joined by Turgesh Khan Suluk. Both Uch Turfan and Aksu were attacked by the Turgesh, Arab, and Tibetan force on 15 August 717. Qarluqs serving under Chinese command, under Arsila Xian, a Western Turkic Qaghan serving under the Chinese Assistant Grand Protector General Tang Jiahui defeated the attack. Al-Yashkuri, the Arab commander and his army fled to Tashkent after they were defeated.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In and around 716, there was a major locust infestation in the central China region. At Yao's suggestion, Emperor Xuanzong ordered an extensive campaign of extermination, which was said to reduce the impact of the infestation and ward off a major famine. Later in 716, however, due a corruption scandal involving Yao's sons and his associate Zhao Hui (), Yao incurred displeasure from Emperor Xuanzong and offered to resign. He and Yuan Qianyao, who replaced Lu after Lu's death earlier in 716, were removed from their offices and replaced with Song Jing and Su Ting, with Song making more of the important decisions and Su assisting. Yao would not return to the chancellorship, but would remain influential as a key advisor for Emperor Xuanzong until Yao's death in 721. Contrary to the practical and flexible Yao, Song was more interested in emphasizing integrity and rule of law in governance, and it was said that while Yao's and Song's emphases were different, they were both regarded as instrumental in establishing the rule of "Kaiyuan" and that subsequent chancellors could not compare to them.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, Song and Su had carried out a stern campaign against the use of coins that were not officially forged by the government, which brought popular resentment that Emperor Xuanzong found problematic. In 720, he removed Song and Su from chancellor offices and replaced them with Yuan and Zhang Jiazhen, and in 721 added Zhang Yue as a chancellor as well.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, by 722, Empress Wang, who had contributed to Emperor Xuanzong's reign by providing suggestions, had begun to lose favor to Consort Wu, a great-grandniece of Emperor Xuanzong's grandmother Wu Zetian. Emperor Xuanzong secretly discussed with Jiang Jiao the possibility of deposing her, but Jiang Jiao careless leaked the discussion. At the urging of Zhang Jiazhen, who was friendly with Empress Wang's brother Wang Shouyi (), advocated that Jiang Jiao be punished and exiled, and Jiang died in exile.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, at Zhang Yue's suggestion, the Tang northern border defense forces, which had about 600,000 men at that time, was reduced by 200,000 men to allow the soldiers to return home. Further, seeing that the Tang conscription system, due to abuses against the soldiers at the time, was near a collapse, as the soldiers were forced into long tours of duty but their families were not exempt from taxes, thus causing great numbers of desertions, Zhang suggested a switch to a recruitment-based system where soldiers were paid salaries. This allowed, for a time, Tang's soldier supply to be replenished. (Some later historians condemned Zhang for the abolition of the conscription system, believing the abolition to be the root of Tang's later fracturing, but some others, such as the modern historian Bo Yang, argued that Zhang's actions not only were necessary to restore the supply of soldiers but saved many lives.)


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 723, Zhang Jiazhen was demoted on account of a corruption scandal involving his brother Zhang Jiayou (). His position was filled by Wang Jun, who was soon himself demoted over suspicions, never proven, that he was plotting treason. With Zhang Yue thus effectively being the senior chancellor, Zhang Yue promoted literary studies, which Emperor Xuanzong also favored. In 724, he also commissioned the chief imperial astronomer Nangong Shuo () to carry out a major astronomical survey to observe the sun and the North Star at various points of the empire.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Also in 724, it was discovered that Wang Shouyi had engaged sorcerers to make amulets for Empress Wang to wear, hoping that the use of magic would allow her to have a son. Empress Wang was deposed and reduced to commoner rank, while Wang Shouyi was exiled and subsequently ordered to commit suicide in exile. Empress Wang died later in the year, and it was said that the eunuchs and the ladies in waiting mourned her bitterly and Emperor Xuanzong much regretted his treatment of her. Still, after Empress Wang's removal and death, Consort Wu became undisputed mistress of the palace and was treated inside the palace like an empress would be. Still, in 726, when Emperor Xuanzong considered creating her empress, he encountered oppositions from officials on two grounds – that her Wu clan was hated by the people and that as she had her own sons, the position of Li Siqian the Crown Prince (whose name had been changed to Li Hong by this point) would be threatened. As a result, Emperor Xuanzong never created her empress. But Consort Wu's was a chief favorite of the emperor and undisputed mistress of the palace until her death and had political power.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In winter 725, Emperor Xuanzong, at Zhang Yue's urging, carried out a magnificent ceremony at Mount Tai to offer sacrifices to heaven and earth.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 726, Zhang Yue was accused of corruption by several officials that he had blocked the advances of – Cui Yinfu (), Yuwen Rong, and Li Linfu – and was found to have committed corruption. At the intercession of Gao Lishi, however, Zhang Yue was removed only from his chancellor post and permitted to maintain his title and a number of other posts. He was replaced by Li Yuanhong, and subsequently, Du Xian was also added as a chancellor.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 727, at the suggestion of the general Wang Junchuo (王君㚟), Emperor Xuanzong commissioned Wang Junchuo to attack the Tibetan Empire, and after a Tibetan incursion in late 726, Wang counterattacked and inflicted losses on Tibetan forces commanded by the general Xinuoluogonglu (). Later in the year, though, Xinuoluogonglu and another general, Zhulongmangbuzhi () attacked and captured Wang's home prefecture Gua Prefecture (瓜州, roughly modern Jiuquan, Gansu), taking Wang's father Wang Shou () captive. As a result, Wang Junchuo did not dare to counterattack, and subsequently blamed the defeat on a number of tribal chiefs in the area and had them exiles. In response, Yaoluoge Hushu (), the nephew of one of the chiefs so exiled, Yaoluoge Chengzong (), ambushed Wang Junchuo and killed him, and while Yaoluoge Hushu was forced to flee thereafter, for several years Tang did not engage in any offensive campaigns in the region.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Around the same time, Emperor Xuanzong began to build a residential complex in the palace for imperial clan members, known as the Mansion of the Ten Princes (), to centralize their residence. Thereafter, imperial princes, including the crown prince, would rarely live outside the palace complex.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 728, Emperor Xuanzong added the general Xiao Song as a chancellor. Subsequently, in 729, with Yuan, even though he was senior chancellor, unable to curb the disputes between Li Yuanhong and Du, Emperor Xuanzong removed all three from chancellor positions, promoting Yuwen and Pei Guangting to be chancellors in their stead – in Yuwen's case, for his abilities to find ways to add to the imperial treasury by imposing special taxes and levies. Later in the year, though, Yuwen made false accusations against the general Li Hui () the Prince of Xin'an (Emperor Xuanzong's second cousin) and was exiled, and subsequently died in exile. Still, it was said that it was starting from Yuwen's times that Emperor Xuanzong began to pay attention on taxes to replenish the imperial treasury, which traditional historians viewed as the start of his inflicting financial burdens on the people. Further, with Pei in charge of the civil service system, it was said that due to Pei's strict adherence to seniority, the Tang civil service system began to lose its ability to find talented people to serve in offices.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 730, the Khitan general Ketugan () killed the king Li Shaogu () and took over the reign of the Khitan and the Xi personally, forcing the king of the Xi, Li Lusu () to flee to Tang for protection. Tang sent an army to attack the Khitan, but meanwhile made peace with the Tibetan Empire. Initially, the campaign against the Khitan did not succeed, but in 732, with Li Hui in command, Tang forces dealt Ketugan a serious defeat and causing many of Ketugan's subordinates to defect and submit to Tang, although Ketugan was not captured.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, Tang also began to have periodic conflicts with Balhae, and in 733 Emperor Xuanzong tried to commission Dae Mun-ye (), the brother of Balhae's King Mu, to attack Balhae, along with forces from Silla, but the attack was not successful.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Also in 733, Pei Guangting died, and at the recommendation of Xiao Song, he was replaced with Han Xiu, but soon, Song and Han were in repeated conflicts, and late in 733, both were removed and replaced with Pei Yaoqing, who became known for improving the food distribution system, and Zhang Jiuling, known for his integrity. In 734, Emperor Xuanzong added Li Linfu, a close associate of Consort Wu, as a chancellor as well.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Around the new year 735, Ketuhan was killed in an internal Khitan power struggle, and Khitan became a vassal again, although it would not stay so permanently.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: By 736, Emperor Xuanzong was described as having been tired of important affairs of state and beginning to become wasteful and exuberant in his lifestyle. Zhang tried to curb his behavior but thus began to lose favor, while Li Linfu was gaining power due to his association with Consort Wu. Further, Zhang supported Li Hong (whose name had been changed to Li Ying by this point), while Li Linfu and Consort Wu supported her son Li Mao () the Prince of Shou and tried to have Li Mao made crown prince. In 736, due to Li Linfu's machinations that made Emperor Xuanzong believed that Zhang and Pei Yaoqing were improperly engaging in factionalism, Zhang and Pei Yaoqing were removed and replaced by Niu Xianke, who closely followed Li Linfu's will, and thereafter, Li Linfu would dominate the imperial government almost to the end of Emperor Xuanzong's reign. Li Linfu did all he could to stay in power, and carried out many dirty tricks against actual or potential threats to his power. He also severely discouraged criticism, ending the relative freedom that officials had to make proposals to Emperor Xuanzong. This was often viewed by traditional historians as the turning point of Emperor Xuanzong's reign, which up to that point was considered a golden age in Chinese history, toward a path of degeneration. The Song dynasty historian Sima Guang, in his "Zizhi Tongjian", for example, commented:


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 737, with Zhang no longer in the government to protect him, Li Ying was deposed and subsequently forced to commit suicide. However, with Consort Wu dying later in the year, Emperor Xuanzong did not immediately accept Li Linfu's proposal to have Li Mao made crown prince. Rather, he chose an older son, Li Yu the Prince of Zhong, in 738.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Historians said that Emperor Xuanzong forced tens of thousands of beautiful women to live in his palace to please him, more than many other Tang emperors. And he did not allow many to be set free even when they were old. As Emperor Xuanzong turned his attention to pleasure-seeking with his favorite concubine Yang Guifei and her family, he paid less and less attention to the running of his empire, and much of his power fell into the hands of the corrupt Li Linfu (who was succeeded by Lady Yang's dissolute cousin Yang Guozhong) and the eunuch Gao Lishi.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: At the same time, 751 saw the loss of the Battle of Talas against the Abbasid Caliphate. As a consequence, the Tang dynasty temporarily lost some of its influence in Central Asia to the emerging Abbasid Caliphate, as several Tang tributaries turned to the Abbasids.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, the "jiedushi" (military governors), most of whom were non-Han took more and more regional power into their own hands. Some successful generals included Geshu Han, known for victories over the Tibetan Empire; Gao Xianzhi, who conquered city states of the Xiyu region, eventually battling the Abbasids at Talas; and An Lushan who defeated and once again vassalized the Khitan. Eventually, in 755, An Lushan started the Anshi Rebellion at Fanyang. The rebels quickly seized the eastern capital Luoyang, and then the imperial capital Chang'an six months later. Emperor Xuanzong fled to Sichuan during the war and abdicated the throne to Li Yu (whose name had been changed to Li Heng at that point) (as Emperor Suzong).


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, at Li Linfu's encouragement, Emperor Xuanzong began to promote non-Han generals to command large border armies, believing Li Linfu's assertion that non-Han generals were more likely to be personally loyal to Emperor Xuanzong himself and would not have clan entanglements, even though Li Linfu's own personal motivation was to prevent Han officials from going through the border command route to become chancellors, thus threatening him. Such generals who rose in ranks included An Lushan, An Sishun, Geshu Han, and Gao Xianzhi. By 742, the main Tang forces were all concentrated on the border, at nine different military circuits and one special military district (Lingnan), as well as three special coast defense districts (Changle, Donglai, and Dongmou):


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, it was said that Emperor Xuanzong had paid less attention to increasing revenues after Yuwen Rong's fall, but by 742 he was again interested in doing so, and such officials as Wei Jian (韋堅, a brother-in-law of Li Yu, whose name was changed by this point to Li Heng), Wang Hong (), and Yang Shenjin () became favored, and often, matters having to do with finances were stripped out of other officials' responsibilities and given to them as special commissions.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 744, Eastern Tujue, after a series of internal turmoil and rebellions from its vassals, finally collapsed. Its vassal Huige rose and became the dominant power of the region, but formally submitted to Tang as a vassal.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, after Consort Wu's death, Emperor Xuanzong had been depressed. When he saw his son Prince of Shou Li Mao's wife (his daughter-in-law) Yang Yuhuan (Princess of Shou, by virtue of marriage), he was infatuated with her, and he had her become a Taoist nun and gave Li Mao the wife of the general Wei Zhaoxun () as his new wife and princess. Meanwhile, he secretly took the nun, Yang, into the palace. She became his senior-ranking concubine ("guifei"), known as Yang Guifei, and soon became so powerful that officials were bribing her family members to get preferential treatment. She was referred to inside the palace as "the Lady" and treated like an empress (as was consort Wu until her death). He abducted more than 40000 women in his palace. Some were not set free even after they were over 60 years old.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, Li Linfu was beginning to conflict with Li Shizhi and Wei Jian, who were allies. Li Linfu, who engaged a group of secret police officials to investigate and manufacture evidence against political enemies, was able to get Wei and Li Shizhi demoted and exiled in 746. (Li Shizhi was replaced by Chen Xilie, who gained favor from Emperor Xuanzong for his knowledge in Taoism and sorcery.) In 747, Li Linfu further carried out a campaign of terror against exiled officials, and among the officials executed were Wei, Li Yong () and Pei Dunfu (). Li Shizhi and Wang Ju, who had been instrumental in Emperor Xuanzong's initial actions against Princess Taiping, committed suicide.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, in 747, Emperor Xuanzong wanted to expand the government's talent pool, and so issued an edict ordering that the people who had unusual talents to come to Chang'an to be examined by himself. Li Linfu, fearing that these examinees might accuse him of improprieties when they get to meet the emperor, suggested that these examinees go through two levels of preliminary examinations – by the local governments, and then by the executive bureau. As a result, no one passed the first two levels of preliminary examinations, and Li LInfu subsequently submitted a note to Emperor Xuanzong congratulating him that no talent has been overlooked by the imperial administration.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, also as of 747, An Lushan had become greatly favored by Emperor Xuanzong due to his military achievements and his willingness to flatter Emperor Xuanzong, Consort Yang, and her family members. Further, Li Linfu, apprehensive about the general Wang Zhongsi, who at that time was in command of four circuits (Hexi, Longyou, Shuofang, and Hedong), deprecated Wang in favor of An Lushan. In 747, after Li Linfu implicated Wang in hindering a campaign against the Tibetan Empire and further accused Wang of plotting a coup to overthrow Emperor Xuanzong and replace him with Li Heng, Wang was arrested and demoted, escaping death only at the pleas of Geshu, who was Wang's deputy and who subsequently was given the commands of Hexi and Longyou. An Lushan, who had already been in command of Fanyang and Pinglu Circuits, was also given Hedong, and thereafter was in command of the most elite troops of the empire. Meanwhile, the ethnically Goguryeo general Gao Xianzhi had become prominent in the Xiyu region, expanding Tang power to the west.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: By 748, Consort Yang's cousins Yang Guozhong, Yang Xian () and Yang Qi (), as well as her three sisters (who were created the Ladies of Han, Guo, and Qin), had become exceedingly wealthy and powerful due to the favors that Emperor Xuanzong showed them. It was said that their wealth topped all households in Chang'an. It was also said that by 749, the empire was so wealthy that Emperor Xuanzong viewed treasures as expendable and so awarded them without limit.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, Li Linfu had a tight grip on power and favors from Emperor Xuanzong throughout the years, but as of 750, Yang Guozhong and Chen Xilie had allied with each other and were finding ways to eliminate Li Linfu's allies from government.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: As of 751, Tang was also facing defeats on two different external fronts – as Nanzhao's king Geluofeng (), angry about unreasonable demands that the Zhang Qiantuo () the governor of Yunnan Commandery (雲南, roughly modern Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan) and Zhang's subsequent false accusations that he was planning to rebel, rebelled for real, and attacked and occupied Yunnan Commandery. A major attack by the general Xianyu Zhongtong () against Nanzhao failed terribly in 751, and subsequent defeats by Tang forces eventually led to a total of some 200,000 casualties among Tang troops. On the western front, Gao Xianzhi suffered a major defeat at the Abbasid forces at the Battle of Talas in 751 as well, ending the Tang expansion to the west.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 752, Wang Hong's brother Wang Han () was accused of treason after his associates rose in a failed coup at Chang'an. In the aftermaths, Wang Hong was forced to commit suicide, and Yang Guozhong, Chen, and Geshu Han further tried to implicate Li Linfu in the plot as well. After Li LInfu died in winter 752, Yang Guozhong succeeded him, and almost immediately accused Li Linfu of having been complicit in the rebellion of another general, Li Xianzhong (). Li Linfu was posthumously disgraced, and his family was exiled.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: A rivalry soon developed between Yang Guozhong and An Lushan, and Yang Guozhong began to repeatedly warn Emperor Xuanzong that An was plotting rebellion. Emperor Xuanzong ignored the warnings. In 754, Yang Guozhong suggested that if An were summoned to the capital, he would surely refuse, and Emperor Xuanzong decided to try An – and An arrived in Chang'an immediately after being summoned. After this incident, Emperor Xuanzong no longer believed that An was plotting rebellion. Nevertheless, because of Yang Guozhong's opposition, he did not make An chancellor, as he was planning. Also in 754, with Yang Guozhong also trying to squeeze Chen out of the government, Chen resigned and was replaced by Wei Jiansu.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: In 755, Yang Guozhong further provoked An, who was then back at his post in Fanyang, by surrounding An's mansion at Chang'an and arresting and executing An's staff members. An, in fear and anger, rebelled in winter 755, and quickly reached and captured Luoyang after defeating Feng Changqing's undersupplied army. Subsequently, Emperor Xuanzong, believing in reports from the eunuch Bian Lingcheng () that Feng was cowardly and that Feng's superior Gao Xianzhi was corrupt, executed both Feng and Gao and replaced Gao with Geshu in defending Tong Pass from An's advances. An declared himself emperor of a new state of Yan at Luoyang, but with Geshu defending Tong Pass, An's advances stalled, while Tang forces commanded by Li Guangbi and Guo Ziyi made advances against An-controlled territory north of the Yellow River. Meanwhile, though, Yang Guozhong, fearing that Geshu had designs against him, convinced Emperor Xuanzong to order Geshu to attack despite Geshu's warnings that doing so was risky. Geshu was subsequently defeated by An's forward commander Cui Qianyou (), and Tong Pass fell. With An's forces advancing on Chang'an, on 14 July 756, Emperor Xuanzong, with Yang Guozhong suggesting that they flee to Jiannan Circuit, abandoned Chang'an and fled with Gao Lishi, Yang Guozhong, Wei, Li Heng, Consort Yang, and her family. The following day, 15 July, the imperial guards accompanying the emperor, angry at Yang Guozhong, rose and killed him and forced Emperor Xuanzong to kill Consort Yang as well. Subsequently, Emperor Xuanzong continued on to Jiannan, but Li Heng did not, but rather went to Lingwu, where, on 12 August, Li Heng was declared emperor (as Emperor Suzong). Meanwhile, without knowledge that Emperor Suzong had claimed the throne, Emperor Xuanzong, while still on his way to Chengdu, the capital of Jiannan Circuit, issued an edict that gave several of his sons various responsibility areas, under Li Heng's command overall; until this edict was issued, most of the realm only knew that Chang'an had fallen and had not known where Emperor Xuanzong had fled. When the news of Emperor Suzong's ascension reached Emperor Xuanzong at Chengdu on 10 September, he recognized Emperor Suzong as the new emperor, and thereafter took the title of "Taishang Huang" (retired emperor) – although his edict recognizing Emperor Suzong appeared to still indicate desire to retain control like his father Emperor Ruizong did early in his reign:


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: However, perhaps to avoid the impression that he was keeping a rival government to Emperor Suzong, he sent the several chancellors that he had retained or created while on the journey to or after he arrived in Chengdu – Wei, Fang Guan, and Cui Huan – to Lingwu to formally invest imperial power on Emperor Suzong and to serve under Emperor Suzong.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Emperor Xuanzong, after becoming retired emperor, largely allowed Emperor Suzong to coordinate the campaign against Yan, but at times nevertheless stepped in to make decisions. For example, in spring 757, apparently without first consulting Emperor Suzong, he named Li Lin chancellor, although he subsequently sent both Li Lin and another chancellor, Cui Yuan, whom he had not sent to Emperor Suzong previously, to Emperor Suzong. He also posthumously honored Emperor Suzong's mother Consort Yang (not Yang Yuhuan) as an empress. Meanwhile, remembering Zhang Jiuling had previously warned about An Lushan, Emperor Xuanzong sent messengers to Zhang's tomb to offer sacrifices to him.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Late in 757, Emperor Suzong, with aid from Huige, recaptured Chang'an from Yan, then ruled by An Lushan's son An Qingxu, who had killed An Lushan earlier in 757 and taken over the throne himself. After Emperor Suzong recaptured Chang'an, he sent messengers to Emperor Xuanzong requesting that he return to Chang'an and offering the throne back to Emperor Xuanzong. Emperor Xuanzong, apprehensive of the offer, initially not only declined but further requested to remain in Jiannan. Only after Emperor Suzong, at the suggestion of his strategist Li Mi, had the government officials make a joint submission to Emperor Xuanzong no longer mentioning the return of the throne, did Emperor Xuanzong agree to depart Jiannan to return to Chang'an. On the way back to Chang'an, he had Gao Lishi try to dig up Consort Yang Yuhuan's body for reburial, but her body had already decomposed; only her fragrance bag remained. Emperor Xuanzong took the fragrance bag back to Chang'an and visited it daily, as if Consort Yang were still alive. On 17 January 758, he arrived at Chang'an, and in a grand ceremony where Emperor Suzong offered the throne back to him again, he formally declined again and personally put the yellow robe symbolizing imperial status on Emperor Suzong, commenting, "I had been the Son of Heaven for 50 years, and I did not consider it a great honor. Now, I am truly honored to be the father to the Son of Heaven." He took up residence at Xingqing Palace, a palace that was remodelled from the residence that he and his brothers had when they were imperial princes.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: After Emperor Xuanzong was back in Chang'an, he largely stayed out of policy decisions, although he at times still exerted his influence on Emperor Suzong. For example, Emperor Suzong had wanted to spare Zhang Shuo's sons Zhang Jun () and Zhang Ji (), who had previously submitted to An Lushan, because of Zhang Shuo's contributions and Zhang Jun's and Zhang Ji's prior efforts to protect him from Li Linfu's machinations, but Emperor Xuanzong deeply hated them for having surrendered to An, and at Emperor Xuanzong's insistence, Zhang Jun was executed, and Zhang Ji was exiled to Lingnan.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Meanwhile, after a while, Emperor Xuanzong settled into a routine at Xingqing Palace, with Chen Xuanli and Gao Lishi attending to him. Also often attending to him were his daughter Li Chiying (), the Princess Yuzhen, the lady in waiting Ru Xianyuan (), and the eunuchs Wang Cheng'en () and Wei Yue (). The imperial musicians often played for him, and he often climbed up Changqing Tower () to receive well wishes from the populace. He also often held feasts for generals and people from Jiannan, with Li Chiying and Ru serving as hostesses. Meanwhile, though, Emperor Xuanzong's attendants looked down at the powerful eunuch Li Fuguo, who had served Emperor Suzong throughout the campaign against Yan. To retaliate, Li Fuguo began to try to convince Emperor Suzong that Emperor Xuanzong and his attendants were plotting to seize power back. In 760, with Emperor Suzong's tacit, although not explicit, approval, on one occasion when Emperor Xuanzong was out riding, Li Fuguo intercepted him and forced him to move back to the main palace. Even on that occasion, however, Gao would not submit to Li Fuguo, and even yelled at Li Fuguo to force him to get off his horse and to escort Emperor Xuanzong on foot, along with Gao. Soon after Emperor Xuanzong was forcibly moved, Li Fuguo forced Chen to retire, Li Chiying to return to her temple (she had become an ordained Taoist nun in 711), and exiled Gao, Wang, Wei, and Ru.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: After Emperor Xuanzong was forcibly moved back to the main palace, Emperor Suzong tried to please him by offering him the best of all of the tributes of the land first, but Emperor Xuanzong became depressed and rarely ate meat, and quickly became ill. Emperor Suzong had his daughters Princesses Wan'an and Xianyi attend to their grandfather, and initially frequently personally visited Emperor Xuanzong, but after some time became ill himself and could not visit Emperor Xuanzong. He began to regret forcibly moving Emperor Xuanzong and considered killing Li Fuguo, but as Li Fuguo wielded command of the imperial guards at this time, he did not dare to try to do so. Emperor Xuanzong died, in that depressed state, on 3 May 762.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Emperor Xuanzong was deeply criticized by later historians for his wastefulness and for his appointing of Li Linfu, Yang Guozhong, and An to prominent offices. The strength that Xuanzong had allowed the military governors to have, which was perpetuated after Tang had defeated Yan, led to a period of increasing conflict and instability which set the stage for the decline of the Tang dynasty and the ensuing Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.


title: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang

text: Xuanzong had one poem collected in the famous poetry anthology "Three Hundred Tang Poems", in the style of the five-character-regular-verse ("wulu") form and in the "huaigu" genre, and which was translated by Witter Bynner as "I Pass Through the Lu Dukedom with a Sigh and a Sacrifice for Confucius". This poem refers to the philosopher-sage Confucius and to Confucius' home state of Lu, during the by-then long-gone Spring and Autumn period, and expresses sadness for what is past and beyond recall, thus reflecting on the transience of mortal existence.


title: Shall We Dance? (2004 film)

text: Shall We Dance? is a 2004 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Peter Chelsom and starring Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, and Susan Sarandon. It is a remake of the 1996 Japanese film of the same name.


title: Shall We Dance? (2004 film)

text: John Clark is a lawyer with a charming wife, Beverly, and a loving family, who nevertheless feels that something is missing as he makes his way every day through the city. Each evening on his commute home through Chicago, John sees a beautiful woman staring with a lost expression through the window of a dance studio. Haunted by her gaze, John impulsively jumps off the train one night, and signs up for ballroom dancing lessons, hoping to meet her.


title: Shall We Dance? (2004 film)

text: At first, it seems like a mistake. His teacher turns out not to be the woman in the window, Paulina, but the studio's older namesake, Miss Mitzi, and John proves to be just as clumsy as his equally clueless classmates Chic and Vern on the dance-floor. Even worse, when he does meet Paulina, she icily tells John she hopes he has come to the studio to seriously study dance and not to look for a date. But, as his lessons continue, John falls in love with dancing. Keeping his new obsession from his family and co-workers, John feverishly trains for Chicago's biggest dance competition. His friendship with Paulina blossoms, as his enthusiasm rekindles her own lost passion for dance. But the more time John spends away from home, the more his wife Beverly becomes suspicious. She hires a private investigator to find out what John is doing, but when she finds out the truth, she chooses to discontinue the investigation and not invade her husband's privacy.


title: Shall We Dance? (2004 film)

text: John is partnered with Bobbie for the competition, although his friend Link steps in to do the Latin dances. Link and Bobbie do well in the Latin dances, and while John and Bobbie's waltz goes well, John sees his wife and daughter in the crowd during the quickstep, and is distracted by trying to find them. He and Bobbie fall and are disqualified, and John and Beverly argue in the parking garage. John quits dancing, to everyone's dismay.


title: Shall We Dance? (2004 film)

text: Paulina, having been inspired by John to take up competing again, is leaving to go to Europe, and is having a going-away party at the dance studio. She sends John an invitation, but he is not convinced to go until his wife leaves out a pair of dancing shoes that she bought him. He goes and meets Beverly at work, convinces her that while he loves dancing, he still loves her just as much, and he teaches her to dance. They go to the party, and John and Paulina have one last dance before she leaves.


title: Shall We Dance? (2004 film)

text: The end scene shows everyone afterwards: Link and Bobbie are now together; Chic, who was actually gay, dances at a club with his partner; Miss Mitzi finds a new partner, and they are happy together; John and Beverly are happier than before and dance in the kitchen; Vern, newly married to his fiancée, dances with her at their wedding; the private investigator that Beverly hired, Devine, starts up dance lessons; and Paulina, with a new partner, competes at the Blackpool Dance Festival, the competition that she had lost the year before.


title: Shall We Dance? (2004 film)

text: The film debuted on October 15, 2004, grossing $11,783,467 in its opening weekend, placing fourth at the North American box office. Despite its 27% decline in gross earnings, it rose to the third spot the following week. The film ran for 133 days, grossing $57,890,460 in the United States and $112,238,000 internationally, for a worldwide total of $170,128,460.


title: Shall We Dance? (2004 film)

text: "Shall We Dance?" received a 47% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 158 critics. The consensus states: "The cast is warmly appealing, but with the loss of cultural context and addition of big-name celebrities, this American version loses the nuances of the original." Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, stating "I enjoyed the Japanese version so much I invited it to my Overlooked Film Festival a few years ago, but this remake offers pleasures of its own."


title: Shall We Dance? (2004 film)

text: The original Japanese film had a question mark in its title, and the publicity poster for this film also includes it. However, the actual film titles on the US film appear as simply "Shall We Dance", leading to some online sources, including IMDb, referring to it without showing the question mark. The inclusion of the question mark serves to distinguish these two films from the 1937 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film "Shall We Dance".


title: Clerical collar

text: A clerical collar, clergy collar, or, informally, dog collar, is an item of Christian clerical clothing. The clerical collar is almost always white and was originally made of cotton or linen but is now frequently made of plastic. There are various styles of clerical collar. The traditional full collar (the style informally described as a "dog collar") is a ring that closes at the back of the neck, presenting a seamless front. It is often attached with a "collaret" or "collarino" that covers the white collar almost completely, except for a small white rectangle at the base of the throat, and sometimes with the top edge of the collar exposed to mimic the collar of a cassock. Alternatively, it may simply be a detachable tab of white in the front of the clerical shirt. The clerical shirt is traditionally black (or another color appropriate to a person's ministry rank, such as purple for Anglican bishops), but today is available in a variety of colors depending on the wearer's preference. When clergy are delivering sermons, they sometimes attach preaching bands to their clerical collar.


title: Clerical collar

text: According to the Church of England's Enquiry Centre (citing the "Glasgow Herald" of December 6, 1894), the detachable clerical collar was invented in 1865 by the Rev. Donald Mcleod, a Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) minister in Glasgow.


title: Clerical collar

text: By 1840, Anglican clergy developed a sense of separation between themselves and the secular world. One outward symbol of this was the adoption of distinctive clerical dress. This had started with the black coat and white necktie which had been worn for some decades. By the 1880s this had been transmuted into the clerical collar, which was worn almost constantly by the majority of clergy for the rest of the period.


title: Clerical collar

text: Henry McCloud stated that the collar "was nothing else than the shirt collar turned down over the cleric's everyday common dress in compliance with a fashion that began toward the end of the sixteenth century. For when the laity began to turn down their collars, the clergy also took up the mode." Invented in the Presbyterian Church, the clerical collar was adopted by other Christian denominations, including the Anglican Church, Methodist churches, Eastern Orthodox Church, Baptist churches, Catholic churches and the Lutheran churches. It was mandatory for U.S. Catholic priests starting in 1884. In the 1960s, many clergy who lived in countries where Catholicism was the dominant religion also began to wear the clerical collar rather than the soutane or cassock.


title: Clerical collar

text: In the Reformed tradition, which stresses preaching as a central concern, pastors often don preaching tabs, which project from their clerical collar. Preaching bands (an alternative name for tabs) are also worn by Anglican clergy, particularly on occasions such as inductions when choir dress of cassock, surplice, preaching scarf and the academic hood pertaining to degree is worn, as well as at Mattins and Evensong. Methodist and Lutheran clergy also sometimes attach preaching bands to their clerical collars.


title: Clerical collar

text: In the United Kingdom (and other British-influenced countries, such as Canada), full clerical collars have been informally referred to as "dog collars" since the mid-nineteenth century. The term "Roman collar" is equivalent to "clerical collar" and does not necessarily mean that the wearer is Roman Catholic.


title: Clerical collar

text: In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, non-Christian clergy, such as some Jewish rabbis in England (such as Rabbi Abraham Cohen, the editor of the Soncino Books of the Bible) would also wear clerical collars.


title: Clerical collar

text: During the 1950s the Reverend Alec Vidler began to advocate the abolition of the clerical collar in favour of a black shirt and white tie, but whilst some clergy adopted this mode of dress it did not become widespread.


title: Clerical collar

text: Non-ordained clerics are usually not entitled to use the traditional clerical collar with a different color clerical collar to the clerical shirt, but in some denominations are beginning to using the same design shirt and collar as ordained priests, but with matching clerical shirt and collar (i.e. black shirt with black collar, white shirt with white collar, purple shirt with purple collar).


title: Clerical collar

text: Members of religious orders will often wear a "Brother's Collar" or "Brothers Collarette" which is very similar to a typical clerical collar, but revealing a noticeably smaller amount of the white band.


title: Clerical collar

text: In the Catholic Church, the clerical collar is worn by almost all ranks of clergy, thus: bishops, priests, and deacons, and often by seminarians as well as with their cassock during liturgical celebrations.


title: Clerical collar

text: Among the Eastern Catholic Churches and Eastern Orthodox Church a band collarette with no "notch" in front may be worn by seminarians, although the norm is still a standard clerical collar. However, as the cassock is more commonly, if not mandatorily, worn to classes, often a plain white shirt will suffice, or a band collar with no collarette. Slavic cassocks button to the side, and thus a collar is often pointless, whereas a Greek cassock buttons to the front and has a higher collar, so the collar prevents chafing—as was its original function under a cassock. Eastern deacons and sometimes subdeacons, but rarely readers or other minor clerics, also wear a clerical collar, with subdeacons and readers often having a style with no notch, or a tab shirt with no tab. Most Orthodox clerics do not wear a clerical collar; those who do are usually to be found in Western Europe or North America.


title: Clerical collar

text: Collars are typically worn by clergy of other groups such as those of the Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and Lutheran traditions, although many Danish and some Norwegian Lutheran clergy wear the ruff instead.


title: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

text: The Last Voyage of the Demeter is an upcoming American supernatural horror film directed by André Øvredal from a screenplay by Bragi F. Schut, Stefan Ruzowitzky, and Zak Olkewicz. It is an adaptation of "The Captain's Log", a chapter from the 1897 Bram Stoker novel "Dracula". The film stars Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, and David Dastmalchian.


title: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

text: Strange events befall the crew of the merchant ship known as the "Demeter" as they are stalked by a dark presence.


title: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

text: In 2002, Bragi F. Schut wrote the initial screenplay for "The Last Voyage of the Demeter", based on the singular chapter "The Captain's Log" from the 1897 novel "Dracula" by Bram Stoker, with Robert Schwentke on board to direct, as well as rewrite with partner Mitch Brian. However, the film languished in development hell for close to two decades with several other directors attached to the film including Stefan Ruzowitzky (who also re-wrote the script), Marcus Nispel, David Slade and Neil Marshall. At one point Noomi Rapace and Ben Kingsley were set to star in the film, with Viggo Mortensen "in talks".


title: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

text: In October 2019, it was announced André Øvredal would direct the film with Amblin Partners obtaining the rights. In January 2021, Corey Hawkins joined the cast of the film with a new draft written by Zak Olkewicz. In June 2021, David Dastmalchian, Liam Cunningham, Aisling Franciosi, Javier Botet, Jon Jon Briones, Stefan Kapičić, Nikolai Nikolaeff, Woody Norman, Martin Furulund and Chris Walley joined the cast of the film.


title: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

text: Principal photography began on June 30, 2021 in Berlin, before occurring in Malta, and ended on October 1.


title: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

text: "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" is scheduled to be released theatrically in the United States on August 11, 2023, by Universal Pictures. It was previously scheduled for January 27, 2023.


title: Robert Kazinsky

text: Robert John Appleby (born 18 November 1983), known professionally as Robert Kazinsky, is an English actor. He is known for his roles as Casper Rose in the Sky One drama "Dream Team", the Don in "Captain Marvel", Sean Slater in the BBC soap opera "EastEnders", Chuck Hansen in "Pacific Rim", and Macklyn Warlow in the sixth season of HBO's "True Blood". In 2016, he played Orgrim Doomhammer in "Warcraft" and Jimmy Pritchard in the Fox television series "Second Chance".


title: Robert Kazinsky

text: Kazinsky was born Robert John Appleby in Haywards Heath, Sussex, England on 18 November 1983. Kazinsky is Jewish. He is also a fluent speaker of Hebrew. Kazinsky was educated at Hove Park School in Hove, from 1995 to 2000. He appeared in their productions of "Bugsy Malone" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Kazinsky trained as an actor at the Guildford School of Acting from September 2002 to July 2005. He took his grandfather's middle name as his stage name.


title: Robert Kazinsky

text: He adopted his grandfather’s surname “Kazinsky” when he began his acting career. Kazinsky appeared in Israeli television commercials before he started acting. He made his acting debut in 2005, when he had a guest role in an episode of the CBBC children's programme "The Basil Brush Show", playing a character named Sven Garley. Kazinsky then got a role in Sky One's football drama series "Dream Team", in which he played Casper Rose from late 2005 to 2006, when he was killed off towards the end of the ninth series, after he announced his intention to leave.


title: Robert Kazinsky

text: Kazinsky next played Sean Slater in "EastEnders"; he made his first appearance on 22 August 2006. On 27 March 2007, Kazinsky was suspended from work on "EastEnders" for two months. A story in "The People" newspaper alleged that Kazinsky had bombarded a model with "obscene text messages and photographs." Kazinsky issued a statement apologising "for any offence caused and for bringing the show into disrepute". Kazinsky announced he would be leaving the show in October 2008 and made his last appearance in the show on 1 January 2009. On YouTube, Kazinsky was featured as the presenter in the "EastEnders" launch video when they launched their own video channel on the website.


title: Robert Kazinsky

text: He made his film debut in 2012 when director George Lucas offered him a part in his World War II film "Red Tails", in which Kazinsky plays a "pilot who has to adapt to being among African-American comrades." In October 2010, Kazinsky was cast in the film "". He would have played Fili, a member of the Company of Dwarves, but in April 2011, Kazinsky resigned from the role due to personal reasons. On 9 January 2011, he guest starred on the drama series "Brothers & Sisters" as Dr Rick Appleton.


title: Robert Kazinsky

text: On 13 November 2012, Kazinsky joined the cast of the sixth season of the fantasy drama series "True Blood", which premiered in 2013. That same year, Kazinsky appeared in Guillermo del Toro's science-fiction monster film "Pacific Rim", as Chuck Hansen, an Australian Jaeger pilot.


title: Robert Kazinsky

text: In March 2015, he was cast in the leading role in the Fox drama series "Second Chance". His character, Jimmy Pritchard, was a murdered elderly ex-cop who is genetically brought back to life as a man in his mid-30s with unusual powers. The series debuted in 2016. Due to low ratings, it was cancelled after one series.


title: Robert Kazinsky

text: Kazinsky co-starred as Orgrim Doomhammer in the fantasy adventure film "Warcraft", based on the video game of the same name which was released in May 2016. An avid "World of Warcraft" player, Kazinsky credits the game with giving him self-confidence during a period in which he would be harassed and attacked by people who confused him for the Sean Slater character.


title: Robert Kazinsky

text: In 2018, he appeared in the science-fiction film "Mute" which premiered on Netflix. In 2019, he had a cameo in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film "Captain Marvel".


title: Robert Kazinsky

text: On 17 January 2019, it was announced that Kazinsky would reprise his role of Sean Slater for a guest appearance. He returned to "EastEnders" for a brief stint which commenced on 26 April 2019. Kazinsky returned for a further one-off appearance in the episode broadcast on 1 November 2021.


title: Tar (computing)

text: In computing, tar is a computer software utility for collecting many files into one archive file, often referred to as a tarball, for distribution or backup purposes. The name is derived from "tape archive", as it was originally developed to write data to sequential I/O devices with no file system of their own. The archive data sets created by tar contain various file system parameters, such as name, timestamps, ownership, file-access permissions, and directory organization. POSIX abandoned "tar" in favor of "pax", yet "tar" sees continued widespread use.


title: Tar (computing)

text: The command-line utility was first introduced in the Version 7 Unix in January 1979, replacing the tp program (which in turn replaced "tap"). The file structure to store this information was standardized in POSIX.1-1988 and later POSIX.1-2001, and became a format supported by most modern file archiving systems. The tar command was abandoned in POSIX.1-2001 in favor of pax command, which was to support ustar file format; the tar command was indicated for withdrawal in favor of pax command at least since 1994.


title: Tar (computing)

text: Today, Unix-like operating systems usually include tools to support tar files, as well as utilities commonly used to compress them, such as gzip and bzip2.


title: Tar (computing)

text: BSD-tar has been included in Microsoft Windows since Windows 10 April 2018 Update, and there are otherwise multiple third party tools available to read and write these formats on Windows.


title: Tar (computing)

text: Many historic tape drives read and write variable-length data blocks, leaving significant wasted space on the tape between blocks (for the tape to physically start and stop moving). Some tape drives (and raw disks) support only fixed-length data blocks. Also, when writing to any medium such as a file system or network, it takes less time to write one large block than many small blocks. Therefore, the tar command writes data in records of many 512 B blocks. The user can specify a blocking factor, which is the number of blocks per record. The default is 20, producing 10 KiB records.


title: Tar (computing)

text: There are multiple tar file formats, including historical and current ones. Two tar formats are codified in POSIX: ustar and pax. Not codified but still in current use is the GNU tar format.


title: Tar (computing)

text: A tar archive consists of a series of file objects, hence the popular term "tarball", referencing how a tarball collects objects of all kinds that stick to its surface. Each file object includes any file data, and is preceded by a 512-byte header record. The file data is written unaltered except that its length is rounded up to a multiple of 512 bytes. The original tar implementation did not care about the contents of the padding bytes, and left the buffer data unaltered, but most modern tar implementations fill the extra space with zeros. The end of an archive is marked by at least two consecutive zero-filled records. (The origin of tar's record size appears to be the 512-byte disk sectors used in the Version 7 Unix file system.) The final block of an archive is padded out to full length with zeros.


title: Tar (computing)

text: The file header record contains metadata about a file. To ensure portability across different architectures with different byte orderings, the information in the header record is encoded in ASCII. Thus if all the files in an archive are ASCII text files, and have ASCII names, then the archive is essentially an ASCII text file (containing many NUL characters).


title: Tar (computing)

text: The fields defined by the original Unix tar format are listed in the table below. The link indicator/file type table includes some modern extensions. When a field is unused it is filled with NUL bytes. The header uses 257 bytes, then is padded with NUL bytes to make it fill a 512 byte record. There is no "magic number" in the header, for file identification.


title: Tar (computing)

text: Some pre-POSIX.1-1988 tar implementations indicated a directory by having a trailing slash (/) in the name.


title: Tar (computing)

text: Numeric values are encoded in octal numbers using ASCII digits, with leading zeroes. For historical reasons, a final NUL or space character should also be used. Thus although there are 12 bytes reserved for storing the file size, only 11 octal digits can be stored. This gives a maximum file size of 8 gigabytes on archived files. To overcome this limitation, in 2001 star introduced a base-256 coding that is indicated by setting the high-order bit of the leftmost byte of a numeric field. GNU-tar and BSD-tar followed this idea. Additionally, versions of tar from before the first POSIX standard from 1988 pad the values with spaces instead of zeroes.


title: Tar (computing)

text: The checksum is calculated by taking the sum of the unsigned byte values of the header record with the eight checksum bytes taken to be ASCII spaces (decimal value 32). It is stored as a six digit octal number with leading zeroes followed by a NUL and then a space. Various implementations do not adhere to this format. In addition, some historic tar implementations treated bytes as signed. Implementations typically calculate the checksum both ways, and treat it as good if either the signed or unsigned sum matches the included checksum.


title: Tar (computing)

text: Unix filesystems support multiple links (names) for the same file. If several such files appear in a tar archive, only the first one is archived as a normal file; the rest are archived as hard links, with the "name of linked file" field set to the first one's name. On extraction, such hard links should be recreated in the file system.


title: Tar (computing)

text: Most modern tar programs read and write archives in the UStar ("Unix Standard TAR") format, introduced by the POSIX IEEE P1003.1 standard from 1988. It introduced additional header fields. Older tar programs will ignore the extra information (possibly extracting partially named files), while newer programs will test for the presence of the "ustar" string to determine if the new format is in use. The UStar format allows for longer file names and stores additional information about each file. The maximum filename size is 256, but it is split among a preceding path "filename prefix" and the filename itself, so can be much less.


title: Tar (computing)

text: POSIX.1-1988 vendor specific extensions using link flag values 'A'–'Z' partially have a different meaning with different vendors and thus are seen as outdated and replaced by the POSIX.1-2001 extensions that also include a vendor tag.


title: Tar (computing)

text: Type '7' (Contiguous file) is formally marked as reserved in the POSIX standard, but was meant to indicate files which ought to be contiguously allocated on disk. Few operating systems support creating such files explicitly, and hence most TAR programs do not support them, and will treat type 7 files as if they were type 0 (regular). An exception is older versions of GNU tar, when running on the MASSCOMP RTU (Real Time Unix) operating system, which supported an O_CTG flag to the open() function to request a contiguous file; however, that support was removed from GNU tar version 1.24 onwards.


title: Tar (computing)

text: In 1997, Sun proposed a method for adding extensions to the tar format. This method was later accepted for the POSIX.1-2001 standard. This format is known as "extended tar" format or pax format. The new tar format allows users to add any type of vendor-tagged vendor-specific enhancements. The following tags are defined by the POSIX standard:


title: Tar (computing)

text: In 2001, the Star program became the first tar to support the new format. In 2004, GNU tar supported the new format, though it does not write it as its default output from the tar program yet.


title: Tar (computing)

text: The pax format is designed so that all implementations able to read the UStar format will be able to read the pax format as well. The only exceptions are files that make use of extended features, such as longer file names. For compatibility, these are encoded in the tar files as special or type files, typically under a directory. A pax-supporting implementation would make use of the information, while non-supporting ones like 7-Zip would process them as additional files.


title: Tar (computing)

text: A tarpipe is the method of creating an archive on the standard output file of the tar utility and piping it to another tar process on its standard input, working in another directory, where it is unpacked. This process copies an entire source directory tree including all special files, for example:


title: Tar (computing)

text: The tar format continues to be used extensively for open-source software distribution. *NIX-distributions use it in various source- and binary-package distribution mechanisms, with most software source code made available in compressed tar archives.


title: Tar (computing)

text: The original tar format was created in the early days of Unix, and despite current widespread use, many of its design features are considered dated.


title: Tar (computing)

text: Many older tar implementations do not record nor restore extended attributes (xattrs) or access-control lists (ACLs). In 2001, Star introduced support for ACLs and extended attributes, through its own tags for POSIX.1-2001 pax. Bsdtar uses the star extensions to support ACLs. More recent versions of GNU tar support Linux extended attributes, reimplementing star extensions. A number of extensions are reviewed in the filetype manual for BSD tar, tar(5).


title: Tar (computing)

text: A tarbomb, in hacker slang, is a tar file that contains many files that extract into the working directory. Such a tar file can create problems by overwriting files of the same name in the working directory, or mixing one project's files into another. It is at best an inconvenience to the user, who is obliged to identify and delete a number of files interspersed with the directory's other contents. Such behavior is considered bad etiquette on the part of the archive's creator.


title: Tar (computing)

text: A related problem is the use of absolute paths or parent directory references when creating tar files. Files extracted from such archives will often be created in unusual locations outside the working directory and, like a tarbomb, have the potential to overwrite existing files. However, modern versions of FreeBSD and GNU tar do not create or extract absolute paths and parent-directory references by default, unless it is explicitly allowed with the flag or the option . The bsdtar program, which is also available on many operating systems and is the default tar utility on Mac OS X v10.6, also does not follow parent-directory references or symbolic links.


title: Tar (computing)

text: If a user has only a very old tar available, which does not feature those security measures, these problems can be mitigated by first examining a tar file using the command codice_8, which lists the contents and allows to exclude problematic files afterwards. These commands do not extract any files, but display the names of all files in the archive. If any are problematic, the user can create a new empty directory and extract the archive into it—or avoid the tar file entirely. Most graphical tools can display the contents of the archive before extracting them. Vim can open tar archives and display their contents. GNU Emacs is also able to open a tar archive and display its contents in a dired buffer.


title: Tar (computing)

text: The tar format was designed without a centralized index or table of content for files and their properties for streaming to tape backup devices. The archive must be read sequentially to list or extract files. For large tar archives, this causes a performance penalty, making tar archives unsuitable for situations that often require random access to individual files.


title: Tar (computing)

text: Another issue with tar format is that it allows several (possibly different) files in archive to have identical path and filename. When extracting such archive, usually the latter version of a file overwrites the former.


title: Tar (computing)

text: This can create a non-explicit (unobvious) tarbomb, which technically does not contain files with absolute paths or referring parent directories, but still causes overwriting files outside current directory (for example, archive may contain two files with the same path and filename, first of which is a symlink to some location outside current directory, and second of which is a regular file; then extracting such archive on some tar implementations may cause writing to the location pointed to by the symlink).


title: Tar (computing)

text: Historically, many systems have implemented tar, and many general file archivers have at least partial support for tar (often using one of the implementations below). The history of tar is a story of incompatibilities, known as the "tar wars". Most tar implementations can also read and create cpio and pax (the latter actually is a "tar"-format with POSIX-2001-extensions).


title: Tar (computing)

text: A tar archive file contains uncompressed byte streams of the files which it contains. To achieve archive compression, a variety of compression programs are available, such as gzip, bzip2, xz, lzip, lzma, zstd, or compress, which compress the entire tar archive. Typically, the compressed form of the archive receives a filename by appending the format-specific compressor suffix to the archive file name. For example, a tar archive "archive.tar", is named "archive.tar.gz", when it is compressed by gzip.


title: Tar (computing)

text: Popular tar programs like the BSD and GNU versions of tar support the command line options "Z" (compress), "z" (gzip), and "j" (bzip2) to compress or decompress the archive file upon creation or unpacking. Relatively recent additions include "--lzma" (LZMA), "--lzop" (lzop), "--xz" or "J" (xz), "--lzip" (lzip), and "--zstd". The decompression of these formats is handled automatically if supported filename extensions are used, and compression is handled automatically using the same filename extensions if the option "--auto-compress" (short form "-a") is passed to an applicable version of GNU tar. BSD tar detects an even wider range of compressors (lrzip, lz4), using not the filename but the data within. Unrecognized formats are to be manually compressed or decompressed by piping.


title: Tar (computing)

text: MS-DOS's 8.3 filename limitations resulted in additional conventions for naming compressed tar archives. However, this practice has declined with FAT now offering long filenames.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: Larry William King (born January 30, 1945) is an American sports promoter, and the ex-husband of former World No. 1 professional tennis player Billie Jean King.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: King was born in Dayton, Ohio, and raised in Eagle Rock, California. He met Billie Jean Moffitt at California State University, Los Angeles in 1963, when he played on one of the school’s best men's tennis teams, coached by Scotty Deeds. He married Billie Jean on September 17, 1965 in Long Beach, California.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: In 1971, King conceived the idea of a professional tennis tour for women and helped organize a group of nine (the Original Nine) top women players: Billie Jean King, Rosie Casals, Judy Dalton, Julie Heldman, Kerry Melville, Peaches Bartkowicz, Kristy Pigeon, Nancy Richey, and Valerie Ziegenfuss. He obtained the backing of Gladys Heldman of World Tennis Magazine and Joe Cullman, CEO of Philip Morris, and the Virginia Slims pro circuit was started. In 1973, along with Dennis Murphy, Jordan Kaiser and Fred Barman, King developed the concept of World Team Tennis, and started the league the following year. In 1974, King and Billie Jean co-founded and began publishing womenSports magazine.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: In 1976, King invented a smokeless ashtray, called The Clean Air King. In 1984, Billie Jean became the major owner of World Team Tennis.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: King and Denis Murphy also founded Roller Hockey International, a professional hockey league that operated from 1993 to 1999. Murphy had also been instrumental in the founding of the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: King, a Master Duplicate bridge player and a Director, founded the Prize Money Bridge tour. He also founded Bridge University to promote bridge throughout the country.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: King had a big impact on the rise of his wife’s fame. Billie Jean was not always a feminist icon; in the 60s he had helped her start to think about the lack of scholarships for sports for women. He never tried to tear down Billie Jean’s aspirations of becoming a tennis superstar and promoted her success.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: In 1971, Billie Jean had an abortion that was made public in a "Ms." magazine article. Larry had revealed Billie Jean's abortion without consulting her.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: In 1973, Billy Jean defeated Bobby Riggs . In 2017, the film "Battle of the Sexes" was released. In the film, King was shown as becoming aware, that year, of Billie Jean's infidelity with another woman, and decided to ignore it; King said that was false.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: Billie Jean was sexually involved with her former secretary, Marilyn Barnett, during Larry and Billie Jean's marriage. In 1981, Billie Jean admitted publicly that the relationship had taken place, in response to a lawsuit by Barnett that asked for palimony.


title: Larry King (tennis)

text: King lives in Grass Valley, California, with his wife, Nancy, and two children, Sky and Katie. According to the movie "Battle of the Sexes", Billie Jean King and her partner Ilana Kloss are godparents to the Kings' children.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: Volusia County (, ) is located in the east-central part of the U.S. state of Florida, stretching between the St. Johns River and the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2020 census, the county was home to 553,543 people, an increase of 11.9% from the 2010 census. It was founded on December 29, 1854, from part of Orange County, and was named for the community of Volusia, located in northwestern Volusia County. Its first county seat was Enterprise. Since 1887, its county seat has been DeLand.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: Volusia County is part of the Deltona–Daytona Beach–Ormond Beach metropolitan statistical area, as well as part of the larger Orlando–Deltona–Daytona Beach Combined statistical area.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: Volusia County was named after its largest community, Volusia, when the Florida Legislature created it by dividing Orange County on December 29, 1854. At the time, Volusia County had about 600 residents.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: The land area of present-day Volusia County was long inhabited by the indigenous Timucua and Mayaca peoples. Neither historic group exists today as distinct ethnic tribes, having been decimated by disease and war in the decades after contact with European traders and settlers. The large shell middens at Tomoka State Park and other evidence of their historic habitation can still be seen in various areas of Volusia County.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: During the British occupation of Florida, a colony known as New Smyrna was started in southeast Volusia County by Andrew Turnbull. This colony was connected to St. Augustine, the capital of East Florida, via the Kings Road. After the failure of the colony the settlers, many of whom were ethnic Menorcan and Greek, traveled the to move to St. Augustine.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: The Seminole Indians, descendants of the Creek tribe of Alabama and Georgia who resisted forced relocation to Indian Territory, also camped in various parts of Volusia County. During the Second Seminole War (1836–1842), the Seminole burned a large sugar plantation in what is today the city of Daytona Beach.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: On the east shore of the St. Johns River in Volusia, in present-day DeBary, General Winfield Scott established a fort/depot in 1836 named Fort Florida.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which are land and (23.1%) are covered by water.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: Volusia County is bordered on the west by the St. Johns River and Lake Monroe, and by the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Roughly the size of Rhode Island, Volusia is situated northeast of Orlando, north of the Kennedy Space Center, and south of Jacksonville.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: The Volusia County government divides the county into three regions. This parallels the three calling regions used by BellSouth, the regional phone company:


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: Under Volusia County's council-manager form of government, voters elect a county council, which consists of seven members who serve four-year terms. Five are elected by district; the county chairman and at-large representative are elected county-wide.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: The county council establish ordinances and policies for the county. It also reviews and approves the county budget annually. The county council appoints a county manager, who carries out the will of the council and handles day-to-day business.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: The county's courts operate from facilities in both DeLand and Daytona Beach. There, they preside over a variety of cases, including felonies, misdemeanors, traffic, and domestic cases in their dockets. An elected prosecutor tries cases for the public. Defendants may find representation through the office of the elected public defender.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: The power of electing the county's sheriff lies with the county's residents. The county sheriff is directly responsible to the courts, but also to the state for the enforcement of state laws. The county sheriff's deputies provide law enforcement to the unincorporated areas of Volusia County, and assist the various municipal police departments, such as the Daytona Beach Police Department.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: Many volunteers work alongside the paid professionals. Included are Citizen Observer Program (COP), who are volunteers working under the direction of the county sheriff and play a part in the county's policing operations.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: The Volusia County Correctional Center and the Volusia County Branch Jail are both located on U.S. Highway 92, also known as International Speedway Boulevard, which is roughly equidistant between DeLand and Daytona Beach. The county's jail imprisons inmates awaiting trial, convicted offenders who have yet to be sentenced, or those who have been sentenced for a term of a year or less. Longer sentences may be served in the Florida state prison system or alternatively in the federal prison system according to the dictates of the offense.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: The county centrally controls 13 libraries, with DeLand and Daytona Beach-City Island being the largest two. Each library branch is administered by geographic region.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: Collections included 869,491 books, 83,943 videos, 58,784 audio materials, 2,051 magazines and newspapers, over 100,000 government documents, and 51 licensed databases. Personal computers for public use are hooked up on broadband in all libraries. An estimated 230,000 Volusia County residents have library cards. One library card is valid at all locations, and materials are lent between locations through a daily courier service and outside the libraries by interlibrary loan. Library cards are free for all Volusia County residents.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: Depending on size, the branches have different operating hours; six are open every day of the week (Ormond Beach, Daytona Beach-City Island, Port Orange, New Smyrna Beach, DeLand, and Deltona), two are open six days a week (Edgewater and DeBary), and five are open five days a week (Daytona Beach-Keech Street, Oak Hill, Pierson, Lake Helen, and Orange City).


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: The Volusia County Library System was officially started in 1961. Prior to 1961, there were small libraries throughout Volusia County that were maintained by different organizations prevalent in the county. In 1949, Charlotte Smith started an effort to organize the public library system within Volusia County. In 1960, 10 libraries existed in Volusia County, however they were not connected together in a centralized library system. In September 1960, state officials met with librarians and county officials to discuss how the Library Services Act could be applied to Volusia County. A committee was formed to study the conditions of the libraries within the county and determine if organizing the libraries in the county into a centralized system was an appropriate move. After a year the committee found that a countywide library system would be the best course of action for the county. With the development of the Volusia County Library System, a library board was appointed by the governor and the board hired Bradley Simon to be the first director of the Volusia County Library System. During this time, bookmobiles were purchased and sent to rural areas in Volusia County to provide residents there with library services. By 1962, nine public libraries and the bookmobiles were part of the Volusia County Library System, and within the next four years Holly Hill, Ormond Beach, and Orange City joined the system. As new funds were made available, new construction of library facilities occurred, with many of the libraries in the Volusia County Library System being granted new buildings. In 1976 the Deltona Library opened and became the only library that the county fully owned. In 1977 the Dickerson Community Center Library opened and served the black community of Daytona Beach, and is now the John H. Dickerson Heritage Library. Expansion in the 1980s included the construction of buildings for the Port Orange Regional Library in 1984, the Lake Helen Public Library and the Edgewater Public Library in 1988, and the DeLand Regional Library in 1989.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: According to the Secretary of State's office, Republicans are a plurality of registered voters in Volusia County.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: As of the 2020 United States census, there were 553,543 people, 220,386 households, and 136,510 families residing in the county.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: As of the census of 2000, 443,343 people, 184,723 households, and 120,069 families were residing in the county. The population density was . The 211,938 housing units averaged 192 per square mile (74/km). The racial makeup of the county was 86.11% White, 9.29% African American, 0.31% Native American, 1.00% Asian, 1.86% from other races, and 1.43% from two or more races. About 6.57% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race; ancestry was 13.7% German, 11.5% Irish, 11.2% English, 10.7% American, and 8.7% Italian ancestry.


title: Volusia County, Florida

text: Of the 184,723 households, 24.10% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.40% were married couples living together, 10.90% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.00% were not families. About 27.90% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.60% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.32, and the average family size was 2.82.