title: History of Colombia

text: From approximately 12,000 years BP onwards, hunter-gatherer societies existed near present-day Bogotá (at El Abra and Tequendama), and they traded with one another and with cultures living in the Magdalena River valley. Due to its location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of early human migration from Mesoamerica and the Caribbean to the Andes and the Amazon basin. The oldest archaeological finds are from the Pubenza archaeological site and El Totumo archaeological site in the Magdalena Valley southwest of Bogotá. These sites date from the Paleoindian period (18,000–8000 BCE). At Puerto Hormiga archaeological site and other sites, traces from the Archaic period in South America (~8000–2000 BCE) have been found. Vestiges indicate that there was also early occupation in the regions of El Abra, Tibitó and Tequendama in Cundinamarca. The oldest pottery discovered in the Americas, found at San Jacinto archaeological site, dates to 5000–4000 BCE.


title: History of Colombia

text: Indigenous people inhabited the territory that is now Colombia by 10,500 BCE. Nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes at the El Abra and Tequendama sites near present-day Bogotá traded with one another and with other cultures from the Magdalena River Valley.


title: History of Colombia

text: Serranía La Lindosa, a mountainous region of Guaviare Department is known for an extensive prehistoric rock art site which stretches for nearly eight miles. The site, near to the  Guayabero River was discovered in 2019, but was not revealed to the public until 2020. There are tens of thousands of paintings of animals and humans created up to 12,500 BP. Images of now-extinct ice age animals, such as the mastodon, helped date the site. Other ice-age animals depicted include the palaeolama, giant sloths and ice age horses. The site has gone undiscovered because of a conflict between the government and the Farc. The remote site is a two-hour drive from San José del Guaviare, followed by a four hour trek. The site was discovered by a team from National University of Colombia, University of Antioquia and the University of Exeter as part of a project funded by European Research Council as part of the Horizon 2020 Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development. The site is to be featured in episode 2 of the Channel 4 series, Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon, on 12 December 2020.


title: History of Colombia

text: Between 5000 and 1000 BCE, hunter-gatherer tribes transitioned to agrarian societies; fixed settlements were established, and pottery appeared. Beginning in the 1st millennium BCE, groups of Amerindians including the Muisca, Quimbaya, Tairona, Calima, Zenú, Tierradentro, San Agustín, Tolima, and Urabá became skilled in farming, mining, and metalcraft; and some developed the political system of "cacicazgos" with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques. The Muisca inhabited mainly the area of what is now the Departments of Boyacá and Cundinamarca high plateau ("Altiplano Cundiboyacense") where they formed the Muisca Confederation. The Muisca had one of the most developed political systems (Muisca Confederation) in South America, surpassed only by the Incas. They farmed maize, potato, quinoa and cotton, and traded gold, emeralds, blankets, ceramic handicrafts, coca and especially salt with neighboring nations. The Tairona inhabited northern Colombia in the isolated Andes mountain range of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The Quimbaya inhabited regions of the Cauca River Valley between the Western and Central Ranges. The Incas expanded their empire on the southwest part of the country.


title: History of Colombia

text: Europeans first visited the territory that became Colombia in 1499 when the first expedition of Alonso de Ojeda arrived at the Cabo de la Vela. The Spanish made several attempts to settle along the north coast of today's Colombia in the early 16th century, but their first permanent settlement, at Santa Marta, dates from 1525. The Spanish commander Pedro de Heredia founded Cartagena on June 1, 1533 in the former location of the indigenous Caribbean Calamarí village. Cartagena grew rapidly, fueled first by the gold in the tombs of the Sinú Culture, and later by trade. The thirst for gold and land lured Spanish explorers to visit Chibchan-speaking areas; resulting in the Spanish conquest of the Chibchan Nations - the conquest by the Spanish monarchy of the Chibcha language-speaking nations, mainly the Muisca and Tairona who inhabited present-day Colombia, beginning the Spanish colonization of the Americas.


title: History of Colombia

text: The Spanish advance inland from the Caribbean coast began independently from three different directions, under Jimenéz de Quesáda, Sebastián de Benalcázar (known in Colombia as Belalcázar) and Nikolaus Federmann. Although all three were drawn by the Indian treasures, none intended to reach Muisca territory, where they finally met.


title: History of Colombia

text: In 1549, the institution of the Spanish Royal Audiencia in Bogotá gave that city the status of capital of New Granada, which comprised in large part what is now the territory of Colombia. As early as the 1500s however, secret anti-Spanish discontentment was already brewing for Colombians since Spain prohibited direct trade between the Viceroyalty of Peru, which included Colombia, and the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which included the Philippines the source of Asian products like silk and porcelain which was in demand in the Americas. Illegal trade between Peruvians, Filipinos, and Mexicans continued in secret, as smuggled Asian goods ended up in Córdoba, Colombia, the distribution center for illegal Asian imports, due to the collusion between these peoples against the authorities in Spain. They settled and traded with each other while disobeying the forced Spanish monopoly in more expensive silks and porcelain made in homeland Spain. In 1717, the Viceroyalty of New Granada was originally created, and then it was temporarily removed, to finally be reestablished in 1739. The Viceroyalty had Santa Fé de Bogotá as its capital. This Viceroyalty included some other provinces of northwestern South America which had previously been under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalties of New Spain or Peru and correspond mainly to today's Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. So, Bogotá became one of the principal administrative centers of the Spanish possessions in the New World, along with Lima and Mexico City.


title: History of Colombia

text: From then on, the long independence struggle was led mainly by Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander in neighboring Venezuela. Bolívar returned to New Granada only in 1819 after establishing himself as leader of the pro-independence forces in the Venezuelan "llanos". From there he led an army over the Andes and captured New Granada after a quick campaign that ended at the Battle of Boyacá, on August 7, 1819. ("For more information, see Military career of Simón Bolívar".)


title: History of Colombia

text: That year, the Congress of Angostura established the Republic of Gran Colombia, which included all territories under the jurisdiction of the former Viceroyalty of New Granada. Bolívar was elected the first president of Gran Colombia and Santander, vice president.


title: History of Colombia

text: As the Federation of Gran Colombia was dissolved in 1830, the Department of Cundinamarca (as established in Angostura) became a new country, the Republic of New Granada.


title: History of Colombia

text: In 1863 the name of the Republic was changed officially to "United States of Colombia", and in 1886 the country adopted its present name: "Republic of Colombia".


title: History of Colombia

text: Two political parties grew out of conflicts between the followers of Bolívar and Santander and their political visions—the Conservatives and the Liberals – and have since dominated Colombian politics. Bolívar's supporters, who later formed the nucleus of the Conservative Party, sought strong centralized government, alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, and a limited franchise. Santander's followers, forerunners of the Liberals, wanted a decentralized government, state rather than church control over education and other civil matters, and a broadened suffrage.


title: History of Colombia

text: Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, each party held the presidency for roughly equal periods of time. Colombia maintained a tradition of civilian government and regular, free elections. The military has seized power three times in Colombia's history: in 1830, after the dissolution of Great Colombia; again in 1854 (by General José María Melo); and from 1953 to 1957 (under General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla). Civilian rule was restored within one year in the first two instances.


title: History of Colombia

text: Notwithstanding the country's commitment to democratic institutions, Colombia's history has also been characterized by widespread, violent conflict. Two civil wars resulted from bitter rivalry between the Conservative and Liberal parties. The Thousand Days' War (1899–1902) cost an estimated 100,000 lives, and up to 300,000 people died during "La Violencia" of the late 1940s and 1950s, a bipartisan confrontation which erupted after the assassination of Liberal popular candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. United States activity to influence the area (especially the Panama Canal construction and control) led to a military uprising in the Isthmus Department in 1903, which resulted in the separation and independence of Panama.


title: History of Colombia

text: A military coup in 1953 toppled the right-wing government of Conservative Laureano Gómez and brought General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla to power. Initially, Rojas enjoyed considerable popular support, due largely to his success in reducing "La Violencia". When he did not restore democratic rule and occasionally engaged in open repression, however, he was overthrown by the military in 1957 with the backing of both political parties, and a provisional government was installed.


title: History of Colombia

text: In July 1957, former Conservative President Laureano Gómez (1950–1953) and former Liberal President Alberto Lleras (1945–1946, 1958–1962) issued the "Declaration of Sitges," in which they proposed a "National Front," whereby the Liberal and Conservative parties would govern jointly. The presidency would be determined by an alternating conservative and liberal president every 4 years for 16 years; the two parties would have parity in all other elective offices.


title: History of Colombia

text: The National Front ended "La Violencia", and National Front administrations attempted to institute far-reaching social and economic reforms in cooperation with the Alliance for Progress. In particular, the Liberal president Alberto Lleras Camargo (1958–1962) created the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA), and Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966–1970) further developed land entitlement. In 1968 and 1969 alone, the INCORA issued more than 60,000 land titles to farmers and workers.


title: History of Colombia

text: In the end, the contradictions between each successive Liberal and Conservative administration made the results decidedly mixed. Despite the progress in certain sectors, many social and political injustices continued.


title: History of Colombia

text: The National Front system itself eventually began to be seen as a form of political repression by dissidents and even many mainstream voters, and many protesters were victimized during this period. Especially after what was later confirmed as the fraudulent election of Conservative candidate Misael Pastrana in 1970, which resulted in the defeat of the relatively populist candidate and former president (dictator) Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. The M-19 guerrilla movement, "Movimiento 19 de Abril" (19 April Movement), would eventually be founded in part as a response to this particular event. The FARC was formed in 1964 by Manuel Marulanda Vélez and other Marxist–Leninist supporters, after a military attack on the community of Marquetalia.


title: History of Colombia

text: Although the system established by the Sitges agreement was phased out by 1974, the 1886 Colombian constitution — in effect until 1991—required that the losing political party be given adequate and equitable participation in the government which, according to many observers and later analysis, eventually resulted in some increase in corruption and legal relaxation. The current 1991 constitution does not have that requirement, but subsequent administrations have tended to include members of opposition parties.


title: History of Colombia

text: From 1974 until 1982, different presidential administrations chose to focus on ending the persistent insurgencies that sought to undermine Colombia's traditional political system. Both groups claimed to represent the poor and weak against the rich and powerful classes of the country, demanding the completion of true land and political reform, from an openly Communist perspective.


title: History of Colombia

text: By 1974, another challenge to the state's authority and legitimacy had come from 19th of April Movement (M-19), a mostly urban guerrilla group founded in response to an alleged electoral fraud during the final National Front election of Misael Pastrana Borrero (1970–1974) and the defeat of former dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Initially, the M-19 attracted a degree of attention and sympathy from mainstream Colombians that the FARC and National Liberation Army (ELN) had found largely elusive earlier due to extravagant and daring operations, such as stealing a sword that had belonged to Colombia's Independence hero Simon Bolívar. At the same time, its larger profile soon made it the focus of the state's counterinsurgency efforts.


title: History of Colombia

text: The ELN guerrilla had been seriously crippled by military operations in the region of Anorí by 1974, but it managed to reconstitute itself and escape destruction, in part due to the administration of Alfonso López Michelsen (1974–1978) allowing it to escape encirclement, hoping to initiate a peace process with the group.


title: History of Colombia

text: By 1982, the perceived passivity of the FARC, together with the relative success of the government's efforts against the M-19 and ELN, enabled the administration of the Liberal Party's Julio César Turbay (1978–1982) to lift a state-of-siege decree that had been in effect, on and off, for most of the previous 30 years. Under the latest such decree, president Turbay had implemented security policies that, though of some military value against the M-19 in particular, were considered highly questionable both inside and outside Colombian circles due to numerous accusations of military human rights abuses against suspects and captured guerrillas.


title: History of Colombia

text: Citizen exhaustion due to the conflict's newfound intensity led to the election of president Belisario Betancur (1982–1986), a Conservative who won 47% of the popular vote, directed peace feelers at all the insurgents, and negotiated a 1984 cease-fire with the FARC and M-19 after a 1982 release of many guerrillas imprisoned during the previous effort to overpower them. The ELN rejected entering any negotiation and continued to recover itself through the use of extortions and threats, in particular against foreign oil companies of European and U.S. origin.


title: History of Colombia

text: As these events were developing, the growing illegal drug trade and its consequences were also increasingly becoming a matter of widespread importance to all participants in the Colombian conflict. Guerrillas and newly wealthy drug lords had mutually uneven relations and thus numerous incidents occurred between them. Eventually, the kidnapping of drug cartel family members by guerrillas led to the creation of the 1981 "Muerte a Secuestradores" (MAS) death squad ("Death to Kidnappers"). Pressure from the U.S. government and critical sectors of Colombian society was met with further violence, as the Medellín Cartel and its hitmen, bribed or murdered numerous public officials, politicians and others who stood in its way by supporting the implementation of extradition of Colombian nationals to the U.S. Victims of cartel violence included Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara, whose assassination in 1984 made the Betancur administration begin to directly oppose the drug lords.


title: History of Colombia

text: The first negotiated cease-fire with the M-19 ended when the guerrillas resumed fighting in 1985, claiming that the cease-fire had not been fully respected by official security forces, saying that several of its members had suffered threats and assaults, and also questioning the government's real willingness to implement any accords. The Betancur administration, in turn, questioned the M-19's actions and its commitment to the peace process, as it continued to advance high-profile negotiations with the FARC, which led to the creation of the Patriotic Union (Colombia) (UP), a legal and non-clandestine political organization.


title: History of Colombia

text: On November 6, 1985, the M-19 stormed the Colombian Palace of Justice and held the Supreme Court magistrates hostage, intending to put president Betancur on trial. In the ensuing crossfire that followed the military's reaction, scores of people lost their lives, as did most of the guerrillas, including several high-ranking operatives. Both sides blamed each other for the outcome.


title: History of Colombia

text: Meanwhile, individual FARC members initially joined the UP leadership in representation of the guerrilla command, though most of the guerrilla's chiefs and militiamen did not demobilize nor disarm, as that was not a requirement of the process at that point in time. Tension soon significantly increased, as both sides began to accuse each other of not respecting the cease-fire. Political violence against FARC and UP members (including presidential candidate Jaime Pardo) was blamed on drug lords and also on members of the security forces (to a much lesser degree on the argued inaction of Betancur administration). Members of the government and security authorities increasingly accused the FARC of continuing to recruit guerrillas, as well as kidnapping, extorting and politically intimidating voters even as the UP was already participating in politics.


title: History of Colombia

text: The Virgilio Barco (1986–1990) administration, in addition to continuing to handle the difficulties of the complex negotiations with the guerrillas, also inherited a particularly chaotic confrontation against the drug lords, who were engaged in a campaign of terrorism and murder in response to government moves in favor of their extradition overseas. The UP also suffered an increasing number of losses during this term (including the assassination of presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo), which stemmed both from private proto-paramilitary organizations, increasingly powerful drug lords and a number of would-be paramilitary-sympathizers within the armed forces.


title: History of Colombia

text: Following administrations had to contend with the guerrillas, paramilitaries, narcotics traffickers and the violence and corruption that they all perpetuated, both through force and negotiation. Narcoterrorists assassinated three presidential candidates before César Gaviria was elected in 1990. Since the death of Medellín cartel leader Pablo Escobar in a police shootout during December 1993, indiscriminate acts of violence associated with that organization have abated as the "cartels" have broken up into multiple, smaller and often-competing trafficking organizations. Nevertheless, violence continues as these drug organizations resort to violence as part of their operations but also to protest government policies, including extradition.


title: History of Colombia

text: The M-19 and several smaller guerrilla groups were successfully incorporated into a peace process as the 1980s ended and the 1990s began, which culminated in the elections for a Constituent Assembly of Colombia that would write a new constitution, which took effect in 1991. The new Constitution, brought about a considerable number of institutional and legal reforms based on principles that the delegates considered as more modern, humanist, democratic and politically open than those in the 1886 constitution. Practical results were mixed and mingled emerged (such as the debate surrounding the constitutional prohibition of extradition, which later was reversed), but together with the reincorporation of some of the guerrilla groups to the legal political framework, the new Constitution inaugurated an era that was both a continuation and a gradual, but significant, departure from what had come before.


title: History of Colombia

text: Contacts with the FARC, which had irregularly continued despite the generalized de facto interruptions of the ceasefire and the official 1987 break from negotiations, were temporarily cut off in 1990 under the presidency of César Gaviria (1990–1994). The Colombian Army's assault on the FARC's "Casa Verde" sanctuary at La Uribe, Meta, followed by a FARC offensive that sought to undermine the deliberations of the Constitutional Assembly, began to highlight a significant break in the uneven negotiations carried over from the previous decade.


title: History of Colombia

text: President Ernesto Samper assumed office in August 1994. However, a political crisis relating to large-scale contributions from drug traffickers to Samper's presidential campaign diverted attention from governance programs, thus slowing, and in many cases, halting progress on the nation's domestic reform agenda. The military also suffered several setbacks in its fight against the guerrillas, when several of its rural bases began to be overrun and a record number of soldiers and officers were taken prisoner by the FARC (which since 1982 was attempting to implement a more "conventional" style of warfare, seeking to eventually defeat the military in the field).


title: History of Colombia

text: On August 7, 1998, Andrés Pastrana was sworn in as the President of Colombia. A member of the Conservative Party, Pastrana defeated Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa in a run-off election marked by high voter turnout and little political unrest. The new president's program was based on a commitment to bring about a peaceful resolution of Colombia's longstanding civil conflict and to cooperate fully with the United States to combat the trafficking of illegal drugs.


title: History of Colombia

text: While early initiatives in the Colombian peace process gave reason for optimism, the Pastrana administration also has had to combat high unemployment and other economic problems, such as the fiscal deficit and the impact of global financial instability on Colombia. During his administration, unemployment has risen to over 20%. Additionally, the growing severity of countrywide guerrilla attacks by the FARC and ELN, and smaller movements, as well as the growth of drug production, corruption and the spread of even more violent paramilitary groups such as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) has made it difficult to solve the country's problems.


title: History of Colombia

text: Although the FARC and ELN accepted participation in the peace process, they did not make explicit commitments to end the conflict. The FARC suspended talks in November 2000, to protest what it called "paramilitary terrorism" but returned to the negotiating table in February 2001, following 2 days of meetings between President Pastrana and FARC leader Manuel Marulanda. The Colombian Government and ELN in early 2001 continued discussions aimed at opening a formal peace process.


title: History of Colombia

text: By 2004, the security situation of Colombia had shown some measure of an improvement, and the economy, while still fragile, had also shown some positive signs. On the other hand, relatively little had been accomplished in structurally solving most of the country's other grave problems, in part due to legislative and political conflicts between the administration and the Colombian Congress (including those over the controversial 2006 project to give President Álvaro Uribe the right to be re-elected), and a relative lack of freely allocated funds and credits. In October 2006, Uribe was re-elected by a landslide.


title: History of Colombia

text: Some critical observers consider in retrospect that Uribe's policies, while admittedly reducing crime and guerrilla activity, were too slanted in favor of a military solution to Colombia's internal war, neglecting grave social and human rights concerns to a certain extent. They hoped that Uribe's government would make serious efforts towards improving the human rights situation inside the country, protecting civilians and reducing any abuses committed by the armed forces.


title: History of Colombia

text: Uribe's supporters in turn believed that increased military action was a necessary prelude to any serious negotiation attempt with the guerrillas and that the increased security situation would help the government, in the long term, to focus more actively on reducing most wide-scale abuses and human rights violations on the part of both the armed groups and any rogue security forces that might have links to the paramilitaries. In short, these supporters maintained that the security situation needed to be stabilized in favor of the government before any other social concerns could take precedence. In February 2010, the constitutional court blocked President Alvaro Uribe from seeking for a new re-election. Uribe left the presidency in 2010.


title: History of Colombia

text: In 2010 Juan Manuel Santos was elected president; he was supported by ex-president Uribe, and, in fact, he owed his election mainly through having won over former Uribe supporters. But two years after winning the presidential election, Santos (to widespread surprise) began peace talks with FARC, which took place in Havana. Re-elected in 2014, Santos revived an important infrastructure program, which in fact had been planned during the Uribe administration. Focused mainly on the provision of national highways, the program was led by former vice-president Germán Vargas Lleras.


title: History of Colombia

text: In 2015, Colombia's Congress limited presidency to single term, preventing the president from seeking re-election.


title: History of Colombia

text: Talks between the government and the guerrillas resulted in the announcement of a peace agreement. However, a referendum to ratify the deal was unsuccessful. Afterward, the Colombian government and the FARC signed a revised peace deal in November 2016, which the Colombian congress approved. In 2016, President Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Government began a process of attention and comprehensive reparation for victims of conflict. Colombia under President Santos showed some progress in the struggle to defend human rights, as expressed by HRW. A Special Jurisdiction of Peace was created to investigate, clarify, prosecute and punish serious human rights violations and grave breaches of international humanitarian law which occurred during the armed conflict and to satisfy victims' right to justice. During his visit to Colombia, Pope Francis paid tribute to the victims of the conflict.


title: History of Colombia

text: In May 2018, Ivan Duque, the candidate of the conservative Centro Democrático (Democratic Centre), won the presidential election. On 7 August 2018, he was sworn in as the new President of Colombia.


title: History of Colombia

text: Colombia's relations with Venezuela have fluctuated due to the ideological differences between both governments. Colombia has offered humanitarian support with food and medicines to mitigate the shortage of supplies in Venezuela. Colombia's Foreign Ministry said that all efforts to resolve Venezuela's crisis should be peaceful. Colombia proposed the idea of the Sustainable Development Goals and a final document was adopted by the United Nations. In February 2019, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro cut diplomatic relations with Colombia after Colombian President Ivan Duque helped Venezuelan opposition politicians deliver humanitarian aid to their country. Colombia recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's legitimate president. In January 2020, Colombia rejected Maduro's proposal that the two countries restore diplomatic relations.


title: History of Colombia

text: The 19 June 2022 election run-off vote ended in a win for former guerrilla, Gustavo Petro, taking 50.47% of the vote compared to 47.27% of right-wing Rodolfo Hernández. The single-term limit for the country's presidency prevented president Iván Duque from seeking re-election. Petro became the country’s first leftist president-elect. On 7 August 2022, he was sworn in.


title: MLB Network

text: The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox Communications having minority ownership.


title: MLB Network

text: The channel's headquarters and studios are located at their leased facilities in Secaucus, New Jersey, a building owned by Hartz Mountain Industries which formerly housed MSNBC's studios. MLB Network's studios also house NHL Network, which came under the management of MLB Advanced Media in mid-2015 and transferred most operations from the network's former Toronto home base.


title: MLB Network

text: Tony Petitti, former executive producer of CBS Sports, was named the network's first president. Petitti served as MLB Network's president until December 2014, when he was appointed as Chief Operating Officer of Major League Baseball. Rob McGlarry, who worked as Senior and later Executive Vice-president of Business Affairs at MLB Network since 2009, was named the network's second president.


title: MLB Network

text: As of February 2015, MLB Network is available to approximately 69,991,000 pay television households (60.1% of subscription television customers) in the United States.


title: MLB Network

text: Major League Baseball became the fourth major North American professional sports league to launch its own 24-hour cable network. NBA TV dates back to 1999, the NHL Network to 2001 (though not in the United States until 2007), and the NFL Network to 2003. However, MLB Network is carried in the most households of these four networks, as it is available on all of the top-ten video operators in the United States.


title: MLB Network

text: MLB Network soft-launched on December 16, 2008, with a rolling automated loop of archival programming and promotions for the network for cable systems that carried the network's transmissions leading up to the January 1, 2009 launch. The channel fully launched at 6:00 p.m. EST with the premiere of "Hot Stove".


title: MLB Network

text: In April 2012, MLB Network's standard definition feed shifted to a 16:9 letterbox format. Both of the network's SD and HD feeds now show the same format.


title: MLB Network

text: On April 4, 2016, MLB Network debuted a new on-air graphics package optimized for the 16:9 format, replacing the previous on-air look used since the network's New Year's Day 2009 launch.


title: MLB Network

text: The network has signed contracts with numerous cable and satellite carriers, including DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon Fios, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, and AT&T Uverse. In a deal that was pioneered by other sports league owned channels, MLB tied carriage of the MLB Network to the ability to carry the popular out of market MLB Extra Innings package. In return, cable and satellite providers were offered a minority share of the new network.


title: MLB Network

text: On March 26, 2010, it was announced that satellite radio station MLB Home Plate will be rebranded to MLB Network Radio which will simulcast some MLB Network programs such as "MLB Tonight" and "Hot Stove". The switchover began on April 4, the first day of the 2010 MLB season.


title: MLB Network

text: At launch, no announcement was made about MLB Network availability in Canada, home of the Toronto Blue Jays. Network officials had been in contact with Blue Jays owner Rogers Communications (owner of Rogers Cable, the largest cable provider in Canada) about making MLB Network available in Canada, but emphasized prior to the channel's launch that a deal was not imminent.


title: MLB Network

text: In August 2008, Rogers secured Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approval for a Canadian digital channel tentatively called "Baseball TV". This license could have been used to launch a localized version of MLB Network with domestic advertising and additional Canadian content, along the lines of NBA TV Canada, which is owned by the parent company of the Toronto Raptors but uses much of the content of the league's U.S. channel NBA TV. It was reported initially that Rogers intended to pursue this approach to bring MLB Network to Canada. However, the licence was issued on the condition the channel launch by August 2011, which did not occur.


title: MLB Network

text: Rogers ultimately agreed to sponsor MLB Network's request to be added to the CRTC's list of approved foreign television services, which would permit Canadian cable and satellite providers to import the American feed, as has occurred previously with similar niche-sports services such as Big Ten Network, NFL Network, and Golf Channel. The application was published for public comment on June 13, 2012 and was approved on November 21, 2012. In the interim, the Rogers-owned Sportsnet One aired selected programs from MLB Network, including "Quick Pitch" and "Intentional Talk".


title: MLB Network

text: MLB Network was added to Rogers Cable systems in Ontario on January 8, 2014, in both standard and high definition. On June 3, 2015, SaskTel announced that it would begin carrying MLB Network. As of 2017, it is also available on MTS and Vidéotron.


title: MLB Network

text: Shaw Cable, the dominant carrier in Western Canada, does not offer MLB Network. Mediacom also does not offer MLB Network.


title: MLB Network

text: The 720p high-definition simulcast of MLB Network launched simultaneously to the regular channel. After much discussion, MLB Network decided to use the 720p format instead of 1080-line-interlace because it believes 720p shows the motion of baseball more accurately and will degrade less when recompressed by cable operators to save bandwidth (most of the regional Fox Sports Networks use the same format). As Mark Haden (VP of engineering and IT of MLB Network) says: "That's our best shot of maintaining quality to viewers." All studio programs and original shows are shot in HD, as well as all self-produced games such as those of the 2009 World Baseball Classic and "Thursday Night Baseball", as well as simulcasted locally produced games and contracted game packages it handles such as YouTube and Apple TV+'s "Friday Night Baseball". The network also remastered 30 World Series films in high definition.


title: MLB Network

text: On April 14, 2016, it was announced that 25 "MLB Network Showcase" games would be broadcast in 4K ultra-high definition exclusively on DirecTV in the 2016 season, beginning April 15.


title: MLB Network

text: MLB Network airs several live games a week. These games are blacked out in the participating markets of the two teams (unless listed otherwise). Blacked-out markets receive an alternate game or pre-taped programming.


title: MLB Network

text: When MLB expanded the playoffs in 2012 and created the Wild Card Round, TBS won the broadcast rights for both games, and in exchange, two Division Series games shifted to MLB Network, the first postseason games in their history. The first telecast took place on October 7 and featured the Detroit Tigers hosting the Oakland Athletics at Comerica Park in Detroit for game two of the 2012 ALDS. Matt Vasgersian called the game alongside analyst Jim Kaat. The second telecast took place on October 10 and featured the Washington Nationals hosting the St. Louis Cardinals at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., for game three of the 2012 NLDS; this was the Nationals' first home postseason game since moving to Washington at the start of the 2005 season. Bob Costas provided the play-by-play commentary alongside analyst Jim Kaat.


title: MLB Network

text: Starting in 2014, as part of FOX's new eight year rights agreement, MLB Network would air two Division Series games from the league assigned to FOX for each postseason.


title: MLB Network

text: This arrangement was originally announced as continuing with a new rights deal in 2022. However, in September 2022, it was announced that Spanish-language broadcasts of the ALDS and ALCS would instead air on MLB Network.


title: MLB Network

text: International live-game coverage self-produced by MLB Network includes the World Baseball Classic and the Caribbean Series. The 2014 Sydney Cricket Ground opening series from Sydney between the Dodgers and Diamondbacks was a co-production between MLB Network and ESPN Australia, along with the Nine Network/GEM, which held the home rights for the broadcasts. Beginning with the 2015 season, MLB Network produces MLB International coverage of the MLB All-Star Game and the World Series.


title: MLB Network

text: The channel also airs live and tape delayed spring training games, simulcasted from one of the team's local TV rightsholder's feed, or if not available, the spring training complex's internal scoreboard video feed with the team's radio network audio. These games are also subject to local blackouts.


title: MLB Network

text: The channel also carries live development league games and occasionally broadcasts live college games. In August 2009, they aired youth baseball championships, including the RBI World Series and the Cal Ripken World Series. It also airs some games of the Arizona Fall League including the All-Star game and the championship.


title: MLB Network

text: In 2012, MLB Network took over the pre-game production responsibilities for the MLB on Fox package, producing "Baseball Night in America" and postseason pre-game shows from Secaucus and on-location. The show featured Matt Vasgersian or Greg Amsinger and two analysts from a rotating roster of MLB Network's personalities (Eric Byrnes, Kevin Millar, Dan Plesac, Harold Reynolds, Bill Ripken, or Mitch Williams). The show used Fox's graphics and theme songs.


title: MLB Network

text: Fox took back control of the pregame show in 2014 when the "Game of the Week" package was eliminated.


title: MLB Network

text: MLB Network produces promos for its current MLB Network original series which air on regular basis as well as for films that MLB Network broadcast. MLB Network also airs promos for special events that it airs and different games that it broadcast live.


title: MLB Network

text: MLB Strike Zone is a channel launched on April 10, 2012, which allows viewers to see every game across MLB with up-to-the-minute highlights, live look-ins and updates, without commercials. The channel's format to similar to NFL RedZone and currently airs on Tuesday and Friday nights during the regular season. Though coverage often ends before most West Coast games start, those games are usually covered carousel-style on "MLB Tonight" on the main channel most evenings. Matt Yallof is the current host of the show, which usually lasts about three hours. Strike Zone, along with MLB Network (which airs Strike Zone repeats) aired Tuesday and Friday night time baseball games. It airs MLB Network Showcase games with MLB Network.


title: MLB Network

text: "Strike Zone" airs live in Canada on TSN, Australia on ESPN Australia, Latin America on Fox Sports, along with other countries.


title: MLB Network

text: The Secaucus-based studios have four main sets, three of which are named after hall of famers. "Studio 3", named in honor of Babe Ruth, serves as the home for the majority of the studio programs, while "Studio 42", honoring Jackie Robinson, is a half-scale baseball field where demonstrations by the network's analysts take place, along with interview programs where an audience is needed for atmosphere. Studio 42 is also the home of the early rounds of the Major League Baseball Draft. The studio includes seating for over 125 people, along with elements such as a functioning manual scoreboard and a standings wall for each league and division.


title: MLB Network

text: With the launch of "Intentional Talk" in 2011, it was one of the first regular programs on television to use a remote production home studio setup on a regular basis, well before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic necessitated it across the industry. If either host could not record in Secaucus, former host Chris Rose would record from a home studio in Los Angeles (the same with current co-host Stephen Nelson), while Kevin Millar records from his home studio in Austin, Texas, jocularly known as "Studio 1-5" for his uniform number.


title: MLB Network

text: On November 12, 2012, MLB Network introduced a third set, "Studio K", for the new daily morning offseason show "Hot Stove" and guests analysts/insiders on "High Heat". During the premiere episode, hosts Matt Vasgersian and Harold Reynolds said that the studio was constructed from the building's mailroom, explaining its small size. After Rose left the network in 2020 and Stephen Nelson was named the new co-host of "Intentional Talk" in 2021, Nelson co-hosts the show from Studio K. In 2020 and again in 2021, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, MLB Network Showcase games were called remotely from Studio K.


title: MLB Network

text: In 2015, the network introduced a fourth set, "Studio 21", named in honor of Roberto Clemente. The studio hosts the shows "MLB Central", "MLB Now", and "Quick Pitch" along with the presentation of the BBWAA Awards.


title: MLB Network

text: The network had planned to launch permanent studios from a new tower in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood by 2011. However, because of the 2008 financial crisis, the building project was scaled back and later canceled in late November 2008, with MLB deciding on a permanent setup in Secaucus instead.


title: MLB Network

text: With the August 2015 announcement that MLB Advanced Media would take over the digital properties of the National Hockey League, it was announced that NHL Network would relocate its studios and operations to the facilities of MLB Network. The channel temporarily originated its studio programming from Studio K and Studio 21, until the completion of a dedicated studio in April 2016. In honor of the NHL Stadium Series playing at the Colorado Rockies' Coors Field, a scale hockey rink was built on Studio 42 in February 2016 for cross-promotional appearances on NHL Network and MLB Network.


title: Burger Court

text: The Burger Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1969 to 1986, when Warren Burger served as Chief Justice of the United States. Burger succeeded Earl Warren as Chief Justice after the latter's retirement, and Burger served as Chief Justice until his retirement, at which point William Rehnquist was nominated and confirmed as Burger's replacement. The Burger Court is generally considered to be the last liberal court to date. It has been described as a "transitional" court, due to its transition from having the liberal rulings of the Warren Court to the conservative rulings of the Rehnquist Court.


title: Burger Court

text: A symbol of the conservative "retrenchment" promised by President Richard Nixon in the 1968 election, Burger was often overshadowed by the liberal William Brennan and the more conservative William Rehnquist. The Burger Court had a less generous interpretation of the protections offered by the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment than those of the Warren Court, but the Burger Court did not overrule any of the major precedents set by the Warren Court.


title: Burger Court

text: In 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed Warren Burger as the replacement for the retiring Earl Warren. Warren had attempted to retire in 1968, but President Lyndon Johnson's nomination of Associate Justice Abe Fortas as Chief Justice was successfully filibustered by Senate Republicans. Fortas resigned from the court in 1969 following an ethics scandal, and Burger was easily confirmed the next month.


title: Burger Court

text: The Burger Court thus began on June 23, 1969, with Burger and seven veterans of the Warren Court: Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, John Marshall Harlan II, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White, and Thurgood Marshall. Nixon attempted to fill Fortas's vacant seat, but Nixon's nominations of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell were both voted down by the Senate. Fortas's replacement, Harry Blackmun, was finally confirmed in 1970; the 391-day vacancy was the longest since the 1860s.


title: Burger Court

text: Black and Harlan both died in 1971, and Nixon replaced them with Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist. Nixon considered Mildred Lillie for nomination, but according to former White House Counsel John Dean, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger was deeply opposed to the idea of a woman on the court. Burger threatened to resign over the nomination, and Nixon chose to nominate Lewis Powell rather than Lillie.


title: Burger Court

text: In 1975, Douglas stepped down from the court, and President Gerald Ford appointed John Paul Stevens to replace him. In 1981, Stewart retired, and President Ronald Reagan appointed the first female justice, Sandra Day O'Connor to replace him. O'Connor was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.


title: Burger Court

text: The Burger Court ended on September 26, 1986, when Chief Justice Burger retired. He was succeeded as Chief Justice by William Rehnquist, who was elevated to the position of Chief Justice by President Reagan.


title: Burger Court

text: Presidents during this court included Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. Congresses during this court included 91st through the 99th United States Congresses.


title: Burger Court

text: The Burger Court issued several notable rulings touching on many aspects of American life. Landmark cases of the Burger Court include:


title: Burger Court

text: Although Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan all criticized the rulings of the Warren Court and sought to appoint conservative justices, the legacy of the Warren Court remained strong throughout the 1970s. The Burger Court upheld many of the precedents of the Warren Court, even in regards to due process and criminal law. The latter era of the Warren Court was dominated by liberal justices, but the court shifted to the right early in 1969, following Nixon's appointments. Brennan and Marshall generally took liberal positions, while Stevens (after he replaced the liberal Douglas in 1975), Stewart, and White often took centrist positions, and Rehnquist, Burger, and (to a lesser extent) Powell made up the conservative bloc of the court. During his time on the court, Blackmun shifted from the right towards the center, allowing liberals to claim more victories as the 1970s continued. However, the conservatives on the court were strengthened in 1981 when Stewart was replaced by the more conservative O'Connor, who was also the first female justice. Nonetheless, Justice Brennan was often credited for winning the votes of the more centrist judges with his intellectual leadership. The large number of moderates on the court and the resulting decisions gave the court a paradoxical reputation for being both conservative and liberal. Although Burger was often overshadowed by the intellectual leadership of Brennan and Rehnquist, he earned a reputation as important judicial administrator who helped to create institutions such as the National Center for State Courts. Burger also often questioned the need for a judicial remedy in cases; Burger was a strong believer that courts could not cure all injustices, and Burger was not reluctant to limit the standing of plaintiffs.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: "Photograph" is a song by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran from his second studio album, "×" (2014). Sheeran wrote the song with Snow Patrol member Johnny McDaid, who had a piano loop from which the composition developed. After recording several versions with other producers, Sheeran eventually solicited help from Jeff Bhasker; the collaboration generated a version that Bhasker further enhanced for months. The ballad derives its music primarily from an acoustic guitar, piano and programmed drums. With visually descriptive lyrics, it discusses a long-distance relationship inspired by Sheeran's own experience of being away from his then-girlfriend while he was on tour.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: The song received generally supportive commentary from critics, who noted the lyrics and Sheeran's use of love for all people. "Photograph" served as the fifth and final single from the album. It reached the top five on the main singles charts in more than five countries. In the US, where it peaked at number ten, "Photograph" became the third single from the album to have reached within the top ten. In the UK, it reached number fifteen and has since been certified quadruple platinum. The single has also been certified double platinum in Australia and Canada, and platinum in New Zealand and Italy.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: The single's release on 23 June 2014 followed the premiere of the music video on 9 May 2015. The video is a montage of real home footage of Sheeran's infancy, childhood and adolescence, providing insight on his private early life, such as his inclination to playing music instruments and fondness of Lego. The video was nominated for Best Video at the 2016 Brit Awards. Sheeran performed the song on television shows and on his x Tour, which ran from 2014 to 2015.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: Ed Sheeran wrote "Photograph" in May 2012 with Johnny McDaid, instrumentalist and background vocalist of the Irish band Snow Patrol. Sheeran toured with the band as a support act in select North American dates. McDaid had a three-note piano loop that became the basis of "Photograph". The song's development began when Sheeran, while in a hotel room in Kansas City, was humming "loving can hurt, loving can hurt" to the loop that was playing on McDaid's laptop. Sheeran recalled: "I started humming, and then [McDaid] put a beat behind it."


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: They developed ideas for the song while Sheeran was building a Lego and McDaid was working on his laptop. After four hours, Sheeran picked up a guitar and they began properly structuring the composition. According to Sheeran, they ended up composing the song "within about half an hour". Both realized what had transpired only after listening back to the song the following day; they then decided on recording it. Sheeran completed writing the song while in Denver, Colorado.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: Sheeran credited "Photograph" as the first record "properly" completed for his second studio album. According to him, he had "probably" recorded 60 to 70 versions of the song; these varied from live to that with piano accompaniment. Aside from the earlier versions he made with McDaid, Sheeran had recordings with songwriter-producer, Jake Gosling, who produced much of Sheeran's debut album, and producer, Rick Rubin, who was involved in other tracks from the follow-up album. However, Sheeran thought these versions "never fit" and he eventually solicited help from producer, Jeff Bhasker. This particular collaboration generated a version that Bhasker continued to enhance for several months. Emile Haynie was credited on the album's liner notes for his additional production. On 24 January 2015, Sheeran recalled the backstory of "Photograph" for the VH1 Storytellers.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: An acoustic pop ballad, "Photograph" derives its music from an acoustic guitar, piano, strings, organ, electric and bass guitar, and programmed drums. The melody builds up with the guitar strums and piano keys; the drums, strings, organ etc. then follow. It has a tempo of 108 beats per minute and the originally published key is in E major. "Photograph" features a chord progression that is common in popular music.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: The lyrics to the song chronicle a long-distance relationship. It contains detailed imagery such as the protagonist remembering his girlfriend kissing him "under the lamppost, back on 6th street", and keeping a picture of him "in the pocket of [her] ripped jeans". These lyrics were inspired by Sheeran's own experience on a long-distance relationship. He dated Nina Nesbitt, a Scottish singer/songwriter, for more than a year. While in this relationship, Sheeran spent five months away from Nesbitt: three months while on a concert tour with Snow Patrol and further two months on his own tour. At his concert in Kansas City on 27 June 2017, Sheeran noted that he wrote the song Photograph at Kansas City's Intercontinental Hotel during a previous tour.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: In February 2013, Sheeran played a demo version of "Photograph" to a German radio station. This performance was not recorded in film or audio. Sheeran played the song again pre-release at a show at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on 14 July 2014. Taylor Swift was seen at the concert, notably, the only person in the crowd who knew the lyrics to this unreleased song." Sheeran favoured the song as one of the best in the album and claimed: "I think ["Photograph"] will be the one that will change my, kind of, career path." He also asserted that "Photograph" would serve as the "collateral" song that could "sell [the album]" even if the rest of the tracks would not prove appealing.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: The song was released as an "instant grat" digital download to the iTunes Store on 20 June 2014; it served as the final of seven promotional singles from his second studio album, × (2014). On 22 April 2015, through his Twitter account, Sheeran announced that "Photograph" would be the next single off "×". It was released on 23 June 2014 to hot adult contemporary format, and the following day to contemporary hit radio in the US. On 12 June 2015, "Photograph" was released to the German market in CD format with the B-side, "I Will Take You Home". The latter track was featured in the American television sitcom, "Cougar Town".


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: "Photograph" served as the fifth and last single released from the album. Of the five singles, preceded by two upbeat songs such as the lead single, "Sing", "Photograph" was the second mellow track released from "×". The first was "Thinking Out Loud", the third single, which is a blue-eyed soul record produced by Gosling. According to Sheeran, no one from his label wanted "Thinking Out Loud" as a single release; they favoured "Photograph" as the "big song". "Photograph" was supposed to be the main single, but when "Thinking Out Loud" spent several weeks within the top 20 on the UK Singles Chart albeit not in radio rotation, the latter song was kept as the third single.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: Upon the album's release, critical response to "Photograph" was generally positive. In his track-by-track review of "x" for "Billboard" magazine, Jason Lipshutz suggested that the line "Loving can hurt sometimes/But it's the only thing that I know" in "Photograph" was the "lynchpin line of the whole album". Sarah Rodman of "The Boston Globe" had the same sentiment; she called the song "haunting" and felt it "[crept] up on you with [its] tunefulness". Jamieson Cox of "Time" described Sheeran's use of "detail and powerful imagery" in the lyrics as "smart"; Cox opined that it "[brought the song] to life".


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: Neil McCormick of "The Daily Telegraph" deemed the track "soulful balladry" and felt it showcased that Sheeran "can slip smoothly through the gears" on the album. Lipshutz described his singing as being "restrained" over "hesitant" acoustic guitar strum before the "arena drums kick in". Paul Cantor of "Vibe" picked "Photograph" as one of the standouts from the album, and noted that the song's "brooding arrangement is an emotional roller coaster". Kitty Empire of "The Observer" called "Photograph" a "swelling ballad", and suggested that Sheeran's writing was "particularly calculated". In his review for MusicOMH, John Murphy also felt that "Photograph" was "calculated and a bit cynical, almost as if it's been written specifically as a soundtrack to a particularly emotional scene in a US television series".


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: On her analysis of the lyrical content of the album, Annie Zaleski of "The A.V. Club" expressed that Sheeran's "self-awareness extends to the rest" of the album by tackling homesickness in "Photograph", for instance. Meanwhile, Carolyn Menyes of the Music Times wrote in her review of the song that "in the grander scheme of x, 'Photograph' doesn't quite seem to line up lyrically", and noted that most of the album's songs explored "the feelings of a lover scorned, cheating exes and a little bit of the excess life". She also said: "Simply put: 'Photograph' is one of Sheeran's more simplistically beautiful songs."


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: McDaid's involvement in the song was noted by a few critics. Kevin Harly of "The Independent" wrote: "If you didn’t know Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid produced the ballad 'Photograph', its stolid plod through clichés about how lovin' 'can hurt' and 'heal' should tell you". Meanwhile, Dave Hanratty of "Drowned in Sound" remarked: "... the cloying 'Photograph' ... is co-written and produced by a member of Snow Patrol should surprise nobody, given that it follows their heartstring-tugging script so resolutely. At least it moves." "The Herald" Alan Morrison felt that "Photograph" was "identikit Snow Patrol".


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: "Photograph" and the rest of the album's tracks entered the UK Singles Chart due to high streaming rates. The single debuted at number 44 on the chart week ending 5 July 2014, ten months prior to the single's release. It peaked at number 15, and has spent 50 weeks on the chart as of the week ending 5 November 2015. On 17 March 2017, the British Phonographic Industry certified the single quadruple platinum for combined sales of 2.4 million units. As of September 2017, the song has accumulated 386,000 copies in actual sales, and with 96 million streams, it has a combined total of 1,347,000 units.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: In the US, the single reached number 10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and marked the third top 10 from the album. With "Photograph", Sheeran also became the ninth male solo artist since 2010 to spawn four top 20 hits from a single album, excluding deluxe editions. In specific formats such as the Mainstream Top 40, the single reached the top 10 on the week ending 29 August 2015; it gave the album four that have achieved the threshold. The single was first certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on 21 July 2015, double platinum on 29 February 2016 and triple platinum on 16 August 2017. As of June 2016, the song has sold 1,551,000 copies in the US. Elsewhere, the single reached top five in Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Slovakia, and South Africa.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: In April 2015, commercial streaming company Spotify released a report of the most streamed tracks worldwide under the category sleep. "Photograph" placed at number 18; it joined Sheeran's other six songs ranked in the top 20. Sleep is one of the company's most popular categories that, according to Spotify, "people also use for general relaxation and to help themselves unwind". "The Guardian" columnist Tim Dowling suggested that the report was an indication of "very popular, slightly mellow songs that keep cropping up on sleep playlists" but not a list of a "carefully curated journey to unconsciousness".


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: On 9 June 2016, it was reported that Sheeran was being sued by songwriters Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard, writers of Matt Cardle's 2011 single "Amazing", for $20 million for copyright infringement. The lawsuit says: "Given the striking similarity between the chorus of Amazing and Photograph, (the) defendants knew when writing, publishing, recording, releasing, and distributing Photograph that they were infringing on a pre-existing musical composition." The lawsuit was privately settled in April 2017, with no admission of guilt.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: In March 2022, while in court for a separate lawsuit over his song "Shape of You", Sheeran said that he settled the "Photograph" complaint on the advice of his lawyers, as the case was "more trouble than it was worth". He later also said he was on tour at the time, and was advised that the culture around copyright claims meant that he "probably would lose". He thought that settling the case opened a floodgate of claims, and led to the "Shape of You" lawsuit. After he won the "Shape of You" case, he said he regretted settling the claim for "Photograph", not because of the money involved, but because it changed his relationship with the song. He said: "I didn't play 'Photograph' for ages after that. I just stopped playing it. I felt weird about it, it kind of made me feel dirty."


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: An accompanying music video for "Photograph" was released on 9 May 2015. The video is a montage of real home footage. Sheeran sourced the clips from his father, who was then compiling it into DVDs for their family Christmas present. He initially intended the clips for inclusion in a documentary that was being produced around that time; but looking through the collection, he thought it might work for a music video. Sheeran also admitted he could not attend to an actual video shoot, hence he opted for the montage. Emil Nava, who had previously worked with Sheeran on his other promotional music videos, directed "Photograph". Editor Ellie Johnson worked with Sheeran's father while in central London. According to Johnson, they spent a weekend gathering the clips used in the montage.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: The montage chronicles Sheeran's infancy, childhood and adolescence (1990s and 2000s). It features Sheeran playing various music instruments (including piano, cello, bass, acoustic guitar and drums), suggesting that he was musically inclined at a young age. He is also shown displaying his skill in Bodhrán, an Irish frame drum. Other footage depicts a teen Sheeran busking in Galway, Ireland. In another clip before the final, Sheeran is shown performing to a crowd at a festival. Daniel Kreps of "Rolling Stone" noted that the clips also revealed Sheeran's "lifelong obsession with Legos", an object the latter referenced on his 2011 single "Lego House".


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: According to Ryan Book of the Music Times, the media form utilized in the montage contradicted the song's title. Kreps stated that the video was reminiscent of "", a documentary film about Nirvana front man and 1990s rock icon Kurt Cobain. According to Kreps, the private life of both artists in their youth were revealed through real home videos.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: "Photograph" was performed on television prior to its commercial release. On 13 December 2014, Sheeran appeared on "The X Factor UK", where he gave his first televised performance of the song. This performance contributed to the song's first ascent inside the top 40 on the UK Singles Chart. Sheeran also performed the song for various US television shows such as on "Good Morning America", "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon", and "Undateable", at Canada's Much Music Video Awards, and at the 2015 Global Citizen Festival. The song was part of the setlist in Sheeran's x Tour; the concert tour ran from 2014 to 2015.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: In other usages, English singer Foxes covered the song for the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge. The song was used, free of charge, in a video campaign that was launched on 2 March 2015. According to Same Dimmer of the "Coventry Telegraph", the video "[highlighted] the issue of child sexual exploitation" in Warwickshire, a non-metropolitan county in England. The song is also used in the trailer and soundtrack for the movie "Me Before You". CBS Sports used the song as a backing track for a photo montage of its NFL production crew following its Thanksgiving Day presentation in 2016. It is also used as the background music for the LG G5 commercial, with Jessica Chastain, Sienna Miller, Helen Hunt and Jennifer Garner.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: The song was recorded by Jordan Feliz, for his debut studio album, "Beloved", released by Centricity Music. A critic says the acoustic rendition shows, "his falsetto shining", while another writes it is an "incredible" cover song, on a track meant to convey the temporal nature with which worldly mortal relationships have compared to one with God's son Jesus Christ. Jessica Mauboy covered the song on her 2016 album, "".


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: In 2021, The Portraits (an alt-folk duo, Jeremy and Lorraine Millington, previously known for a 2020 cover of "Together in Electric Dreams" with their daughter, which they said was similar to the 2021 John Lewis advert song) released a cover of "Photograph" with their 15-year-old daughter, Ciara Mill, on lead vocals again and a Somerset choir called the Skylarks backing them, alongside The Somerset County orchestra. Picked as one of the Official Charts Company's Christmas No 1 Contenders, the record has been recorded as a charity release for Cruse Bereavement Support and Mental Health Ireland and comes with a video which features 300 photos of people who lost their lives during the Covid pandemic.


title: Photograph (Ed Sheeran song)

text: It was performed by Trace Adkins and Iñigo Pascual on the second episode of the country music drama series "Monarch".


title: Strange loop

text: A strange loop is a cyclic structure that goes through several levels in a hierarchical system. It arises when, by moving only upwards or downwards through the system, one finds oneself back where one started.


title: Strange loop

text: Strange loops may involve self-reference and paradox. The concept of a strange loop was proposed and extensively discussed by Douglas Hofstadter in "Gödel, Escher, Bach", and is further elaborated in Hofstadter's book "I Am a Strange Loop", published in 2007.


title: Strange loop

text: A strange loop is a hierarchy of levels, each of which is linked to at least one other by some type of relationship. A strange loop hierarchy is "tangled" (Hofstadter refers to this as a "heterarchy"), in that there is no well defined highest or lowest level; moving through the levels, one eventually returns to the starting point, i.e., the original level. Examples of strange loops that Hofstadter offers include: many of the works of M. C. Escher, the "Canon 5. a 2" from Bach's Musical Offering, the information flow network between DNA and enzymes through protein synthesis and DNA replication, and self-referential Gödelian statements in formal systems.


title: Strange loop

text: And yet when I say "strange loop", I have something else in mind — a less concrete, more elusive notion. What I mean by "strange loop" is — here goes a first stab, anyway — not a physical circuit but an abstract loop in which, in the series of stages that constitute the cycling-around, there is a shift from one level of abstraction (or structure) to another, which feels like an upwards movement in an hierarchy, and yet somehow the successive "upward" shifts turn out to give rise to a closed cycle. That is, despite one's sense of departing ever further from one's origin, one winds up, to one's shock, exactly where one had started out. In short, a strange loop is a paradoxical level-crossing feedback loop. (pp. 101-102)


title: Strange loop

text: Strange loops take form in human consciousness as the complexity of active symbols in the brain inevitably leads to the same kind of self-reference which Gödel proved was inherent in any complex logical or arithmetical system in his incompleteness theorem. Gödel showed that mathematics and logic contain strange loops: propositions that not only refer to mathematical and logical truths, but also to the symbol systems expressing those truths. This leads to the sort of paradoxes seen in statements such as "This statement is false," wherein the sentence's basis of truth is found in referring to itself and its assertion, causing a logical paradox.


title: Strange loop

text: Hofstadter argues that the psychological self arises out of a similar kind of paradox. We are not born with an "I" – the ego emerges only gradually as experience shapes our dense web of active symbols into a tapestry rich and complex enough to begin twisting back upon itself. According to this view the psychological "I" is a narrative fiction, something created only from intake of symbolic data and its own ability to create stories about itself from that data. The consequence is that a perspective (a mind) is a culmination of a unique pattern of symbolic activity in our nervous systems, which suggests that the pattern of symbolic activity that makes identity, that constitutes subjectivity, can be replicated within the brains of others, and perhaps even in artificial brains.


title: Strange loop

text: The "strangeness" of a strange loop comes from our way of perceiving, because we categorize our input in a small number of "symbols" (by which Hofstadter means groups of neurons standing for one thing in the outside world). So the difference between the video-feedback loop and our strange loops, our "I"s, is that while the former converts light to the same pattern on a screen, the latter categorizes a pattern and outputs its essence, so that as we get closer and closer to our essence, we get further down our strange loop.


title: Strange loop

text: Hofstadter thinks our minds appear to us to determine the world by way of "downward causality", which refers to a situation where a cause-and-effect relationship in a system gets flipped upside-down. Hofstadter says this happens in the proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem:


title: Strange loop

text: Merely from knowing the formula's meaning, one can infer its truth or falsity without any effort to derive it in the old-fashioned way, which requires one to trudge methodically "upwards" from the axioms. This is not just peculiar; it is astonishing. Normally, one cannot merely look at what a mathematical conjecture "says" and simply appeal to the content of that statement on its own to deduce whether the statement is true or false. (pp. 169-170)


title: Strange loop

text: Hofstadter claims a similar "flipping around of causality" appears to happen in minds possessing self-consciousness. The mind perceives itself as the cause of certain feelings ("I" am the source of my desires), while according to popular scientific models, feelings and desires are strictly caused by the interactions of neurons.


title: Strange loop

text: The parallels between downward causation in formal systems and downward causation in brains are explored by Theodor Nenu (2022), together with other aspects of Hofstadter's metaphysics of mind. Nenu also questions the correctness of the above quote by focusing on the sentence which "says about itself" that it is provable (also known as a Henkin-sentence, named after logician Leon Henkin). It turns out that under suitable metamathematical choices (where the Hilbert-Bernays provability conditions do not obtain), one can construct formally undecidable (or even formally refutable) Henkin-sentences for the arithmetical system under investigation. This system might very well be Hofstadter's Typographical Number Theory used in "Gödel, Escher, Bach" or the more familiar Peano Arithmetic or some other sufficiently rich formal arithmetic. Thus, there are examples of sentences "which say about themselves that they are provable", but they don't exhibit the sort of downward causal powers described in the displayed quote.


title: Strange loop

text: Hofstadter points to Bach's "Canon per Tonos", M. C. Escher's drawings "Waterfall", "Drawing Hands", "Ascending and Descending", and the liar paradox as examples that illustrate the idea of strange loops, which is expressed fully in the proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem.


title: Strange loop

text: The "ouroboros", which depicts a dragon eating its own tail, is perhaps one of the most ancient and universal symbolic representations of the reflexive loop concept.


title: Strange loop

text: A Shepard tone is another illustrative example of a strange loop. Named after Roger Shepard, it is a sound consisting of a superposition of tones separated by octaves. When played with the base pitch of the tone moving upwards or downwards, it is referred to as the "Shepard scale". This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower. In a similar way a sound with seemingly ever increasing tempo can be constructed, as was demonstrated by Jean-Claude Risset.


title: Strange loop

text: A quine in software programming is a program that produces a new version of itself without any input from the outside. A similar concept is metamorphic code.


title: Strange loop

text: Efron's dice are four dice that are intransitive under gambler's preference. I.e., the dice are ordered , where means "a gambler prefers "x" to "y"".


title: Strange loop

text: Individual preferences are always transitive, excluding preferences when given explicit rules such as in Efron's dice or rock-paper-scissors; however, aggregate preferences of a group may be intransitive. This can result in a Condorcet paradox wherein following a path from one candidate across a series of majority preferences may return back to the original candidate, leaving no clear preference by the group. In this case, some candidate beats an opponent, who in turn beats another opponent, and so forth, until a candidate is reached who beats the original candidate.


title: Strange loop

text: The liar paradox and Russell's paradox also involve strange loops, as does René Magritte's painting "The Treachery of Images".


title: Strange loop

text: The mathematical phenomenon of polysemy has been observed to be a strange loop. At the denotational level, the term refers to situations where a single entity can be seen to "mean" more than one mathematical object. See Tanenbaum (1999).


title: Strange loop

text: "The Stonecutter" is an old Japanese fairy tale with a story that explains social and natural hierarchies as a strange loop.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcasting virtually all major sports events staged in the UK or involving British competitors.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: Radio 5 Live was launched in March 1994 as a repositioning of the original Radio 5, which was launched on 27 August 1990. It is transmitted via analogue radio in AM on medium wave 693 and 909 kHz and digitally via digital radio, television and on the BBC Sounds service. Due to rights restrictions, coverage of some events, particularly live sport, is not available online or is restricted to UK addresses.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: The station broadcasts from MediaCityUK in Salford in Greater Manchester and is a department of the BBC North division.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: According to RAJAR, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 4.8 million with a listening share of 2.7% as of September 2022.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: The success of Radio 4 News FM during the first Gulf War (1991) led the BBC to propose the launch of a rolling-news service. Initially the plan was to broadcast a rolling news service on BBC Radio 4's long wave frequency; but this met with considerable opposition, both internally and externally, so the BBC decided to close BBC Radio 5 and replace the old service's educational and children's programmes with a new news service, whilst retaining the sports programmes. BBC Radio 5 Live began its 24-hour service at 5am on Monday 28 March 1994. The first voice on air, Jane Garvey, later went on to co-present the breakfast and drive-time shows with Peter Allen. "The Times" described the launch as "slipp[ing] smoothly and confidently into a routine of informative banter" and "The Scotsman" as "professionalism at its slickest".


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: The news of the first day was dominated by the fatal stabbing at Hall Garth School near Middlesbrough, the first of many major incidents which the network covered live as they unfolded.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: The tone of the channel, engaging and more relaxed than contemporary BBC output, was the key to the channel's success and set the model for other BBC News services later in the decade. The first audiences were some 4 million, with a record audience of 6.25 million. Among the key editorial staff involved in the design of programme formats and recruitment of staff for the new station were Sara Nathan, later editor of Channel 4 News, and Tim Luckhurst, later editor of "The Scotsman" newspaper and professor of Journalism at the University of Kent.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: In 2000, the station was rebranded with a new logo which would remain with the station for another seven years. In addition, on 2 February 2002 a companion station, BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, was launched as a digital-only service to complement the range of sport and to avoid clashes; previously BBC Local Radio stations and the long-wave frequency of BBC Radio 4 were used. Throughout this period, Five Live gained several awards including five Sony Awards in 2005; the single gold award was for its coverage of the 2004 Asian tsunami in the News Story Award category alongside another four silver awards and six nominations. The station also began to further its boundaries with the publication of the "Radio Five Live Sporting Yearbook". In August 2007, BBC Radio 5 Live was given a new logo in line with the rest of the BBC Radio network, and a new background design featuring diagonal parallel lines.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: In 2017/18, it was noted the station not only remained as having the fourth highest cost-per-user of all the BBC radio output, but whose costs also increased – rising from 2.3p per hour the previous year to 2.5p per hour, therefore equal to 1Xtra. The audience Appreciation Index figure did not increase, remaining at 79.9; and the average length of time spent on the channel fell from 06:41 to 06:34 – the fourth lowest fall of all of the BBC's radio stations.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: BBC Radio 5 Live broadcasts in AM on the medium wave frequencies 693 and 909 kHz nationally, with the frequency 990 kHz used in Cardigan Bay in west Wales; these frequencies had been utilised by the old BBC Radio 5, which in turn had taken over the frequencies from BBC Radio 2. Uniquely to the BBC Radio network, it is the only station that is neither purely digital (such as 1Xtra, Radio 4 Extra and 6 Music) nor broadcast in analogue on FM. It is however broadcast in stereo on FM and DAB on BBC Local Radio frequencies overnight, usually from 1am until BBC Local Radio commences morning broadcasts, usually from 5am. BBC Radio 5 Live is also broadcast on BBC Radio Cymru in stereo from midnight until 5:30am, on BBC Radio Scotland from 1am until 6am and on BBC Radio Ulster from midnight until 6:30am. In addition to the AM output, the station also broadcasts digitally in mono on DAB Digital Radio, and on television through satellite services such as Sky, cable services such as Virgin Media, DTT services such as Freeview, Freesat and through IPTV. The station also broadcasts programmes live through BBC Sounds, which allows replaying programmes up to a month after the original broadcast. The service is also available on the Radioplayer internet site partially run by the BBC.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: For many years, the station operated from four floors within the News Centre at BBC Television Centre, because of the close connections between the station and BBC News, and the co-location of BBC Sport. However, as part of the corporation's plan to sell off Television Centre, the decision was made in 2008 to move BBC Radio 5 Live to the new broadcast hub at MediaCityUK. The move itself began in September 2011 and took two months. The new studios occupy a single floor in Quay House, with two studios large enough for several guests and a separate studio for large groups. The station continues to have a studio presence in London, with Studio 51A at BBC Broadcasting House in London used for programmes and interviews made in London for the station such as "Kermode and Mayo's Film Review".


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: BBC Radio 5 Live's remit includes broadcasting rolling news and transmitting news as it breaks. It offers news bulletins every half an hour, apart from during live sports commentaries. The BBC's policy for major breaking news events revolves around a priority list. With UK news, the correspondent first records a "generic minute" summary (for use by all stations and channels); the subsequent priority is to report on Radio 5 Live, then the BBC News Channel, and then any other programmes that are on air. For foreign news, first a "generic minute" is recorded, then reports are to World Service radio, then the reporter talks to any other programmes that are on air.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: Due to COVID-19, the hourly news bulletins were shared with BBC Radio 2 from April 2020. Three minute bulletins are broadcast on the hour, with extended five minute bulletins at 06:00, 07:00, 08:00, 13:00 and 17:00 on weekdays, at 07:00 and 08:00 on Saturdays and at 06:00, 07:00, 08:00 and 09:00 on Sundays.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: Half-hour news headlines are mostly read by presenters and sports journalists, although newsreaders are used during weekday daytime programming between 10:30 and 15:30 and during 5 Live Sport evening and weekend programming.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: BBC Radio 5 Live broadcasts an extremely wide range of sports and covers all the major sporting events, mostly under its flagship sports banner "5 Live Sport". Whilst football commentaries form the majority of live commentaries during the football season, the range of events covered by the station include:


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: As 5 Live cannot accommodate all of the sports which they have rights to broadcast, some are covered on sister station Sports Extra, including:


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: Sports Extra typically emphasises full broadcasts of Premier League and Home Nations football, if games overlap each other. 5 Live carries the first-choice match in such cases.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: Also, should 5 Live be needed to broadcast news coverage when scheduled sports programmes were to be aired, the sports coverage is shifted to 5 Sports Extra.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: The station had originally launched in 2002 as Radio 5 Live Sports Extra but had its name changed in 2022 as part of a rebranding of the BBC.


title: BBC Radio 5 Live

text: In January 2013, BBC Radio Five Live was nominated for the Responsible Media of the Year award at the British Muslim Awards.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: The sixth series (Season 3 on PBS, or Collection 3 on Netflix in the US) of "The Great British Bake Off" first aired on 5 August 2015, with twelve contestants competing to be the series 6 winner. Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins presented the show, and Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood returned as judges. The competition was held in the ground of Welford Park, Berkshire for a second year. The series was won by Nadiya Hussain, with Tamal Ray and Ian Cumming finishing as runners-up.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: For the first challenge, the bakers were given two hours to make a Madeira Cake, which was chosen as an "easy" challenge for the bakers. The cake should have a dome and a crack on top, though Mary stated the cake should not differ too far from the original. For the technical challenge, the bakers had one and three quarter hours to make Mary's recipe for a Frosted Walnut Cake, which should have three layers and a meringue coating, along with caramelised walnuts. A Black Forest Gâteau was set as the final challenge. In three and a half hours, the bakers were tasked with making a cake that should be extravagant, and should "impress" Mary and Paul.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: For the signature challenge, the bakers were given two hours to bake 24 identical biscotti of any shape, flavour or size. In the technical challenge, they were required to make eight arlettes, which are high-end light delicate cinnamon-flavoured biscuits, in two and a half hours. For the show stopper, they were set the challenge of making 36 biscuits, to be presented in a biscuit box made of a different kind of biscuit mix. They were given four hours in this challenge.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: In the first task, the bakers were given one and a half hour to make two quick bread to be made free-form (i.e. not in a tin). For the second task, Paul set the bakers the challenge of baking four identical crusty baguettes in two and a half hours. For the final showstopper, the bakers needed to make a 3D bread sculpture in five hours, using three types of dough, and one of them should be filled.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: For the signature challenge, the bakers had 2 hours to make twelve crème brûlées. The brief specified that the custard must be set and that the bakers weren't allowed to use a blowtorch to caramelize the top. For the technical challenge, the bakers had four hours to make a Spanische Windtorte. This dessert had two types of meringue, Swiss and French, designed into a circular box and filled with cream and fruit. Three tiers of sweet cheesecakes were set as the showstopper. The structure must be self-standing, have unique flavors and be completed in four and one half hours.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: This episode has a theme of using alternatives for ingredients usually used in baking. For the signature bake, the bakers were given the challenge of baking a cake, but without using sugar. They were given two and a half hour for the bake. For the technical bake, the challenge was to make twelve identical gluten-free pita breads in two hours. In the showstopper, the bakers needed to make an ice-cream roll using dairy-free ice-cream. They were given four and a half hours for the bake.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: For this week's signature challenge, the bakers had to make a Frangipane tart in two hours, the brief being that it must be open-topped and use shortcrust pastry. In the technical, the bakers had to make 12 Flaounes, a cheese filled pastry made in Cyprus. They had two hours. Vol-au-vents were set as the Showstopper – the bakers had to make two types, all using their own puff pastry – in three hours and forty five minutes.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: For the first challenge, the bakers had three hours to make a Raised Game Pie. The pie must have thin Hot water crust pastry, and must be very ornate, as most game pies from the era were. For the technical challenge, a Tennis fruit Cake was set for the bakers. The bakers were given three hours to make a fruit cake, along with royal icing and sugar paste, with much gelatine being used. A Charlotte Russe was set as the Showstopper. To be done in five and a half hours, the bake usually has ladyfingers around jelly and a sponge – with flavour and decoration being key.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: In the first quarter-final challenge, the bakers had to make twenty-four cream horns in three and a half hours. They were asked to make twenty four cream horns – twelve of each flavour, using either puff, rough puff or flaky pastry. Mary's recipe for nine Mochatines was set as the technical challenge. These were small, delicate genoise sponges, filled with a coffee buttercream meant to be attractive, as if "in a pâtisserie window". They would only have two hours. Religieuse à l'ancienne were set as the Showstopper challenge. These would be large éclairs, stood upright with no dowelling, and decorated with buttercream. They were given four hours, though the towers were left to stand for two hours afterwards, as traditional religieuse would have been left for such time. As a result, some of the towers began to collapse or lean upon being presented to Mary and Paul.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: For the first challenge, the bakers had two and a half hours to make a chocolate tart. The tart had to be ornate, intricate, and full of flavour. For the technical, the bakers faced a staggered start, and were each given one hour and fifteen minutes to make a chocolate soufflé – with Flora starting first, followed by Ian, Nadiya, then Tamal. A chocolate centrepiece was set as the showstopper. In four hours, the bakers had to create an ornate centrepiece using white chocolate in some form and including a biscuit element, the centrepiece having to be free-standing and attractive. Flora's elimination meant that she was the first baker to have finished first in the technical challenge and be eliminated the same week.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: In the final signature challenge, the bakers had to make 16 iced buns, of which there must be two kinds, in three hours. In the technical, the judges decided to use one of Paul's recipes; the bakers had to bake six raspberry-flavoured mille-feuille with fondant icing in two hours. The recipe involved pastry – something all of the bakers had struggled with in Week Six. In the final Showstopper, the bakers were given four hours to make a classic British cake in a minimum three-layered presentation.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: As the show was pre-recorded, the winner of the show would have been known by those involved in the show. Bookmaker Ladbrokes halted betting on the show after "a run of bets" was placed for one contestant, many at shops in the Ipswich area.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: It was also claimed that dozens of employees of BBC as well as the production company, Love Productions, had opened gambling accounts to place bets on the eventual winner.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: In a BBC Radio 2 broadcast, judge Mary Berry accidentally revealed the eliminated contestant prior to the airing of episode three.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: Contestant Marie Campbell, who was the first Star Baker of the series, was criticised for being "semi-professional", after it emerged that she had been trained in Ecole Escoffier at the Ritz in Paris where she specialised in patisserie. A statement from the BBC said: "There are strict criteria to take part in the show and Marie met those criteria. She gained a certificate for one week’s training in Paris in 1984, more than 10 years ago. She has not worked professionally as a baker or chef."


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: Nadiya Hussain regularly appears on "The One Show" on BBC1. Her own cookery show, The Chronicles of Nadiya started on 24 August 2016 on BBC One. Hussain writes a weekly column for "The Times Magazine", a part of the Saturday supplement of "The Times", as well as a monthly column in "Essentials" magazine. Her recipes have also appeared in BBC's "Good Food" magazine.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: Hussain was signed by UK publisher Michael Joseph, part of Penguin Random House, for her debut book "Nadiya's Kitchen", which is a collection of the recipes that she cooks for friends and family. Hussain has written a children's book of stories and recipes, "Bake Me A Story", due to be published by Hodder Children's Books, which blends updated versions of fairytales (poor "Sleepless Beauty" just needs a nice cup of cardamom-infused hot chocolate to break her curse; resourceful Jack wins the giant over with yummy bean patties) with colourful illustrations and child-friendly recipes. She is also writing three contemporary women's fiction novels for Harlequin.


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: Tamal Ray writes a monthly column for "The Guardian". He presented a television show on health on Channel 4 titled "Be Your Own Doctor".


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: Flora Shedden studied for a year at the University of Edinburgh but deferred on a course on art history at the University of St Andrews for a year to concentrate on writing a cookbook, "Gatherings", published in January 2017. She wrote a column on baking for "The Scotsman".


title: The Great British Bake Off (series 6)

text: According to the overnight ratings, the opening episode of the series 6 of "Bake Off" was watched by 9.3 million viewers, a rise of over 2 million from the previous year. The final was watched by an overnight audience of 13.4 million viewers peaking at 14.5, the highest overnight total of 2015. The list of ten most-watched television programmes of 2015 was also dominated by "The Great British Bake Off", with seven of the year's ten being episodes of The Great British Bake Off.


title: Megara

text: Megara (; , ) is a historic town and a municipality in West Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King Pandion II, of whom Nisos was the ruler of Megara. Megara was also a trade port, its people using their ships and wealth as a way to gain leverage on armies of neighboring poleis. Megara specialized in the exportation of wool and other animal products including livestock such as horses. It possessed two harbors, Pagae to the west on the Corinthian Gulf, and Nisaea to the east on the Saronic Gulf of the Aegean Sea. It is part of Athens metropolitan area.


title: Megara

text: According to Pausanias, the Megarians said that their town owed its origin to Car, the son of Phoroneus, who built the citadel called 'Caria' and the temples of Demeter called Megara, from which the place derived its name.


title: Megara

text: In historical times, Megara was an early dependency of Corinth, in which capacity colonists from Megara founded Megara Hyblaea, a small "polis" north of Syracuse in Sicily. Megara then fought a war of independence with Corinth, and afterwards founded Chalcedon in 685 BC, as well as Byzantium (c. 667 BC).


title: Megara

text: Megara is known to have early ties with Miletos, in the region of Caria in Asia Minor. According to some scholars, they had built up a "colonisation alliance". In the 7th/6th century BCE these two cities acted in concordance with each other.


title: Megara

text: Both cities acted under the leadership and sanction of an Apollo oracle. Megara cooperated with that of Delphi. Miletos had her own oracle of Apollo Didymeus Milesios in Didyma. Also, there are many parallels in the political organisation of both cities.


title: Megara

text: In the late 7th century BC Theagenes established himself as tyrant of Megara by slaughtering the cattle of the rich to win over the poor. During the second Persian invasion of Greece (480–479 BC) Megara fought alongside the Spartans and Athenians at crucial battles such as Salamis and Plataea.


title: Megara

text: Megara defected from the Spartan-dominated Peloponnesian League (c. 460 BC) to the Delian league due to border disputes with its neighbour Corinth; this defection was one of the causes of the First Peloponnesian War (460 – c. 445 BC). By the terms of the Thirty Years' Peace of 446–445 BC Megara was forced to return to the Peloponnesian League.


title: Megara

text: In the (second) Peloponnesian War (c. 431 – 404 BC), Megara was an ally of Sparta. The Megarian decree is considered to be one of several contributing "causes" of the Peloponnesian War. Athens issued the Megarian decree, which banned Megarian merchants from territory controlled by Athens; its aim was to constrict the Megarian economy. The Athenians claimed that they were responding to the Megarians' desecration of the "Hiera Orgas", a sacred precinct in the border region between the two states.


title: Megara

text: Arguably the most famous citizen of Megara in antiquity was Byzas, the legendary founder of Byzantium in the 7th century BC. The 6th century BC poet Theognis also came from Megara. In the early 4th century BC, Euclid of Megara founded the Megarian school of philosophy which flourished for about a century, famous for the use of logic and dialectic.


title: Megara

text: During the Celtic invasion in 279 BC, Megara sent a force of 400 peltasts (light infantrymen) to Thermopylae. During the Chremonidean War, in 266 BC, the Megarians were besieged by the Macedonian king Antigonus Gonatas and managed to defeat his elephants employing burning pigs. Despite this success, the Megarians had to submit to the Macedonians.


title: Megara

text: In 243 BC, exhorted by Aratus of Sicyon, Megara expelled its Macedonian garrison and joined the Achaean League, but when the Achaeans lost control of the Isthmus in 223 BC the Megarians left them and joined the Boeotian League. Not more than thirty years later, however, the Megarians grew tired of the Boeotian decline and returned their allegiance to Achaea. The Achaean strategos Philopoemen fought off the Boeotian intervention force and secured Megara's return, either in 203 or in 193 BC.


title: Megara

text: According to Plutarch, Megarians tried to unleash lions against the besieging Roman troops guided by Quintus Fufius Calenus around 48 BC, but the animals “rushed among the unarmed citizens themselves and preyed upon them as they ran hither and thither, so that even to the enemy the sight was a pitiful one”.