title: Culture of Italy

text: Italiophilia was not uncommon in the United States. Thomas Jefferson was a great admirer of Italy and ancient Rome. Jefferson is largely responsible for the neo-classical buildings in Washington, D.C. that echo Roman and Italian architectural styles.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Spain provided an equally telling example of Italian cultural admiration in the 18th century. The installation of a team of Italian architects and artists, headed by Filippo Juvarra, has been interpreted as part of Queen Elisabeth Farnese's conscious policy to mould the visual culture of the Spanish court along Italian lines. The engagement of Corrado Giaquinto from Molfetta and eventually the Venetian Jacopo Amigoni as the creators of the painted decorative space for the new seat of the Spanish court was a clear indication of this aesthetic orientation, while the later employment of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his son Giovanni Domenico confirmed the Italophile tendency.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Victorian era in Great Britain saw Italophilic tendencies. Britain supported its own version of the imperial "Pax Romana", called "Pax Britannica." John Ruskin was a Victorian Italophile who respected the concepts of morality held in Italy. Also the great writer Henry James has exhibited Italophilia in several of his novels. However, Ellen Moers writes that "In the history of Victorian Italophilia no name is more prominent than that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning...[She places] Italy as "the" place for the woman of genius ..."


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi, along with Giuseppe Mazzini and Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, led the struggle for Italian unification in the 19th century. For his battles on behalf of freedom in Europe and Latin America, Garibaldi has been dubbed the "Hero of Two Worlds." Many of the greatest intellectuals of his time, such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and George Sand showered him with admiration. He was so appreciated in the United States that Abraham Lincoln offered him a command during the Civil War, (Garibaldi turned it down).


title: Culture of Italy

text: During the Fascist era, several leaders in Europe and Latin America modeled their government and economic system on Italian Fascism. Adolf Hitler was an avid admirer of Benito Mussolini. To justify his Italophilia, Hitler had to convince himself that northern Italians were somehow "racially Aryan" — "from the cultural point of view," he once remarked, "we are more closely linked with the Italians than with any other people" — and that the veins of Mussolini, Dante and other heroes pulsed with no "contaminating blood" from the "inferior" "Mediterranean race." Or "The Italians have a splendid foundation of peasantry. Once when I was travelling to Florence, I thought, as I passed through it, what a paradise this land of southern France is ! But when I reached Italy – then I realised what a paradise on earth can really be!" The Führer also dreamed of touring Tuscany and Umbria: "my dearest wish would be to be able to wander about Italy as an unknown painter".


title: Culture of Italy

text: In 1940 Walt Disney Productions produced Pinocchio based on the Italian children's novel "The Adventures of Pinocchio" by Carlo Collodi, the most translated non-religious book in the world and one of the best-selling books ever published, as well as a canonical piece of children's literature. The film was the second animated feature film produced by Disney.


title: Culture of Italy

text: After World War II, such brands as Ferrari and Alfa Romeo became well known for racing and sports cars. Since then Italy has experienced a strong economic growth, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, which lifted the country to the position of being one of the most industrialized nations in the world. Italian product design, fashion, film, and cuisine and the notion of Italy as the embodiment of "la dolce vita" for German tourism — all left an imprint on contemporary Italophilia.


title: Culture of Italy

text: People have visited Italy for centuries, yet the first to visit the peninsula for tourist reasons were aristocrats during the Grand Tour, beginning in the 17th century, and flourishing in the 18th and the 19th century. This was a period in which European aristocrats, many of whom were British and French, visited parts of Europe, with Italy as a key destination. For Italy, this was in order to study ancient architecture, local culture and to admire the natural beauties.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Nowadays the factors of tourist interest in Italy are mainly culture, cuisine, history, fashion, architecture, art, religious sites and routes, naturalistic beauties, nightlife, underwater sites and spas. Winter and summer tourism are present in many locations in the Alps and the Apennines, while seaside tourism is widespread in coastal locations along the Mediterranean Sea. Rome is the 3rd most visited city in Europe and the 12th in the world, with 9.4 million arrivals in 2017 while Milan is the 27th worldwide with 6.8 million tourists. In addition, Venice and Florence are also among the world's top 100 destinations.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Roman Empire, Middle Ages, Renaissance and the following centuries of the history of Italy have left many cultural artifacts that attract tourists. In general, the Italian cultural heritage is the largest in the world since it consists of 60 to 75 percent of all the artistic assets that exist on each continent, with over 4,000 museums, 6,000 archaeological sites, 85,000 historic churches and 40,000 historic palaces, all subject to protection by the Italian Ministry of Culture. As of 2018, the Italian places of culture (which include museums, attractions, parks, archives and libraries) amounted to . Italy is the leading cruise tourism destination in the Mediterranean Sea. With 65 million tourists per year (2019) according to ISTAT, Italy is the fifth most visited country in international tourism arrivals, but the second after Spain in terms of nights spent in hotel, with 220,7 million foreign visitor nights spent and a total of 436,7 million nights.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Italian peninsula has been at the heart of Western cultural development at least since Roman times. Important poets of the Roman republic and empire were Lucretius, Catullus, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. Also prominent in Latin literature were the orator-rhetorician Cicero; the satirist Juvenal; the prose writers Pliny the Elder, his nephew Pliny the Younger; and the historians Sallust, Livy, and Suetonius. Julius Caesar, renowned as a historian and prose stylist, is even more famous as a military and political leader. Roman jurists founded and developed Roman law which still today represents the basic framework of civil law, the most widespread legal system in the world. Among the most famous jurists: Gaius, Ulpianus, Papinianus, Paulus.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italy, as the center of Magna Graecia, was also the land that gave birth to personalities such as Archimedes, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Zeno, Gorgia.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The first of the Roman emperors was Octavian, better known by the honorific Augustus. Noteworthy among later emperors are the tyrants Caligula and Nero, the philosopher-statesman Marcus Aurelius, and Constantine I, who was the first to accept Christianity.


title: Culture of Italy

text: No history of the Christian Church during the medieval period would be complete without mention of such men of Italian birth as St. Benedict of Nursia, Pope Gregory I, St. Francis of Assisi, and the philosopher-theologians St. Anselm of Canterbury and St. Thomas Aquinas.


title: Culture of Italy

text: No land has made a greater contribution to the visual arts. In the 13th and 14th centuries there were the sculptors Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni; the painters Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto; and, later in the period, the sculptor Andrea Pisano. Among the many great artists of the 15th century — the golden age of Florence and Venice — were the architects Filippo Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Leon Battista Alberti; the sculptors Donatello, Luca della Robbia, Desiderio da Settignano, and Andrea del Verrocchio; and the painters Fra Angelico, Stefano di Giovanni, Paolo Uccello, Masaccio, Frà Filippo Lippi, Piero della Francesca, Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, Antonello da Messina, Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Luca Signorelli, Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Vittore Carpaccio.


title: Culture of Italy

text: During the 16th century, the High Renaissance, Rome shared with Florence the leading position in the world of the arts. Major masters included the architects Donato Bramante and Andrea Palladio; the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini; the painter-designer-inventor Leonardo da Vinci; the painter-sculptor-architect Michelangelo Buonarroti; and the painters Titian, Giorgione, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, and Antonio da Correggio. Among the great painters of the late Renaissance were Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. Giorgio Vasari was a painter, architect, art historian, and critic.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Among the leading artists of the Baroque period were the sculptors-architects Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, or the architects Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Filippo Juvarra and Luigi Vanvitelli; the painters Caravaggio, Guido Reni, Annibale Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, Luca Giordano, Andrea Pozzo, Guercino, Domenichino, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Canaletto, Pietro Longhi, and Francesco Guardi. Leading figures in modern painting were Umberto Boccioni, Amedeo Modigliani, Giorgio de Chirico, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, and Giorgio Morandi. A noted contemporary architect were Giuseppe Terragni, Marcello Piacentini, Adalberto Libera, Pier Luigi Nervi, Gio Ponti, Aldo Rossi, Renzo Piano, .


title: Culture of Italy

text: Music, an integral part of Italian life, owes many of its forms as well as its language to Italy. The inventor of Gregorian chant was the Roman Pope Gregory I. The musical staff was either invented or established by Guido of Arezzo. A leading 14th-century composer was the blind Florentine organist Francesco Landini. Leading composers of the High Renaissance and early Baroque periods were Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina; the madrigalists Luca Marenzio and Carlo Gesualdo, prince of Venosa; the Venetian organists Andrea Gabrieli and Giovanni Gabrieli; Claudio Monteverdi, one of the founders of opera; organist-composer Girolamo Frescobaldi; and Giacomo Carissimi. One of the father of French opera, and master of French baroque style, was the Italian composer, after naturalized French, Jean-Baptiste Lully. Important figures of the later Baroque era were Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi, Luigi Boccherini, Alessandro Scarlatti, and his son Domenico Scarlatti. Italian-born Luigi Cherubini was the central figure of French music in the Napoleonic era, while Antonio Salieri and Gaspare Spontini played important roles in the musical life of Vienna and Berlin, respectively.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Composers of the 19th century who made their period the great age of Italian opera were Gioacchino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, and, above all, Giuseppe Verdi. Niccolò Paganini was the greatest violinist of his time. More recent operatic composers include Ruggero Leoncavallo, Giacomo Puccini, and Pietro Mascagni. Renowned operatic singers include Enrico Caruso, Luisa Tetrazzini, Titta Ruffo, Amelita Galli-Curci, Beniamino Gigli, Ezio Pinza, and Luciano Pavarotti. Ferruccio Busoni, Ottorino Respighi, Luigi Dallapiccola, Alfredo Casella, Luigi Nono, and Luciano Berio are major 20th-century composers. Arturo Toscanini is generally regarded as one of the greatest operatic and orchestral conductors of his time; two noted contemporary conductors are Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Muti. In the field of music for cinema, great Italian composers were Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, Armando Trovajoli and Giorgio Moroder, the father of disco music. The foremost makers of stringed instruments were Gasparo da Salò of Brescia, Nicolò Amati, Antonio Stradivari, and Giuseppe Guarneri of Cremona. Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the piano.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italian literature and literary language began with Dante Alighieri, author of "The Divine Comedy." Literary achievements — such as the poetry of Petrarch, Torquato Tasso, and Ludovico Ariosto and the prose of Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Baldassare Castiglione — exerted a tremendous and lasting influence on the subsequent development of Western culture. Outstanding film directors are Italian-born Frank Capra, Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Sergio Leone, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Zeffirelli, Lina Wertmüller, Paolo Sorrentino and Bernardo Bertolucci. Famous film stars include Italian-born Rudolph Valentino, Marcello Mastroianni, Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren.


title: Culture of Italy

text: In philosophy, exploration, and statesmanship, Italy has produced many world-renowned figures: the traveler Marco Polo; the statesman and patron of the arts Cosimo de' Medici; the statesman, clergyman, and artistic patron Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI; the soldier, statesman, and artistic patron Lorenzo de' Medici, the son of Cosimo; the explorer John Cabot; the explorer Christopher Columbus; the explorer Amerigo Vespucci, after whom the Americas are named; the admiral and statesman Andrea Doria; Caterina de medici, queen of France; Niccolò Machiavelli, author of "The Prince" and the outstanding political theorist of the Renaissance; the statesman and clergyman Cesare Borgia, the son of Rodrigo; the explorer Sebastian Cabot, the son of John; the historian Francesco Guicciardini; the explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano; the explorer Pietro Savorgnan di Brazzà, who gave his name to the city of Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo; the philosopher Bernardino Telesio.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The explorer, missionary and sinologist Matteo Ricci; the mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher Giordano Bruno; the scholar Paolo Sarpi, so well versed in many fields of human knowledge to be called the "Oracle of the century"; the philosopher Tommaso Campanella; the Cardinal Mazarin, a statesman, diplomat, and prime minister of France under Louis XIV; the imperial field marshal and statesman Prince Eugene of Savoy; the French military and political leader Napoleone was of Italian family and was born in the same year that the Republic of Genoa (former Italian state) ceded the region of Corsica to France; the political philosopher Giambattista Vico; the noted jurist Cesare Beccaria; Giuseppe Mazzini, the leading spirit of the "Risorgimento"; Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, its prime statesman; and Giuseppe Garibaldi, its foremost soldier and man of action.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Notable intellectual and political leaders of more recent times include the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1907, Ernesto Teodoro Moneta; the sociologist and economist Vilfredo Pareto; the political theorist Gaetano Mosca; the educator Maria Montessori; the philosopher, critic, and historian Benedetto Croce, with his idealistic antagonist Giovanni Gentile; Benito Mussolini, the founder of Fascism and dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943; Princess Marie-José was one of the very few diplomatic channels between the German/Italian camp and the other European countries involved in the war, she sympathised with the partisans, and while she was a refugee in Switzerland, smuggled weapons, money and food for them, Carlo Sforza, Alcide De Gasperi and Giulio Andreotti, famous latter-day statesmen; and the Communist leaders Antonio Gramsci, Palmiro Togliatti, and Enrico Berlinguer.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Virginia Oldoini, mistress of Emperor Napoleon III of France, was a significant figure in the early history of photography.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italian scientists and mathematicians of note include Fibonacci, Gerolamo Cardano, Galileo Galilei, Bonaventura Cavalieri, Evangelista Torricelli, Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Marcello Malpighi, Giuseppe Luigi Lagrangia, Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Amedeo Avogadro, Stanislao Cannizzaro, Giuseppe Peano, Angelo Secchi, Camillo Golgi, Guglielmo Marconi, Antonio Meucci, Italian-American Enrico Fermi, Ettore Majorana, Emilio Segrè, Tullio Levi-Civita, Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, Daniel Bovet, Giulio Natta, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Italian-American Riccardo Giacconi and Giorgio Parisi. Elena Cornaro Piscopia was the first female Ph.D. graduate in the world history.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Italian diaspora is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There were two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began around 1880, two decades after the Unification of Italy, and ended in the 1920s to the early 1940s with the rise of Fascist Italy. The second diaspora started after the end of World War II and concluded roughly in the 1970s.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Between 1880 and 1980, about 15,000,000 Italians left the country permanently. By 1980, it was estimated that about 25,000,000 Italians were residing outside Italy. Between 1861 and 1985, 29,036,000 Italians emigrated to other countries; of whom 16,000,000 (55%) arrived before the outbreak of World War I. About 10,275,000 returned to Italy (35%), and 18,761,000 permanently settled overseas (65%).


title: Culture of Italy

text: There is now a National Museum of Italian Emigration, located in Rome, which has on display hundreds of photos from the first two migrations, and provides education to the public about this phenomenon from cultural, political, and economic perspectives.


title: Culture of Italy

text: A third wave, primarily affecting young people, is thought to be occurring, due to the socioeconomic problems caused by the financial crisis of the early 21st century. According to the Public Register of Italian Residents Abroad (AIRE), the number of Italians abroad rose from 3,106,251 in 2006 to 4,636,647 in 2015 and so grew by 49% in just 10 years.


title: Culture of Italy

text: There are over 5 million Italian citizens living outside Italy, and people around the world claim full or partial Italian ancestry. Migration within the Italian geographical borders also occurred for similar reasons; its largest wave consisted in 4 million people moving from Southern to Northern Italy, between the 1950s and 1970s.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Romantic English poet, Lord Byron, described the Italian language as «that soft bastard Latin, which melts like kisses from a female mouth, and sounds as if it should be writ on satin». Byron's description is not an isolated expression of poetic fancy but, in fact, a popular view of the Italian language across the world, often called the language of "love," "poetry," and "song."


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italian belongs to the Indo-European family of languages and, like French and Spanish, it is a Romance language, i.e. one of the modern languages that developed from Latin. In particular, among the major Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. It is spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, 23,000 in the Republic of San Marino, 400,000 in Switzerland, another 1,3 million in other European countries, and approximately 6 million in the Americas.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italian evolved from a dialect spoken in Tuscany, which is the birthplace of writers such as Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Thanks to its cultural prestige, this dialect was progressively adopted by the Italian states and then, upon their unification in 1861, by the Kingdom of Italy. It may be considered somewhat intermediate, linguistically and geographically, between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the Centre-South and the Gallo-Italic languages of the North, becoming the center of a dialect continuum. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian languages and by the Germanic language of post-Roman invaders.


title: Culture of Italy

text: There are only a few communities in Italy in which Italian is not spoken as the first language, but many speakers are native bilinguals of both Italian and Italy's regional languages, which historically predate today's national language. These include native communities of non-Romance and Indo-European languages like Albanian, Croatian and Greek in southern Italy, Slovene and German varieties in Northern Italy, as well as dozens of various Romance languages, such as Arpitan, Catalan, Friulan, Ladin, Lombard, Neapolitan, Occitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, and many others.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italian is often natively spoken in a regional variety, not to be confused with Italy's regional and minority languages; however, the establishment of a national education system led to a decrease in variation in the languages spoken across the country during the 20th century. Standardisation was further expanded in the 1950s and 1960s due to economic growth and the rise of mass media and television (the state broadcaster RAI helped set a standard Italian).


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italy is one of the world's greatest centers of architecture, art, and books. Among its many of libraries, the most important are in the national library system, which contains two central libraries, in Florence (5.3 million volumes) and Rome (5 million), and four regional libraries, in Naples (1.8 million volumes), Milan (1 million), Turin (973,000) and Venice (917,000). The existence of two national central libraries, while most nations have one, came about through the history of the country, as Rome was once part of the Papal States and Florence was one of the first capitals of the unified Kingdom of Italy. While both libraries are designated as copyright libraries, Florence now serves as the site designated for conservation and cataloging of Italian publications and the site in Rome catalogs foreign publications acquired by the state libraries. All large Italian cities have public libraries.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italy, a world center of culture, history and art, has more than 3,000 museums. They contain, perhaps, the most important collections of artifacts from ancient civilizations. Taranto's museum, for example, offers material enabling scholars to probe deeply into the history of Magna Graecia. The archaeological collections in the Roman National Museum in Rome and in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples are probably among the world's best. Similarly, the Etruscan collection in the National Archaeological Museum of Umbria in Perugia, the classical sculptures in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, and the Egyptian collection in the Museo Egizio in Turin are, perhaps, the best such collections in the world.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The classical age is not the only age represented in Italy's museums. The Italian Renaissance is well represented in a number of museums: the Uffizi Gallery, Bargello Museum, and Palazzo Pitti are all located in Florence. Many of these museums, are the former palaces of kings or the houses of royal families.


title: Culture of Italy

text: In 1986, the first internet connection in Italy was experimented in Pisa, the third in Europe after Norway and the United Kingdom. Already in the late 1970s, Pisan researchers, firstly with Luciano Lenzini, were in contact with U.S. researchers who had written the history of the Internet. Among them were Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who were the first to invent TCP and IP, the two protocols at the heart of the internet, and are hence considered the "Fathers of the Internet".


title: Culture of Italy

text: Currently Internet access is available to businesses and home users in various forms, including dial-up, cable, DSL, and wireless. The .it is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Italy. The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.


title: Culture of Italy

text: According to data released by the fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) Council Europe, Italy represents one of the largest FTTH markets in Europe, with more than 2,5 million homes passed by fibre at end-December 2010; at the same date the country reported around 348,000 fibre subscribers. The "Fibre for Italy" project (with the participation of providers Fastweb, Vodafone and Wind in a co-investment partnership) aims to reach 20 million people in Italy's 15 largest cities by 2015, and Telecom Italia plans to connect 138 cities by 2018. The government has also started the Italia Digitale project, which aims to provide at least 50% of Italians with high-speed internet access by 2020. The government aims to extend the fibre-optic network to rural areas.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Figures published by the National Institute of Statistics showed at end-2011 that 58,8% of Italian families had a personal computer (up slightly from 57,6% in 2010); 54,5% had access to the internet (up from 52,4%); and 45,8% had broadband access (up from 43,4%). Over one-fourth (26,3%, down slightly from 26,4% in 2010) of Italian internet users aged 14 and older made an online purchase during 2011.


title: Culture of Italy

text: , there were about 90 daily newspapers in the country, but not all of them had national circulation. According to Audipress statistics, the major daily newspapers (with their political orientations and estimated circulations) are: "la Repubblica", left-wing, 3,276,000 in 2011; "Corriere della Sera", independent, 3,274,000 in 2011; "La Stampa", liberal, 2,132,000 in 2011; "Il Messaggero", left of center, 1,567,000 in 2011; "il Resto del Carlino", right of center, 1,296,000 in 2011; "Il Sole 24 Ore", a financial news paper, 1,015,000 in 2011; "il Giornale", independent, 728,000 in 2011; and "l'Unità", Communist, 291,000 in 2011. "TV Sorrisi e Canzoni" is the most popular news weekly with a circulation of 677,658 in July 2012. The periodical press is becoming increasingly important. Among the most important periodicals are the pictorial weeklies — "Oggi", "L'Europeo", "L'espresso", and "Gente". "Famiglia Cristiana" is a Catholic weekly periodical with a wide readership.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The majority of papers are published in northern and central Italy, and circulation is highest in these areas. Rome and Milan are the most important publication centers. A considerable number of dailies are owned by the political parties, the Roman Catholic Church, and various economic groups. In general, the journalistic level of the Italian papers is high, and two dailies, Milan's "Corriere della Sera" and Turin's "La Stampa", enjoy international respect.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The law provides for freedom of speech and the press, and the government is said to respect these rights in practice.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Of all the claimants to the title of the "Father of Radio", the one most associated with it is the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi. He was the first person to send radio communication signals in 1895. By 1899 he flashed the first wireless signal across the English Channel and two years later received the letter "S", telegraphed from England to Newfoundland. This was the first successful transatlantic radiotelegraph message in 1902.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Today, radio waves that are broadcast from thousands of stations, along with waves from other sources, fill the air around us continuously. Italy has three state-controlled radio networks that broadcast day and evening hours on both AM and FM. Program content varies from popular music to lectures, panel discussions, classical music, and opera, as well as frequent newscasts and feature reports. In addition, many private radio stations mix popular and classical music. A short-wave radio, though unnecessary, aids in reception of VOA, BBC, Vatican Radio in English and the Armed Forces Network in Germany and in other European stations.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The first form of televised media in Italy was introduced in 1939, when the first experimental broadcasting began. However, this lasted for a very short time: when fascist Italy entered World War II in 1940, all the transmission were interrupted, and were resumed in earnest only nine years after the end of the conflict, in 1954.


title: Culture of Italy

text: There are two main national television organisations responsible for most viewing: state-owned RAI, funded by a yearly mandatory licence fee and Mediaset, commercial network founded by Silvio Berlusconi. Currently La7 is considered as the third major network in Italy, it is owned by Telecom Italia Media, the media branch of the telephone company Telecom Italia, which also owns 51% of MTV Italia. While many other networks are also present, both nationally and locally, RAI and Mediaset together, with their six traditional ex analogue stations plus a number of new free to air digital channels, reach almost 70% of the TV ratings.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The television networks offer varied programs, including news, soap operas, reality TV shows, game shows, sitcoms, cartoons, and films-all in Italian. All programs are in color, except for the old black-and-white movies. Most Italians still depend on VHF/UHF reception, but both cable systems and direct satellite reception is increasingly common. Conventional satellite dishes can pick up European broadcasts, including some in English.


title: Culture of Italy

text: National symbols of Italy are the symbols that uniquely identify Italy reflecting its history and culture. They are used to represent the Nation through emblems, metaphors, personifications, allegories, which are shared by the entire Italian people.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Of these only the flag is explicitly mentioned in the Italian Constitution; this normative insertion puts the flag under the protection of the law, making it possible criminal penalties for contempt of the same.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The teaching in the schools of the Il Canto degli Italiani, the reflection on the Risorgimento events, and on the adoption of the Flag of Italy are prescribed by law n. 222 of 23 November 2012.


title: Culture of Italy

text: There are also other symbols or emblems of Italy which, although not defined by law, are part of the Italian identity:


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italy has been a unitary parliamentary republic since 2 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished by a constitutional referendum. The President of Italy ("Presidente della Repubblica"), currently Sergio Mattarella since 2015, is Italy's head of state. The President is elected for a single seven years mandate by the Parliament of Italy and some regional voters in joint session. Italy has a written democratic constitution, resulting from the work of a Constituent Assembly formed by the representatives of all the anti-fascist forces that contributed to the defeat of Nazi and Fascist forces during the Italian Civil War.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italy has a parliamentary government based on a mixed proportional and majoritarian voting system. The parliament is perfectly bicameral: the two houses, the Chamber of Deputies that meets in Palazzo Montecitorio, and the Senate of the Republic that meets in Palazzo Madama, have the same powers. The Prime Minister, officially President of the Council of Ministers ("Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri"), is Italy's head of government. The Prime Minister and the cabinet are appointed by the President of the Republic of Italy and must pass a vote of confidence in Parliament to come into office. To remain the Prime Minister has to pass also eventual further votes of confidence or no confidence in Parliament.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The prime minister is the President of the Council of Ministers – which holds effective executive power – and he must receive a vote of approval from it to execute most political activities. The office is similar to those in most other parliamentary systems, but the leader of the Italian government is not authorised to request the dissolution of the Parliament of Italy.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Another difference with similar offices is that the overall political responsibility for intelligence is vested in the President of the Council of Ministers. By virtue of that, the Prime Minister has exclusive power to: co-ordinate intelligence policies, determining the financial resources and strengthening national cyber security; apply and protect State secrets; authorise agents to carry out operations, in Italy or abroad, in violation of the law.


title: Culture of Italy

text: A peculiarity of the Italian Parliament is the representation given to Italian citizens permanently living abroad: 12 Deputies and 6 Senators elected in four distinct overseas constituencies. In addition, the Italian Senate is characterised also by a small number of senators for life, appointed by the President "for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field". Former Presidents of the Republic are "ex officio" life senators.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italy was a founding member of the European Community — now the European Union. Italy was admitted to the United Nations in 1955 and is a member and strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Council of Europe. Its recent turns in the rotating Presidency of international organisations include the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the forerunner of the OSCE, in 1994; G8; and the EU in 2001 and from July to December 2003.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The law of Italy has a plurality of sources of production. These are arranged in a hierarchical scale, under which the rule of a lower source cannot conflict with the rule of an upper source (hierarchy of sources). The Constitution of 1948 is the main source.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The judiciary of Italy is based on Roman law modified by the Napoleonic code and later statutes. The Supreme Court of Cassation is the highest court in Italy for both criminal and civil appeal cases. The Constitutional Court of Italy ("Corte Costituzionale") rules on the conformity of laws with the constitution and is a post–World War II innovation.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Italian law enforcement system is complex, with multiple police forces. The national policing agencies are the Polizia di Stato (State Police), the Arma dei Carabinieri, the Guardia di Finanza (Financial Guard), and the Polizia Penitenziaria (Prison Police), as well as the Guardia Costiera (coast guard police).


title: Culture of Italy

text: The "Polizia di Stato" are a civil police supervised by the Interior Ministry, while the "Carabinieri" is a gendarmerie supervised by the Defense Ministry; both share duties in law enforcement and the maintenance of public order. Within the Carabinieri is a unit devoted to combating environmental crime. The "Guardia di Finanza" is responsible for combating financial crime and white-collar crime, as well as customs. The "Polizia Penitenziaria" are responsible for guarding the prison system. The Corpo Forestale dello Stato (State Forestry Corps) formerly existed as a separate national park ranger agency, but was merged into the Carabinieri in 2016. Although policing in Italy is primarily provided on a national basis, there also exists "Polizia Provinciale" (provincial police) and "Polizia Municipale" (municipal police).


title: Culture of Italy

text: Public holidays celebrated in Italy include religious, national and regional observances. Italy's National Day, the "Festa della Repubblica" ("Republic Day") is celebrated on 2 June each year, with the main celebration taking place in Rome, and commemorates the birth of the Italian Republic in 1946. The ceremony of the event organized in Rome includes the deposition of a laurel wreath as a tribute to the Italian Unknown Soldier at the Altare della Patria by the President of the Italian Republic and a military parade along Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Liberation Day is a national holiday in Italy that commemorates the victory of the Italian resistance movement against Nazi Germany and the Italian Social Republic, puppet state of the Nazis and rump state of the fascists, in the Italian Civil War, a civil war in Italy fought during World War II. which takes place on 25 April. The date was chosen by convention, as it was the day of the year 1945 when the National Liberation Committee of Upper Italy (CLNAI) officially proclaimed the insurgency in a radio announcement, propounding the seizure of power by the CLNAI and proclaiming the death sentence for all fascist leaders (including Benito Mussolini, who was shot three days later).


title: Culture of Italy

text: National Unity and Armed Forces Day is an Italian national day since 1919 which commemorates the victory in World War I, a war event considered the completion of the process of unification of Italy. It is celebrated every 4 November, which is the anniversary of the armistice of Villa Giusti becoming effective in 1918 declaring Austria-Hungary's surrender. Italy entered the World War I in 1915 with the aim of completing national unity: for this reason, the Italian intervention in the World War I is also considered the Fourth Italian War of Independence, in a historiographical perspective that identifies in the latter the conclusion of the unification of Italy, whose military actions began during the revolutions of 1848 with the First Italian War of Independence. The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) and the Treaty of Rapallo (1920) allowed the annexation of Trentino Alto-Adige, Julian March, Istria, Kvarner as well as the Dalmatian city of Zara; the subsequent Treaty of Rome (1924) led to the annexation of the city of Fiume to Italy.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Anniversary of the Unification of Italy is a national day that falls annually on 17 March and celebrates the birth of Italy as modern nation state, which took place following the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861; however, the complete unification of Italy took place only in the following years. In 1866 the Veneto and the province of Mantua were annexed after the Third Italian War of Independence, then in 1870 Lazio after the capture of Rome, and finally in 1918 Trentino-Alto Adige and Julian March after the World War I. The anniversary of the birth of the Italian state was solemnly celebrated in 1911 (50 years), in 1961 (100 years), and in 2011 (150 years).


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Tricolour Day, officially National Flag Day, is the flag day of Italy. Celebrated on 7 January, it was established by Law 671 on 31 December 1996. It is intended as a celebration, though not a public holiday. The official celebration of the day is held in Reggio Emilia, the city where the Italian tricolour was first adopted by an Italian sovereign state, the Cispadane Republic, on 7 January 1797. In Rome, at the Quirinal Palace, the ceremonial foresees instead the change of the Guard of honour in solemn form with the deployment and the parade of the Corazzieri Regiment in gala uniform and the Fanfare of the Carabinieri Cavalry Regiment. This solemn rite is carried out only on three other occasions, during the celebrations of the Anniversary of the Unification of Italy (17 March), of the "Festa della Repubblica" (2 June) and of the National Unity and Armed Forces Day (4 November).


title: Culture of Italy

text: The National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe is an Italian celebration for the memory of the victims of the Foibe and the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus, which led to the emigration of hundreds of thousands (between 230,000 to 350,000) of local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians) from Yugoslavia after the end of the World War II. The Italian Law 92 of 30 March 2004 instituted a "Day of Remembrance" on 10 February to commemorate the victims of Foibe and the forced exodus of nearly the entire population of Italian origin living in Dalmatia and Julian March brought about by Yugoslavia. The law also instituted a special medal to be conferred on relatives of victims. The date of 10 February is the day on which the peace treaties of Paris were signed. These treaties transferred the previously Italian areas of Istria, Kvarner, the Dalmatian city of Zadar and most of Julian March to Yugoslavia.


title: Culture of Italy

text: In 2017, the proportion of Italians who identified themselves as Roman Catholic Christians was 74.4%. Since 1985, Catholicism is no longer officially the state religion. Italy has the world's fifth-largest Catholic population, and is the largest Catholic nation in Europe.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Holy See, the episcopal jurisdiction of Rome, contains the central government of the Catholic Church. It is recognised by other subjects of international law as a sovereign entity, headed by the Pope, who is also the Bishop of Rome, with which diplomatic relations can be maintained. Often incorrectly referred to as "the Vatican", the Holy See is not the same entity as the Vatican City State because the Holy See is the jurisdiction and administrative entity of the Pope. The Vatican City came into existence only in 1929.


title: Culture of Italy

text: In 2011, minority Christian faiths in Italy included an estimated 1.5 million Orthodox Christians, or 2.5% of the population; 500,000 Pentecostals and Evangelicals (of whom 400,000 are members of the Assemblies of God), 251,192 Jehovah's Witnesses, 30,000 Waldensians, 25,000 Seventh-day Adventists, 26,925 Latter-day Saints, 15,000 Baptists (plus some 5,000 Free Baptists), 7,000 Lutherans, 4,000 Methodists (affiliated with the Waldensian Church).


title: Culture of Italy

text: One of the longest-established minority religious faiths in Italy is Judaism, Jews having been present in Ancient Rome since before the birth of Christ. Italy has for centuries welcomed Jews expelled from other countries, notably Spain. However, about 20% of Italian Jews were killed during the Holocaust. This, together with the emigration which preceded and followed World War II, has left only around 28,400 Jews in Italy.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Soaring immigration in the last two decades has been accompanied by an increase in non-Christian faiths. Following immigration from the Indian subcontinent, in Italy there are 120,000 Hindus, 70,000 Sikhs and 22 gurdwaras across the country.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Italian state, as a measure to protect religious freedom, devolves shares of income tax to recognised religious communities, under a regime known as Eight per thousand. Donations are allowed to Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu communities; however, Islam remains excluded, since no Muslim communities have yet signed a concordat with the Italian state. Taxpayers who do not wish to fund a religion contribute their share to the state welfare system.


title: Culture of Italy

text: It is noteworthy to pinpoint that owing to the Italian Renaissance, church art in Italy is extraordinary, including works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Fra Carnevale, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Sandro Botticelli, Tintoretto, Titian, Raphael, and Giotto, etc. Italian church architecture is equally spectacular and historically important to Western culture, notably St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Cathedral of St. Mark's in Venice, and Brunelleschi's Florence Cathedral, which includes the "Gates of Paradise" doors at the Baptistery by Lorenzo Ghiberti.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The most popular sport in Italy is football. Italy's national football team is one of the world's most successful teams with four FIFA World Cup victories (1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006). Italian clubs have won 48 major European trophies, making Italy the second most successful country in European football. Italy's top-flight club football league is named Serie A and is followed by millions of fans around the world.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Other popular team sports in Italy include basketball, volleyball and rugby. Italy's male and female national volleyball teams are often featured among the world's best. The Italian national basketball team's best results were gold at Eurobasket 1983 and EuroBasket 1999, as well as silver at the Olympics in 2004. Lega Basket Serie A is widely considered one of the most competitive in Europe. Italy's rugby national team competes in the Six Nations Championship, and is a regular at the Rugby World Cup. The men's volleyball team won three consecutive World Championships (in 1990, 1994, and 1998) and earned the Olympic silver medal in 1996, 2004, and 2016.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Italy has a long and successful tradition in individual sports as well. Bicycle racing is a familiar sport in the country. Italians have won the UCI World Championships more than any other country, except Belgium. The Giro d'Italia is a cycling race held every May, and constitutes one of the three Grand Tours.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Alpine skiing is also a widespread sport in Italy, and the country is a popular international skiing destination, known for its ski resorts. Italian skiers achieved good results in Winter Olympic Games, Alpine Ski World Cup, and tennis has a significant following in Italy, ranking as the fourth most practised sport in the country. The Rome Masters, founded in 1930, is one of the most prestigious tennis tournaments in the world. Italian professional tennis players won the Davis Cup in 1976 and the Fed Cup in 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2013.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Motorsports are also extremely popular in Italy. Italy has won, by far, the most MotoGP World Championships. Italian Scuderia Ferrari is the oldest surviving team in Grand Prix racing, having competed since 1948, and statistically the most successful Formula One team in history with a record of 232 wins. The Italian Grand Prix of Formula 1 is the fifth oldest surviving Grand Prix, having been held since 1921. It is also one of the two Grand Prix present in every championship since the first one in 1950. Every Formula 1 Grand Prix (except for the 1980) has been held at Autodromo Nazionale Monza. Formula 1 was also held at Imola (1980–2006, 2020) and Mugello (2020). Other successful Italian car manufacturers in motorsports are Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Maserati and Fiat.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Historically, Italy has been successful in the Olympic Games, taking part from the first Olympiad and in 47 Games out of 48, not having officially participated in the 1904 Summer Olympics. Italian sportsmen have won 522 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, and another 106 at the Winter Olympic Games, for a combined total of 628 medals with 235 golds, which makes them the fifth most successful nation in Olympic history for total medals. The country hosted two Winter Olympics and will host a third (in 1956, 2006, and 2026), and one Summer games (in 1960).


title: Culture of Italy

text: Christmas in Italy () begins on 8 December, with the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the day on which traditionally the Christmas tree is mounted and ends on 6 January, of the following year with the Epiphany (in Italian: "Epifania"). The term "Natale" derives from the Latin "natalis" and the Greetings formulas in Italian are (Merry Christmas) and (Happy Christmas). The tradition of the nativity scene comes from Italy. What is considered the first nativity scene in history (a living nativity scene) was set up by St. Francis Of Assisi in Greccio in 1223. However, nativity scenes were already found in Naples in 1025. In Italy, regional crib traditions then spread, such as that of the Neapolitan crib.


title: Culture of Italy

text: In Italy, New Year's Eve ( or "Notte di San Silvestro") is celebrated by the observation of traditional rituals, such as wearing red underwear. An ancient tradition in southern regions which is rarely followed today was disposing of old or unused items by dropping them from the window. Dinner is traditionally eaten with relatives and friends. It often includes zampone or cotechino (a meal made with pig's trotters or entrails), and lentils. At 20:30, the President of Italy reads a television message of greetings to Italians. At midnight, fireworks are displayed all across the country. Rarely followed today is the tradition that consist in eating lentil stew when the bell tolls midnight, one spoonful per bell. This is supposed to bring good fortune; the round lentils represent coins.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Saint Lucy's Day, which take place on 13 December, is popular among children in some Italian regions, where she plays a role similar to Santa Claus. In addition, the Epiphany in Italy is associated with the folkloristic figure of the Befana, a broomstick-riding old woman who, in the night between 5 and 6 January, bringing good children gifts and sweets, and bad ones charcoal or bags of ashes. The Assumption of Mary coincides with "Ferragosto" on 15 August, the summer vacation period which may be a long weekend or most of the month.


title: Culture of Italy

text: In Italy, a "sagra" (plural: "sagre") is a popular festival of a local nature and annual frequency, which traditionally arises from a religious festival, celebrated on the occasion of a consecration or to commemorate a saint (usually the patron saint), but also used to celebrate the harvest or promote a food and wine product local. During a festival the local fair, the market and various celebrations usually take place. A "sagra" is often dedicated to some specific local food, and the name of the sagra includes that food; for example: "Festival delle Sagre astigiane", a "Sagra dell'uva" (grapes) at Marino, a "Sagra della Rana" (frog) at Casteldilago near Arrone, a "Sagra della Cipolla" (onion) at Cannara, a "Sagra della Melanzana ripiena" (stuffed eggplant) at Savona, a "Sagra della Polenta" at Perticara di Novafeltria, a "Sagra del Lattarino" at Bracciano, a "Sagra del Frico" at Carpacco-Dignano and so on. Among the most common "sagre" are those celebrating olive oil, wine, pasta and pastry of various kinds, chestnuts, and cheese.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The Italian national patronal day, on 4 October, celebrates Saints Francis and Catherine. Each city or town also celebrates a public holiday on the occasion of the festival of the local patron saint, for example: Rome on 29 June (Saints Peter and Paul), Milan on 7 December (Saint Ambrose), Naples on 19 September (Saint Januarius), Venice on 25 April (Saint Mark the Evangelist) and Florence on 24 June (Saint John the Baptist). Notable traditional patronal festivals in Italy are the Feast of Saints Francis and Catherine, the Festival of Saint Agatha, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the Feast of San Gennaro and the Feast of Our Lady of the Hens.


title: Culture of Italy

text: There are many traditional festivals in Italy. Some of them include the Palio di Siena horse race, Holy Week rites, Saracen Joust of Arezzo, Saint Ubaldo Day in Gubbio, Festival of Saint Agatha of Catania, Scoppio del carro in Florence, Fish Festival of Camogli, Infiorate di Spello, Festival of Saint Rosalia in Palermo, Notte della Taranta of Salento, Chilli Festival in Diamante, Grape Festival in Marino, Christmas markets of Trentino-Alto Adige, Nativity play in Sassi di Matera, Almond Blossom Festival in Agrigento, Tulip Festival in Castiglione del Lago, May Day in Assisi, Festival of the Knot of Love in Valeggio sul Mincio, Medieval Festivals in Brisighella, Prosciutto di San Daniele Festival in San Daniele del Friuli, Festa del Redentore in Venice, Macchina di Santa Rosa in Viterbo, Rice Fair in Isola della Scala, Barcolana regatta in Trieste, Regatta of the Historical Marine Republics and Nougat Festival in Cremona. In 2013, UNESCO has included among the intangible cultural heritage some Italian festivals and pasos (in Italian "macchine a spalla"), such as the Varia di Palmi, the Macchina di Santa Rosa in Viterbo, the Festa dei Gigli in Nola, and "faradda di li candareri" in Sassari. Another traditional festival is the Calcio Fiorentino (also referred to as "calcio storico", "historic football"), an early form of football (soccer and rugby) that originated during the Middle Ages and is still played annually today in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence. Other important traditional festivals are the Palio di Asti, the Palio di Legnano, the Palio di Ferrara, the Giostra del Saracino and the Giostra della Quintana.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Where the Ambrosian rite is observed, that is, in most of the churches of the archdiocese of Milan and in some of the neighboring dioceses, the Carnival () ends on the first Sunday of Lent; the last day of carnival is Saturday, 4 days later than the Tuesday when it ends where the Roman rite is observed. Above all, the Carnival of Venice and the Carnival of Viareggio, but also the Carnival of Ivrea have a reputation that goes beyond national borders and are popular with tourists from both Italy and abroad. These carnivals include sophisticate masquerades and parades. A completely different form or Carnival takes place in Sardinia, based on rituals to awaken the earth after Winter, possibly descending from pre-Christian traditions.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites are places of importance to cultural or natural heritage as described in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972. Cultural heritage consists of monuments (such as architectural works, monumental sculptures, or inscriptions), groups of buildings, and sites (including archaeological sites). Natural features (consisting of physical and biological formations), geological and physiographical formations (including habitats of threatened species of animals and plants), and natural sites which are important from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty, are defined as natural heritage. Italy ratified the convention on June 23, 1978.


title: Culture of Italy

text: The first site in Italy, the Rock Drawings in Valcamonica, was listed at the 3rd Session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Cairo and Luxor, Egypt, in 1979. Italy is the country with the highest concentration in the world of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. , Italy has a total of 58 inscribed sites, making it the country with the most World Heritage Sites just above China (56). Out of Italy's 58 heritage sites, 53 are cultural and 5 are natural.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Among the most famous Italian UNESCO World Heritage Sites there are Sassi di Matera; Porto Venere, Palmaria, Tino, Tinetto and Cinque Terre; Val d'Orcia; Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna; Valle dei Templi; Alberobello; Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia; Pompeii, Torre Annunziata and Herculaneum; Palmanova; Barumini nuraghes; Dolomites; Santa Maria delle Grazie and "The Last Supper"; Castel del Monte; Royal Palace of Caserta, Aqueduct of Vanvitelli and San Leucio Complex; Syracuse and Necropolis of Pantalica; Villa d'Este; Langhe-Roero and Montferrat; Aeolian Islands; Val di Noto; Amalfi Coast; Rhaetian Railway in the Albula/Bernina Landscapes; Aquileia; Duomo and the Leaning Tower of Pisa; Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalù and Monreale; Residences of the Royal House of Savoy; Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni, Paestum, Velia and Certosa di Padula; Scrovegni Chapel.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Seven sites are transnational. The Historic Centre of Rome is shared with the Vatican; the Monte San Giorgio and Rhaetian Railway with Switzerland; the with Croatia and Montenegro; the Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps with 5 other countries; The Great Spa Towns of Europe with 6 other countries; and the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe are shared with 17 other countries.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Women in Italy refers to females who are from (or reside in) Italy. The legal and social status of Italian women has undergone rapid transformations and changes during the past decades. This includes family laws, the enactment of anti-discrimination measures, and reforms to the penal code (in particular with regard to crimes of violence against women).


title: Culture of Italy

text: During the Middle ages, Italian women were considered to have very few social powers and resources, although some women inherited ruling positions from their fathers. Educated women could find opportunities of leadership only in religious convents. The Renaissance (15th–16th centuries) challenged conventional customs from the Medieval period. Women were still confined to the roles of "monaca, moglie, serva, cortigiana" ("nun, wife, servant, courtesan"). By the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Italian women intellectuals were embraced by contemporary culture as learned daughters, wives, mothers, and equal partners in their household. In the 18th-century, the Enlightenment offered for the first time to Italian women the possibility to engage in the fields of science and mathematics.


title: Culture of Italy

text: In the 19th century, the Napoleonic Age and the Risorgimento offered for the first time to Italian women the opportunity to be politically engaged. In the early 19th century, some of the most influential salons where Italian patriots, revolutionaries, and intellectuals were meeting were run by women. By the 1880s, women were making inroads into higher education. In the 20th century, women's rights suffered a setback under the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini, with fascist ideology dictating procreation as a woman's duty. More than 50,000 women, mostly in their twenties, took part in the Italian resistance movement during the Italian Civil War, when Italy was under German occupation (1939-1945). Their mass participation increased the involvement of women in Italian political life.


title: Culture of Italy

text: After World War II, women were given the right to vote in 1946 Italian institutional referendum. The new Italian Constitution of 1948 affirmed that women had equal rights. It was not however until the 1970s that women in Italy scored some major achievements with the introduction of laws regulating divorce (1970), abortion (1978), and the approval in 1975 of the new family code. Today, women have the same legal rights as men in Italy, and have mainly the same job, business, and education opportunities.


title: Culture of Italy

text: Famous women of the period include politicians Nilde Iotti, Tina Anselmi, and Emma Bonino; actresses Anna Magnani, Sofia Loren, and Gina Lollobrigida; soprano Renata Tebaldi; ballet dancer Carla Fracci; costume designer Milena Canonero; sportwomen Sara Simeoni, Deborah Compagnoni, Valentina Vezzali, and Federica Pellegrini; writers Natalia Ginzburg, Elsa Morante, Alda Merini, and Oriana Fallaci; architect Gae Aulenti; scientist and 1986 Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi-Montalcini; astrophysicist Margherita Hack; astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti; pharmacologist Elena Cattaneo; and CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti.


title: Dante Bowe

text: Dante Bowe is an American Christian worship singer, and songwriter. Bowe is a member of the Maverick City Music collective (on hiatus as of September 2022) and former member of the Bethel Music collective. In 2017, Bowe released his debut single, "Potter and Friend" featuring Jesse Cline, which was shortly followed with the independent release of his debut studio album, "Son of a Father".


title: Dante Bowe

text: Bowe signed with Bethel Music in June 2019. In 2020, He made his debut appearance with Bethel with the single "Champion" which was featured on the album "Revival's in the Air". This was also followed by three standalone singles: "Don't Talk About It" featuring Jesse Cline, "Be Alright" featuring Amanda Lindsey Cook, and "Voice of God" featuring Steffany Gretzinger and Chandler Moore. In 2021, he released his second studio album, "Circles", which contained the hit single "Joyful". "Joyful" won the GMA Dove Award for Contemporary Gospel Recorded Song of the Year at the 2021 GMA Dove Awards. "Circles" debuted at No. 7 on "Billboard"'s Top Gospel Albums chart in the United States. Bowe also featured on several collaborations, most notably the song "Wait on You" alongside Elevation Worship, Maverick City Music and Chandler Moore. Bowe received five nominations at the 2022 Grammy Awards, ultimately winning the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album for his work on "Old Church Basement" (2021) by Elevation Worship and Maverick City Music.


title: Dante Bowe

text: Dante Bowe grew in a Christian community in North Carolina. Bowe's grandparents were Christian ministers. Bowe attributed the cultivation of his musical appreciation to his parents, and went on to develop a love for singing after participating in a seventh-grade talent show. At ten years old, Bowe was molested by a church elder. Bowe's parents separated when he was eleven years old, and at twelve, he found out that they were drug dealers in order to sustain their family. Bowe became a converted Christian at sixteen years, and his parents stopped dealing drugs around the same time, with his mother also becoming a converted Christian. At sixteen, Bowe also had his spiritual awakening through the music of Kierra Sheard, saying that the record "Free" (2011) had changed his life. Bowe dropped out of high school and committed himself to full-time ministry, becoming employed by Eddie James Ministries as a worship leader.


title: Dante Bowe

text: In January 2017, Dante Bowe released his debut single, "Potter and Friend" featuring Jesse Cline. He then independently released his debut studio album, "Son of a Father", on March 31, 2017.


title: Dante Bowe

text: On January 11, 2019, Dante Bowe released "The Giant Is Dead" featuring Travis Greene, as a standalone single. In July 2019, Bethel Music announced that they signed Dante Bowe, subsequently joining the Bethel Music collective. On May 15, 2020, Bowe and Bethel Music released "Champion" as the first promotional single from the album "Revival's in the Air" (2020). Bowe later released "Champion" as an official single on July 17, 2020. "Champion" peaked at No. 28 on the US Hot Christian Songs chart. On May 27, 2020, Bowe and Bethel Music released "Anything Is Possible" as a promotional single from "Revival's in the Air". On August 14, 2020, Bowe released "Don't Talk About It" featuring Jesse Cline as a standalone single. On August 26, 2020, Bowe released "Be Alright" featuring Amanda Lindsey Cook, as a standalone single. On September 30, 2020, Bowe released "Voice of God" which featured Steffany Gretzinger and Chandler Moore. "Voice of God" peaked at No. 36 on the Hot Christian Songs chart.


title: Dante Bowe

text: On March 1, 2021, Dante Bowe announced that he will be releasing his second studio album, "Circles", on March 26. He released "Joyful" as the lead single from "Circles" on March 12, 2021. "Joyful peaked at No. 14 on the Hot Christian Songs chart, and at No. 3 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart. "Circles" was released on March 26, 2021. "Circles" debuted at No. 7 on the Top Gospel Albums chart in the United States. Bowe alongside Chandler Moore featured on "Wait on You" by Elevation Worship and Maverick City Music, which was released as the third promotional single to their collaborative live album, "Old Church Basement" (2021), on April 23, 2021. "Wait on You" debuted at No. 9 on the US Hot Christian Songs chart and at No. 1 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart, becoming Bowe's first top ten entry on the Hot Christian Songs chart and his first number one hit on the Hot Gospel Songs chart.


title: Dante Bowe

text: Bowe received three nominations for the 2021 GMA Dove Awards, being nominated for New Artist of the Year, Contemporary Gospel Recorded Song of the Year for "Joyful", and Gospel Worship Recorded Song of the Year for "Voice of God", ultimately winning the Contemporary Gospel Recorded Song of the Year for "Joyful". "Billboard" named Dante Bowe the Top New Gospel Artist of 2021.


title: Dante Bowe

text: At the 2022 Grammy Awards, Bowe received three Grammy Award nominations for Best Gospel Performance/Song, for his singles "Voice of God" and "Joyful" as well as a group nomination for "Wait on You" by Elevation Worship and Maverick City Music, becoming the first person to achieve multiple nominations in the Best Gospel Performance/Song category since its formation in 2015. Bowe also received group nominations as a member of Maverick City Music for "Old Church Basement" in the Best Contemporary Christian Music Album category and "" (2021) in the Best Gospel Album category. Bowe ultimately won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album for his contribution on "Old Church Basement" at the 2022 ceremony.


title: Dante Bowe

text: On March 4, 2022, Bowe released "The Healing" with Blanca as a single. "The Healing" peaked at No. 9 on the Hot Christian Songs chart. Bowe released "Nail Scarred Hands" as a single on April 1, 2022. On May 13, 2022, Bowe announced that he will embark on his first headlining tour, dubbed the Worship Nights Tour, joined by fellow Maverick City Music member Aaron Moses and Aodhan King of Hillsong Young & Free and set to visit eight cities in the United States during the summer of 2022. Bowe and Crowder released "God Really Loves Us" featuring Maverick City Music as a single on June 3, 2022. "God Really Loves Us" peaked at No. 12 on the Hot Christian Songs chart, and at No. 3 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart.


title: Dante Bowe

text: On September 26, 2022, Maverick City Music announced via a statement published on Instagram that they will be pausing their professional relationship with Dante Bowe, citing behaviour that was inconsistent with their core values and beliefs, the nature of which was not specified. Bowe released a statement of apology, stating that he was receiving counsel and support, while also taking a step back from social media and expressed recommitment to God's purpose for his life. His social media posts have subsequently been handled by “team Dante”.


title: Dante Bowe

text: Bowe received four nominations for the 2022 GMA Dove Awards, being nominated for Songwriter of the Year - Artist, Song of the Year for co-writing "Promises", and Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year and Short Form Music Video of the Year (Performance) for "I Love You" alongside Judah and Aaron Moses. At the 2023 Grammy Awards, Bowe also received a nomination for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song for "God Really Loves Us (Radio Version)" alongside Crowder and Maverick City Music.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: Rare-earth magnets are strong permanent magnets made from alloys of rare-earth elements. Developed in the 1970s and 1980s, rare-earth magnets are the strongest type of permanent magnets made, producing significantly stronger magnetic fields than other types such as ferrite or alnico magnets. The magnetic field typically produced by rare-earth magnets can exceed 1.2 teslas, whereas ferrite or ceramic magnets typically exhibit fields of 0.5 to 1 tesla.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: There are two types: neodymium magnets and samarium–cobalt magnets. Rare-earth magnets are extremely brittle and also vulnerable to corrosion, so they are usually plated or coated to protect them from breaking, chipping, or crumbling into powder.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: The development of rare-earth magnets began around 1966, when K. J. Strnat and G. Hoffer of the US Air Force Materials Laboratory discovered that an alloy of yttrium and cobalt, YCo, had by far the largest magnetic anisotropy constant of any material then known.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: The term "rare earth" can be misleading, as some of these metals can be as abundant in the Earth's crust as tin or lead, but rare earth ores do not exist in seams (like coal or copper), so in any given cubic kilometre of crust they are "rare". The major source is currently China. Some countries classify rare earth metals as strategically important, and recent Chinese export restrictions on these materials have led some to initiate research programs to develop strong magnets that do not require rare earth metals.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: The rare-earth (lanthanide) elements are metals that are ferromagnetic, meaning that like iron they can be magnetized to become permanent magnets, but their Curie temperatures (the temperature above which their ferromagnetism disappears) are below room temperature, so in pure form their magnetism only appears at low temperatures. However, they form compounds with the transition metals such as iron, nickel, and cobalt, and some of these compounds have Curie temperatures well above room temperature. Rare-earth magnets are made from these compounds.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: Some important properties used to compare permanent magnets are: remanence ("B"), which measures the strength of the magnetic field; coercivity ("H"), the material's resistance to becoming demagnetized; energy product ("B·H"), the density of magnetic energy; and Curie temperature ("T"), the temperature at which the material loses its magnetism. Rare-earth magnets have higher remanence, much higher coercivity and energy product, but (for neodymium) lower Curie temperature than other types. The table below compares the magnetic performance of the two types of rare-earth magnets, neodymium (NdFeB) and samarium-cobalt (SmCo), with other types of permanent magnets.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: Samarium–cobalt magnets (chemical formula: SmCo), the first family of rare-earth magnets invented, are less used than neodymium magnets because of their higher cost and lower magnetic field strength. However, samarium–cobalt has a higher Curie temperature, creating a niche for these magnets in applications where high field strength is needed at high operating temperatures. They are highly resistant to oxidation, but sintered samarium–cobalt magnets are brittle and prone to chipping and cracking and may fracture when subjected to thermal shock.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: Neodymium magnets, invented in the 1980s, are the strongest and most affordable type of rare-earth magnet. They are made of an alloy of neodymium, iron, and boron (NdFeB), sometimes abbreviated as NIB. Neodymium magnets are used in numerous applications requiring strong, compact permanent magnets, such as electric motors for cordless tools, hard disk drives, magnetic holddowns, and jewelry clasps. They have the highest magnetic field strength and have a higher coercivity (which makes them magnetically stable), but they have a lower Curie temperature and are more vulnerable to oxidation than samarium–cobalt magnets.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: Corrosion can cause unprotected magnets to spall off a surface layer or to crumble into a powder. Use of protective surface treatments such as gold, nickel, zinc, and tin plating and epoxy-resin coating can provide corrosion protection; the majority of neodymium magnets use nickel plating to provide a robust protection.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: Originally, the high cost of these magnets limited their use to applications requiring compactness together with high field strength. Both the raw materials and the patent licenses were expensive. However, since the 1990s, NIB magnets have become steadily less expensive, and their lower cost has inspired new uses such as magnetic construction toys.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: The greater force exerted by rare-earth magnets creates hazards that are not seen with other types of magnet. Magnets larger than a few centimeters are strong enough to cause injuries to body parts pinched between two magnets or a magnet and a metal surface, even causing broken bones. Magnets allowed to get too near each other can strike each other with enough force to chip and shatter the brittle material, and the flying chips can cause injuries. Starting in 2005, powerful magnets breaking off toys or from magnetic construction sets started causing injuries and deaths. Young children who have swallowed several magnets have had a fold of the digestive tract pinched between the magnets, causing injury and in one case intestinal perforations, sepsis, and death.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: A voluntary standard for toys, permanently fusing strong magnets to prevent swallowing, and capping unconnected magnet strength, was adopted in 2007. In 2009, a sudden growth in sales of magnetic desk toys for adults caused a surge in injuries, with emergency room visits estimated at 3,617 in 2012. In response, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission passed a rule in 2012 restricting rare-earth magnet size in consumer products, but it was vacated by a US federal court decision in November 2016, in a case brought by the one remaining manufacturer. After the rule was nullified, the number of ingestion incidents in the country rose sharply, and is estimated to exceed 1,500 in 2019.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: Since their prices became competitive in the 1990s, neodymium magnets have been replacing alnico and ferrite magnets in the many applications in modern technology requiring powerful magnets. Their greater strength allows smaller and lighter magnets to be used for a given application.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: The United States Department of Energy has identified a need to find substitutes for rare-earth metals in permanent-magnet technology and has begun funding such research. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has sponsored a Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies (REACT) program, to develop alternative materials. In 2011, ARPA-E awarded 31.6 million dollars to fund Rare-Earth Substitute projects.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: The European Union's ETN-Demeter project (European Training Network for the Design and Recycling of Rare-Earth Permanent Magnet Motors and Generators in Hybrid and Full Electric Vehicles) is examining sustainable design of electric motors used in vehicles. They are, for example, designing electric motors in which the magnets can be easily removed for recycling the rare earth metals.


title: Rare-earth magnet

text: The European Union's European Research Council also awarded to Principal Investigator, Prof. Thomas Zemb, and co-Principal Investigator, Dr. Jean-Christophe P. Gabriel, an Advanced Research Grant for the project "Rare Earth Element reCYCling with Low harmful Emissions : REE-CYCLE", which aimed at finding new processes for the recycling of rare earth.


title: Prologue

text: A prologue or prolog (from Greek πρόλογος "prólogos", from πρό "pró", "before" and λόγος "lógos", "word") is an opening to a story that establishes the context and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Ancient Greek "prólogos" included the modern meaning of "prologue", but was of wider significance, more like the meaning of preface. The importance, therefore, of the prologue in Greek drama was very great; it sometimes almost took the place of a romance, to which, or to an episode in which, the play itself succeeded.


title: Prologue

text: On the Latin stage the prologue was often more elaborate than it was in Athens, and in the careful composition of the poems which Plautus prefixes to his plays we see what importance he gave to this portion of the entertainment; sometimes, as in the preface to the "Rudens", Plautus rises to the height of his genius in his adroit and romantic prologues, usually placed in the mouths of persons who make no appearance in the play itself.


title: Prologue

text: Molière revived the Plautian prologue in the introduction to his "Amphitryon". Racine introduced Piety as the speaker of a prologue which opened his choral tragedy of Esther.


title: Prologue

text: The tradition of the ancients vividly affected our own early dramatists. Not only was the mystery plays and miracles of the Middle Ages begun by a homily, but when the drama in its modern sense was inaugurated in the reign of Elizabeth, the prologue came with it, directly adapted from the practice of Euripides and Terence. Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, prepared a sort of prologue in the dumb show for his "Gorboduc" of 1562; and he also wrote a famous Induction, which is, practically, a prologue, to a miscellany of short romantic epics by diverse hands.


title: Prologue

text: Prologues of Renaissance drama often served a specific function of transition and clarification for the audience. A direct address made by one actor, the prologue acted as an appeal to the audience's attention and sympathy, providing historical context, a guide to themes of the play, and occasionally, a disclaimer. In this mode, a prologue, like any scripted performance, would exist as the text, the actor who speaks that text, and the presentation of the language as it is spoken. In ushering the audience from reality into the world of the play, the prologue straddles boundaries between audience, actors, characters, playwrights—basically, it creates a distinction between the imaginary space within the play and the outside world. Ben Jonson has often been noted as using the prologue to remind the audience of the complexities between themselves and all aspects of the performance.


title: Prologue

text: The actor reciting the prologue would appear dressed in black, a stark contrast to the elaborate costumes used during the play. The prologue removed his hat and wore no makeup. He may have carried a book, scroll, or placard displaying the title of the play. He was introduced by three short trumpet calls, on the third of which he entered and took a position downstage. He made three bows in the current fashion of the court, and then addressed the audience.


title: Prologue

text: The Elizabethan prologue was unique in incorporating aspects of both classical and medieval traditions. In the classical tradition, the prologue conformed to one of four subgenres: the "sustatikos", which recommends either the play or the poet; the "epitimetikos", in which a curse is given against a rival, or thanks given to the audience; "dramatikos", in which the plot of the play is explained; and mixtos, which contains all of these things. In the medieval tradition, expressions of morality and modesty are seen, as well as a meta-theatrical self-consciousness, and an unabashed awareness of the financial contract engaged upon by paid actors and playwrights, and a paying audience.


title: Prologue

text: Prologues have long been used in non-dramatic fiction, since at least the time of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", although Chaucer had prologues to many of the tales, rather than one at the front of the book.


title: Prologue

text: "The Museum of Eterna's Novel" by the Argentine writer Macedonio Fernandez has over 50 prologues by the author. Their style varies between metaphysical, humoristic, psychological, discussions about the art of the novel, etc.


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: In computer science, a self-balancing binary search tree (BST) is any node-based binary search tree that automatically keeps its height (maximal number of levels below the root) small in the face of arbitrary item insertions and deletions.


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: These operations when designed for a self-balancing binary search tree, contain precautionary measures against boundlessly increasing tree height, so that these abstract data structures receive the attribute "self-balancing".


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: For height-balanced binary trees, the height is defined to be logarithmic formula_1 in the number formula_2 of items. This is the case for many binary search trees, such as AVL trees and red–black trees. Splay trees and treaps are self-balancing but not height-balanced, as their height is not guaranteed to be logarithmic in the number of items.


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: Self-balancing binary search trees provide efficient implementations for mutable ordered lists, and can be used for other abstract data structures such as associative arrays, priority queues and sets.


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: Most operations on a binary search tree (BST) take time directly proportional to the height of the tree, so it is desirable to keep the height small. A binary tree with height "h" can contain at most 2+2+···+2 = 2−1 nodes. It follows that for any tree with "n" nodes and height "h":


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: In other words, the minimum height of a binary tree with "n" nodes is rounded down; that is, formula_5.


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: However, the simplest algorithms for BST item insertion may yield a tree with height "n" in rather common situations. For example, when the items are inserted in sorted key order, the tree degenerates into a linked list with "n" nodes. The difference in performance between the two situations may be enormous: for example, when "n" = 1,000,000, the minimum height is formula_6.


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: If the data items are known ahead of time, the height can be kept small, in the average sense, by adding values in a random order, resulting in a random binary search tree. However, there are many situations (such as online algorithms) where this randomization is not viable.


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: Self-balancing binary trees solve this problem by performing transformations on the tree (such as tree rotations) at key insertion times, in order to keep the height proportional to Although a certain overhead is involved, it is not bigger than the always necessary lookup cost and may be justified by ensuring fast execution of all operations.


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: While it is possible to maintain a BST with minimum height with expected formula_7 time operations (lookup/insertion/removal), the additional space requirements required to maintain such a structure tend to outweigh the decrease in search time. For comparison, an AVL tree is guaranteed to be within a factor of 1.44 of the optimal height while requiring only two additional bits of storage in a naive implementation. Therefore, most self-balancing BST algorithms keep the height within a constant factor of this lower bound.


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: In the asymptotic ("Big-O") sense, a self-balancing BST structure containing "n" items allows the lookup, insertion, and removal of an item in O(log "n") worst-case time, and ordered enumeration of all items in O("n") time. For some implementations these are per-operation time bounds, while for others they are amortized bounds over a sequence of operations. These times are asymptotically optimal among all data structures that manipulate the key only through comparisons.


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: Self-balancing binary search trees can be used in a natural way to construct and maintain ordered lists, such as priority queues. They can also be used for associative arrays; key-value pairs are simply inserted with an ordering based on the key alone. In this capacity, self-balancing BSTs have a number of advantages and disadvantages over their main competitor, hash tables. One advantage of self-balancing BSTs is that they allow fast (indeed, asymptotically optimal) enumeration of the items "in key order", which hash tables do not provide. One disadvantage is that their lookup algorithms get more complicated when there may be multiple items with the same key. Self-balancing BSTs have better worst-case lookup performance than hash tables (O(log n) compared to O(n)), but have worse average-case performance (O(log n) compared to O(1)).


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: Self-balancing BSTs can be used to implement any algorithm that requires mutable ordered lists, to achieve optimal worst-case asymptotic performance. For example, if binary tree sort is implemented with a self-balancing BST, we have a very simple-to-describe yet asymptotically optimal O("n" log "n") sorting algorithm. Similarly, many algorithms in computational geometry exploit variations on self-balancing BSTs to solve problems such as the line segment intersection problem and the point location problem efficiently. (For average-case performance, however, self-balancing BSTs may be less efficient than other solutions. Binary tree sort, in particular, is likely to be slower than merge sort, quicksort, or heapsort, because of the tree-balancing overhead as well as cache access patterns.)


title: Self-balancing binary search tree

text: Self-balancing BSTs are flexible data structures, in that it's easy to extend them to efficiently record additional information or perform new operations. For example, one can record the number of nodes in each subtree having a certain property, allowing one to count the number of nodes in a certain key range with that property in O(log "n") time. These extensions can be used, for example, to optimize database queries or other list-processing algorithms.


title: Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1979 TV series)

text: The original thirty-minute version of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo constitutes the fourth incarnation of the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon "Scooby-Doo". It premiered on September 22, 1979, and ran for one season on ABC as a half-hour program. A total of sixteen episodes were produced. It aired internationally on BBC One in the United Kingdom from 1981 to 1984. It was the last Hanna-Barbera cartoon series (excluding prime-time specials) to use the studio's laugh track.


text: By 1979, the staff at Hanna-Barbera realized that the "Scooby-Doo" formula was getting worn out, which gave them reason to parody it in a 1979 primetime special, "Scooby Goes Hollywood", which was produced and finished before the series aired in September 1979. In addition, ABC began threatening cancellation for the show, as the show's ratings were declining and Fred Silverman, one of the show's biggest backers at ABC, had left for NBC in 1978. ABC was going to choose between two shows: Scooby-Doo or an unnamed pilot from Ruby Spears Enterprises. Therefore, for its 1979–1980 season, "Scooby-Doo" was given a major overhaul, adding the character of Scooby's nephew Scrappy-Doo, voiced by Lennie Weinrib, and changing the name of the show to "Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo".


text: Although still present in these episodes, the characters of Fred, Daphne, and Velma became less essential to the plot, and it became more of a concentrated effort to try and make them relevant, once the new character's presence shed light on it.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: Jannik Vestergaard (born 3 August 1992) is a Danish professional footballer who plays as a centre back for Premier League club Leicester City and the Denmark national team.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: Vestergaard played for various Danish and German clubs before joining Southampton in 2018. He also played for various youth levels and debuted for the senior team in 2013.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: Vestergaard was born to a Danish father and a German mother in the Copenhagen suburb of Hvidovre and grew up in Copenhagen.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: His German grandfather Hannes Schröers and uncle Jan Schröers were also footballers for Fortuna Düsseldorf and Bayer 05 Uerdingen respectively. His cousin Mika Schröers played for Borussia Mönchengladbach's youth teams in 2016.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: Vestergaard played youth football with Vestia, Frem, Copenhagen and Brøndby. He began his senior career with German club TSG 1899 Hoffenheim. He moved to Werder Bremen in January 2015.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: On 11 June 2016, Vestergaard joined Borussia Mönchengladbach for a reported transfer of €12 million plus bonuses.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: Vestergaard moved to English club Southampton on 13 July 2018, signing a four-year contract. On 12 August 2018, he made his debut in a 0–0 draw against Burnley in the Premier League. He scored his first goal for the club on 31 August 2019, the equalizer in a 1–1 draw against Manchester United.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: On 12 August 2021 it was announced that Southampton had accepted a transfer offer from Leicester City for Vestergaard. On 13 August 2021, he signed for Leicester City on a three-year contract, for an undisclosed fee.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: Vestergaard represented the Denmark national youth teams at under-18, under-19, under-20 and under-21 levels. He received his first call-up to the Denmark senior team in August 2013, describing it as his "dream" to play for the country, and he made his debut later that month in a match against Poland. His first goal for Denmark came in his first competitive game, against Sweden in the European Championship play-off return leg on 17 November 2015.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: He represented the Denmark U21 team at the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship in the Czech Republic, and scored in a 2–1 defeat of the host nation in the opening match at the Eden Arena in Prague.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: Vestergaard was a member of Denmark's squad at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, but did not make any appearances in the tournament.


title: Jannik Vestergaard

text: In June 2021, he was included in the national team's bid for 2020 UEFA Euro, where the team reached the semi-finals.


title: Lorde discography

text: New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde has released three studio albums, four extended plays, 11 singles and nine music videos. At the age of 13, she was signed to Universal Music Group (UMG) and started to write music. In November 2012, when she was 16 years old, she self-released "The Love Club EP" via SoundCloud. It was released for sale by UMG in March 2013; a song from the EP, "Royals", topped numerous single charts internationally, including the US "Billboard" Hot 100. The track sold over 10 million units worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all-time.


title: Lorde discography

text: Later that year, Lorde released her debut studio album "Pure Heroine", which included "Royals". It charted at number one in New Zealand and Australia, and achieved certifications in several countries. As of June 2021, the album has sold over six million copies worldwide. It was preceded by three additional singles: "Tennis Court", "Team", and "Glory and Gore". "Team" was a top-ten hit in several single charts, including Canada and the United States. The following year, Lorde recorded four songs for the of the 2014 film "", including the single "Yellow Flicker Beat".


title: Lorde discography

text: Her second studio album, "Melodrama", was released in June 2017, and topped the charts in four countries, including the United States. It yielded three singles: "Green Light", "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, SZA and Post Malone. The former was a top-ten hit in Australia and Canada.


title: Lorde discography

text: The following songs are not singles or promotional singles and have not appeared on an album by Lorde:


title: Whole life insurance

text: Whole life insurance, or whole of life assurance (in the Commonwealth of Nations), sometimes called "straight life" or "ordinary life", is a life insurance policy which is guaranteed to remain in force for the insured's entire lifetime, provided required premiums are paid, or to the maturity date. As a life insurance policy it represents a contract between the insured and insurer that as long as the contract terms are met, the insurer will pay the death benefit of the policy to the policy's beneficiaries when the insured dies. Because whole life policies are guaranteed to remain in force as long as the required premiums are paid, the premiums are typically much higher than those of term life insurance where the premium is fixed only for a limited term. Whole life premiums are fixed, based on the age of issue, and usually do not increase with age. The insured party normally pays premiums until death, except for limited pay policies which may be paid up in 10 years, 20 years, or at age 65. Whole life insurance belongs to the cash value category of life insurance, which also includes universal life, variable life, and endowment policies.


title: Whole life insurance

text: The death benefit of a whole life policy is normally the stated face amount. However, if the policy is "participating", the death benefit will be increased by any accumulated dividend values and/or decreased by any outstanding policy loans (see example below). Certain riders, such as Accidental Death benefit may exist, which would potentially increase the benefit.


title: Whole life insurance

text: In contrast, universal life policies (a flexible premium whole life substitute) may be structured to pay cash values in addition to the face amount, but usually do not guarantee lifetime coverage in such cases.


title: Whole life insurance

text: A whole life policy is said to "mature" at death or the maturity age of 100, whichever comes first. To be more exact the maturity date will be the "policy anniversary nearest age 100". The policy becomes a "matured endowment" when the insured person lives past the stated maturity age. In that event the policy owner receives the face amount in cash. With many modern whole life policies, issued since 2009, maturity ages have been increased to 120. Increased maturity ages have the advantage of preserving the tax-free nature of the death benefit. In contrast, a matured endowment may have substantial tax obligations.


title: Whole life insurance

text: The entire death benefit of a whole life policy is free of income tax, except in unusual cases. This includes any internal gains in cash values. The same is true of group life, term life, and accidental death policies.


title: Whole life insurance

text: However, when a policy is cashed out before death, the treatment varies. With cash surrenders, any gain over total premiums paid will be taxable as ordinary income. The same is true in the case of a matured endowment. This is why most people choose to take cash values out as a "loan" against the death benefit rather than a "surrender." Any money taken as a loan is free from income tax as long as the policy remains in force. For participating whole life policies, the interest charged by the insurance company for the loan is often less than the dividend each year, especially after 10–15 years, so the policy owner can pay off the loan using dividends. If the policy is surrendered or canceled before death, any loans received above the cumulative value of premiums paid will be subject to tax as growth on investment.


title: Whole life insurance

text: Although life insurance benefits are generally free of income tax, the same is not true of estate tax. In the US, life insurance will be considered part of a person's taxable estate to the extent he possesses "incidents of ownership." Estate planners often use special irrevocable trusts to shield life insurance from estate taxes.


title: Whole life insurance

text: Individuals may find whole life attractive because it offers coverage for an indeterminate length of time. It is the dominant choice for insuring so-called "permanent" insurance needs, including:


title: Whole life insurance

text: In the second category, term life is generally considered more suitable and has played an increasingly larger role in recent years.


title: Whole life insurance

text: While Term life may be suitable for Buy-Sell agreements and Key Person indemnification, cash value insurance is almost exclusively for Deferred Comp and S.E.R.P.'s.


title: Whole life insurance

text: Level premium whole life insurance (sometimes called ordinary whole life, though this term is also sometimes used more broadly) provides lifetime death benefit coverage for a level premium.


title: Whole life insurance

text: Whole life premiums are much higher than term insurance premiums, but because term insurance premiums rise with increasing age of the insured, the cumulative value of all premiums paid under whole and term policies are roughly equal if the policy continues to average life expectancy. Part of the insurance contract stipulates that the policyholder is entitled to a cash value reserve that is part of the policy and guaranteed by the company. This cash value can be accessed at any time through policy loans that are received income tax-free and paid back according to mutually agreed-upon schedules. These policy loans are available until the insured's death. If any loans amounts are outstanding—i.e., not yet paid back—upon the insured's death, the insurer subtracts those amounts from the policy's face value/death benefit and pays the remainder to the policy's beneficiary.


title: Whole life insurance

text: Whole life insurance may prove a better value than term for someone with an insurance need of greater than ten to fifteen years due to favorable tax treatment of interest credited to cash values. However, for those unable to afford the premium necessary to provide adequate whole life coverage for their current insurance needs, it would be imprudent to purchase less coverage than is adequate as whole life insurance rather than purchase an adequate level of term to cover their current need.


title: Whole life insurance

text: While some life insurance companies market whole life as a "death benefit with a savings account", the distinction is artificial, according to life insurance actuaries Albert E. Easton and Timothy F. Harris. The net amount at risk is the amount the insurer must pay to the beneficiary should the insured die before the policy has accumulated premiums equal to the death benefit. It is the difference between the policy's current cash value (i.e., total paid in by owner plus that amount's interest earnings) and its face value/death benefit. Although the actual cash value may be different from the death benefit, in practice the policy is identified by its original face value/death benefit.