title: Big Hole

text: With mining operations closed down in 1914, the open pit became an attraction for visitors to the city. By the 1960s, a gathering together of relics of Kimberley's early days, including old buildings and sundry memorabilia, began to be organised into a formal museum and tourist attraction. In 1965 De Beers appointed Basil Humphreys as museum consultant, with the museum being substantially upgraded as an open-air representation of early Kimberley. These upgrades included streetscapes, dioramas, and exhibits of mining technology and transport. There was an official opening during the Kimberley centenary celebrations in 1971. One of the attractions was the Diamond Hall. The Mine Museum went through subsequent upgrades. Between 2002 and 2005 De Beers invested R50 million in developing the Big Hole into a tourism facility, based on the idea of creating "a lasting legacy for the people of Kimberley". The new facility, the Big Hole Kimberley, and its theme of "Diamonds and Destiny", was expected to double visitor numbers to the Big Hole.


title: Jam band

text: A jam band is a musical group whose concerts (and live albums) are characterized by lengthy improvisational "jams." These include extended musical improvisation over rhythmic grooves and chord patterns, and long sets of music which often cross genre boundaries. Most jam band sets will consist of variations on songs that have already been released as studio recordings. Jam bands are known for having a very fluid structure, often having one song lead into another without any interruption.


title: Jam band

text: The jam-band musical style, spawned from the psychedelic rock movement of the 1960s, was a feature of nationally famed groups such as the Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers Band, whose regular touring schedules continued into the 1990s. The style influenced a new wave of jam bands who toured the United States with jam band-style concerts in the late 1980s and early '90s, such as Phish, Blues Traveler, Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band, The String Cheese Incident, and Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit. The jam-band movement gained mainstream exposure in the US in the early 1990s with the rise of Phish and the Dave Matthews Band as major touring acts and the dissolution of the Grateful Dead following Jerry Garcia's death in 1995.


title: Jam band

text: Jam-band artists often perform a wide variety of genres. While the Grateful Dead is categorized as rock, by the 1990s the term "jam band" was applied to acts that incorporated genres such as blues, country music, contemporary folk music, funk, progressive rock, world music, jazz fusion, Southern rock, alternative rock, acid jazz, bluegrass, folk rock and electronic music into their sound. Although the term has been used to describe cross-genre and improvisational artists, it retains an affinity to the fan cultures of the Grateful Dead or Phish.


title: Jam band

text: A feature of the jam-band scene is fan recording of live concerts. While the mainstream music industry often views fan taping as "illegal bootlegging", jam bands often allow their fans to make tapes or recordings of their live shows. Fans trade recordings and collect recordings of different live shows, because improvisational jam bands play their songs differently at each performance.


title: Jam band

text: In the 1980s, the Grateful Dead's fan base included a large core group that followed their tours from show to show. These fans (known as "Deadheads") developed a sense of community and loyalty. In the 1990s, the band Phish began to attract this fan base. The term "jam band" was first used regarding Grateful Dead and Phish culture in the 1980s. In 1998, Dean Budnick wrote the first book devoted to the subject, entitled "Jam Bands". He founded Jambands.com later that year and is often credited with coining the term. However, in his second book on the subject, 2004's "Jambands: A Complete Guide to the Players, Music & Scene", he explains that he only popularized it.


title: Jam band

text: "Rolling Stone" magazine asserted in a 2004 biography that Phish "was the living, breathing, noodling definition of the term" jam band, in that it became a "cultural phenomenon, followed across the country from summer shed to summer shed by thousands of new-generation hippies and hacky-sack enthusiasts, and spawning a new wave of bands oriented around group improvisation and super-extended grooves." Another term for "jam band music" used in the 1990s was "Bay Rock". It was coined by the founder of "Relix" magazine, Les Kippel, as a reference to the 1960s San Francisco Bay Area music scene, which included the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape, among many others.


title: Jam band

text: By the late 1990s, the types of jam bands had grown so that the term became quite broad, as exemplified by the definition written by Dean Budnick, which appeared in the program for the first annual Jammy Awards in 2000 (Budnick co-created the show with Wetlands Preserve owner Peter Shapiro).


title: Jam band

text: Although in 2007 the term may have been used to describe nearly any cross-genre band, festival band, or improvisational band, the term retains an affinity to Grateful Dead-like bands such as Phish. Andy Gadiel, the initial webmaster of Jambands.com, states in Budnick's 2004 edition of "Jambands" that the music "...had a link that would not only unite bands themselves but also a very large community around them."


title: Jam band

text: By the late 1990s, the term "jam band" became applied retroactively in jam band circles for bands such as Cream, who for decades were categorized as a "power-trio" and "psychedelic rock", and who when active were largely unrelated to the Grateful Dead, but whose live concerts usually featured several extended collective improvisations. In his October 2000 column on the subject for "jambands.com", Dan Greenhaus attempted to explain the evolution of a jam band as such: At this point, what you sing about, what instruments you play, how often you tour and how old you are has become virtually irrelevant. At this point, one thing is left and, ironically, after all these years, it’s the single most important place one should focus on; the approach to the music. And the jamband or improvisational umbrella, essentially nothing more than a broad label for a diverse array of bands, is open wide enough to shelter several different types of bands, whether you are The Dave Matthews Band or RAQ.


title: Jam band

text: The Jammy Awards have had members of non-jamming bands which were founded in the 1970s and were unrelated to the Grateful Dead perform at their show such as new wave band The B-52's. The Jammys have also awarded musicians from prior decades such as Frank Zappa.


title: Jam band

text: Artists such as The Derek Trucks Band have resisted being labelled a jam band. Dave Schools of Widespread Panic said in an interview, "We want to shake free of that name, jam band. The jam band thing used to be the Grateful Dead bands. We shook free of that as hard as we could back in 1989. Then Blues Traveler came on the scene. All together, we created the H.O.R.D.E. tour, which focused a lot of attention on jam bands. Then someone coined the term jam bands. I'd rather just be called retro. When you pigeonhole something, you limit its ability to grow and change." An example of a prior-era band that gained the label "jam band" through an active affiliation with the 1990s jam band culture is The Allman Brothers Band. However, Gregg Allman has been quoted as recently as 2003 by his fellow band member Butch Trucks in stating that rather than being a jam band, The Allman Brothers are "a band that jams".


title: Jam band

text: Although Trucks suggests that this is only a difference of semantics, the term has a recent history for which it is used exclusively. An example of this discernment is the acceptance of Les Claypool as a jam band in the year 2000. Though known for his decade with Primus (a band that jams) and solo works, it was after he created the Fearless Flying Frog Brigade with members of Ratdog and released "Live Frogs Set 1" that as Budnick wrote had "marked [Claypool's] entry into [the jamband] world." Budnick has been both editor-in-chief of Jambands.com and executive editor of "Relix" magazine.


title: Jam band

text: The band that set the template for future jam bands was the Grateful Dead, founded in 1965 by San Francisco-based guitarist Jerry Garcia. The Dead attracted an enormous cult following, mainly on the strength of their live performances and live albums (their studio albums were only modest successes and received little radio play). Drawing inspiration from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band's improvisational 1966 epic "East-West" and Eric Clapton's supergroup Cream, the band specialized in improvisational jamming at concerts. They played long two-set shows, and gave their fans a different experience every night, with varying set lists, evolving songs, creative segues, and extended instrumentals. Some of their fans, known as "Deadheads", followed their tours from city to city, and a hippie subculture developed around the band, complete with psychedelic clothes, a black market in concert-related products, and drug paraphernalia. The band toured regularly for most of three decades. The eventual heirs to this "Shakedown Street" fan culture, Phish, formed in 1983 at the University of Vermont. They solidified their lineup in 1985 and began their career with a few Grateful Dead songs in their repertoire.


title: Jam band

text: The Allman Brothers Band were also considered a jam band, particularly during the Duane Allman era. Songs such as "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and "Whipping Post", which were 5–7 minutes long on their studio albums, became 20-minute jams at concerts. The Allmans performed a 34-minute jam with the Grateful Dead in 1970. Their 1972 album "Eat A Peach" included "Mountain Jam", a 34-minute instrumental that was recorded live. The 1971 live album "At Fillmore East" featured a 24-minute version of "Whipping Post", and a 20-minute version of Willie Cobbs' "You Don't Love Me".


title: Jam band

text: The Grateful Dead grew their fanbase to nearly unmanageable levels in the second half of the 1980s. The party atmosphere of Grateful Dead shows drew in a new generation of fans, especially after they released "Touch of Grey" which became a hit song on MTV in 1987. They eventually began playing football stadiums, where fans turned the parking lots into campgrounds.


title: Jam band

text: In the mid-1980s and early-1990s, the bands Phish, moe., Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Blues Traveler, Ozric Tentacles, Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Spin Doctors, The String Cheese Incident, Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit, Medeski Martin & Wood, The Black Crowes, Leftover Salmon, The Samples, Galactic, əkoostik hookah, and Lettuce, began touring with jam band-style concerts. Their popularity increased in the early 1990s. Widespread Panic originated when Michael Houser and John Bell started playing together. In 1986, after Todd Nance and Dave Schools joined them, the band played their first show as "Widespread Panic". Blues Traveler and Spin Doctors - formed and fronted by school friends John Popper and Chris Barron, respectively - regularly performed at the jam band-friendly venue Wetlands Preserve in New York City.


title: Jam band

text: In some cases, their improvisations have taken a backseat to more polished material, which may be due to their crossover commercial successes, MTV videos, and mainstream radio airplay. Most notable in pre-jam band history was the obvious influence of the Grateful Dead. By the end of the decade, Phish had signed a recording contract with Elektra Records, and transformed from a New England/Northeast-based band into a national touring band ("see: Colorado '88"). While they may not have had Phish's commercial success, "With its fusion of southern rock, jazz, and blues, Widespread Panic has earned renown as one of America's best live bands. They have often appeared in Pollstar's "Concert Pulse" chart of the top fifty bands on the road, and they have performed more than 150 live dates a year."


title: Jam band

text: In the early 1990s, a new generation of bands was spurred by the Grateful Dead's touring and the increased exposure of The Black Crowes, Phish, Widespread Panic and Aquarium Rescue Unit. Phish was building a large fan base and innovating new concepts into their shows. At the same time, the Internet gained popularity and provided a medium for fans to discuss these bands and their performances as well as to view emerging concepts.


title: Jam band

text: Phish (along with the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles) was one of the first bands to have a Usenet newsgroup. To capitalize on this, they experimented with new theatrics at shows, such as the Big Ball Jam (1992–1994), the Secret Language (from 1992), and the Audience Chess match (1995 tour). A rapidly expanding concert-going market in the early 1990s saw Phish playing mid-sized amphitheaters in 1993 and 1994. The band also played at large venues such as Madison Square Garden. Many new bands were formed, which were the first to actually be called "jam bands", including ekoostik hookah, Dispatch, Gov't Mule, Leftover Salmon, moe., Rusted Root and The String Cheese Incident.


title: Jam band

text: During the summer of 1995 Garcia died. The surviving members of the Grateful Dead formed The Other Ones (appearing as "The Dead" for some tours). During the same period, Phish rose to prominence, and bands such as String Cheese Incident and Blues Traveler became successful. Many Deadheads migrated to the Phish scene, which became the top touring jam band and became recognized as more mainstream.


title: Jam band

text: The jam-band scene gained more recognition during the late 1990s, with Phish being the most influential band of the genre as it drew large crowds to amphitheaters and arenas. Their first major music festival on 16 and 17 August 1996 drew 70,000 fans and was the largest concert of the year. Phish celebrated the new millennium with an enormous festival called "Big Cypress" in southern Florida, which concluded with an eight-hour set. The final shows before their 2004 breakup were at the Coventry Festival in Vermont. As of 2015, Phish has played a total of ten multi-day camping festivals. Other jam bands followed the success of these festivals, notably the Disco Biscuits, who held their first Camp Bisco in 1999, and moe., which began its annual moe.down festivals in 2000.


title: Jam band

text: A consequence of Phish's repopularization of large-scale festivals can be seen in the founding of the Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2002. This multi-band, multi-day festival which annually draws close to 100,000 music fans, started as a jam band-focused event. Over time, bands from many genres have performed at Bonnaroo, but the similarities to Phish's festivals are still apparent. These and other music festivals held across the US have become an important part of the music industry, opening a new revenue stream to help bands compensate for the deteriorating compact disc market.


title: Jam band

text: The third generation of jam bands appeared in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many inspired by Phish and other acts of the second wave. These included Umphrey's McGee, Dispatch, Assembly of Dust, Gov't Mule, O.A.R., The Derek Trucks Band, Agents of Good Roots, Benevento/Russo Duo, and My Morning Jacket. Additionally, groups such as The Disco Biscuits and Sound Tribe Sector 9 added electronic and techno elements into their performances, developing the livetronica subgenre. The early 2010s saw a fourth generation of jam bands, including Dopapod, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Goose, Twiddle, Moon Taxi and Spafford. Members of the Grateful Dead have continued touring since 1995 in many different iterations, such as The Dead, Bob Weir & Ratdog, Phil Lesh and Friends, Donna Jean Godchaux Band, 7 Walkers, Furthur, and Dead & Company. Members of other jam bands often perform together in various configurations and supergroups, such as Tedeschi Trucks Band, Oysterhead, and Dave Matthews & Friends.


title: Jam band

text: There was no clear jam-band successor after Phish's 2004 breakup. Newer bands such as STS9, Disco Biscuits, and Umphrey's McGee grew their fanbase. No upcoming jam band has yet to reach the attendance levels of Phish, who themselves had never attained the peak attendance of the Grateful Dead. The long-term fragmentation of the jam-band scene has been a continuing process. Phish held a reunion concert in March 2009 at Hampton Coliseum, and again became one of the top US concert draws. The band were one of the highest-grossing touring musical artists of both 2016 and 2017, and their 13-night "Baker's Dozen" run at Madison Square Garden in 2017 grossed $15 million.


title: Jam band

text: Widespread Panic became the top jam band (by attendance) after Phish broke up in 2004. moe. has maintained a tightly knit fanbase, supported by steady touring and frequent festival appearances. String Cheese Incident has mixed bluegrass and electronic sounds to build a devoted fanbase as well. SCI has significantly reduced their touring schedule in recent years, giving each of their shows a special reunion vibe.


title: Jam band

text: Many of today's jam bands have brought widely varied genres into the scene. A jam band festival may include bands with electronic, folk rock, blues rock, jazz fusion, psychedelic rock, southern rock, progressive rock, acid jazz, hip hop, hard rock, reggae, and bluegrass sounds. The electronic trend has been led by such bands as The Disco Biscuits, Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9), Lotus, EOTO, The New Deal, and Dopapod. Bands like moe., Umphrey's McGee, Lettuce, Assembly of Dust, The Heavy Pets and The Breakfast have carried on the classic rock sound mixed with exploratory jams. Members of the Grateful Dead have continued touring in many different configurations as The Dead, Bob Weir & Ratdog, Phil Lesh and Friends, 7 Walkers, Furthur, and Dead & Company.


title: Jam band

text: The British Intelligent dance music (IDM) band Autechre became known as "the first digital jam band" after their 4-hour long 2016 album set "elseq 1-5". Blending jam-band elements with those of electronica is known as "jamtronica" or "livetronica" (a portmanteau of the terms "live music" and "electronica"). Bands includes The Disco Biscuits, STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9), and The New Deal (although STS9 guitarist Hunter Brown has expressed basic reservations about the "livetronica" label, explaining that "it's a really vague term to describe a lot of bands", he did cite Tortoise as stylistic precursors). "Entertainment Weekly" also identified Prefuse 73, VHS or Beta, Lotus, Signal Path, MFA, and Midwest Product as notable livetronica groups.


title: Jam band

text: The contemporary jam scene has grown to encompass bands from a great diversity of musical genres. A 2000-era genre of jam-band music uses live improvisation that mimics the sounds of DJs and electronica musicians and has been dubbed "trancefusion" (a fusion between trance music and rock and roll). Progressive bluegrass and progressive rock are also quite popular among fans of jam bands. In the early 2000s, the jam scene helped influence the touring patterns and approach of a new wave of indie bands like Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Interpol, and The National.


title: Jam band

text: Hundreds of jam-based festivals and concerts are held throughout the US. The Bonnaroo Music Festival, held each June in Tennessee, continues to provide a highly visible forum for jam acts, although this festival has attracted many different genres during its decade-plus history. As with other music scenes, devout fans of jam bands are known to travel from festival to festival, often developing a family-like community. These committed fan groups are often referred to by the derogatory terms "wookies" or "wooks".


title: Jam band

text: Jam bands often allow their fans to record their live shows, a practice which many other musical genres view as "illegal bootlegging". The Grateful Dead encouraged this practice, which helped to create a thriving scene around the collecting and trading of recordings of their live performances. Most of the live shows on the Grateful Dead's 30 years of touring were recorded, and the trade in recordings is believed to have built the band's fan base.


title: Jam band

text: Starting in 1984, the band recognized the fact that people were already "unofficially" taping their shows, so they started to sell taper tickets for a taper's section, segregating these people with their equipment into one area of the venue to keep them from interfering with other concertgoers.


title: Jam band

text: Improvisational jam bands perform their songs differently at each performance and generally have no fixed setlist, in order to encourage fans to see them on multiple nights. Some fans collect versions of their favourite songs and actively debate which is the best version of any particular song, keeping lists of notable version. This may extend to the song's relative rarity in setlists of differing eras. Some bands will play on this anticipation by adding little "teases" into their sets. For example, playing a few bars of a famous cover song or hinting at a popular jam and then either never getting around to actually playing the song, or coming back to it after an extended jam. The use of segues to blend strings of songs is another mark of a jam band, and one which makes for sought-after tapes.


title: Jam band

text: By the 2000s, as internet downloading of MP3 music files became common, the downloading of jam-band songs became an extension of the cassette taping trend. Archived jam-band downloads are available at various websites, the most prominent ones being etree and the Live Music Archive, which is part of the Internet Archive.


title: Jam band

text: Some jam bands distribute their latest shows online. Bands such as Phish, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident, Gov't Mule, əkoostik hookah, Umphrey's McGee, Dopapod, Lotus, and The Disco Biscuits have offered digital downloads within days, or sometimes hours, of concerts. The Grateful Dead have begun to offer live releases from their archives for download.


title: Jam band

text: Some concert venues offer kiosks where fans may purchase a digital recording of the concert and download it to a USB flash drive or another portable digital storage device. Some bands offer concert recordings made available for purchase on compact disc or flash drive shortly after the show ends. Most major music festivals also offer digital live recordings at the event. Several vendors such as Instant Live by Live Nation and Aderra offer this remote recording service for instant delivery. Although these shows are freely traded in digital format, "official" versions are collected by fans for the graphics, liner notes, and packaging.


title: Jam band

text: In the August 2006 issue of "Guitar One" on jam bands, the following places were referred to as the "best places to see jam music": Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Red Rocks Park, Denver, CO; The Gorge Amphitheatre, George, Washington; High Sierra Music Festival, Quincy, CA; Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, NY; The Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA; Bonnaroo Music Festival (Bonnaroo has become increasingly mainstream in recent years, and has seen a shift in fan base), Manchester, TN; The Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA; Higher Ground, Burlington, Vermont, Nelson Ledges Quarry Park, Garrettsville, Ohio; and the Jam in the Dam in Amsterdam.


title: Jam band

text: One way to see many jam bands in one place is by going to a jam band-oriented music festival. Some popular festivals that include jam bands are: Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee; Gathering of the Vibes in Bridgeport, Connecticut; Rothbury Festival in Rothbury, Michigan (now known as Electric Forest Festival; High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, California; All Good Music Festival; The Peach Music Festival in Scranton, PA; Mountain Jam (festival) in Hunter Mt, New York; Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado; Lockn' Festival in Arrington, Virginia; The Werk Out Music Festival in Thornville, Ohio; and Summer Camp Music Festival in Chillicothe, Illinois.


title: Jam band

text: Law professor Mark Schultz found that jam bands had fundamentally different business models from the mainstream music industry. This could be seen in the perceptions of their fans: Jam-band fans view themselves and the band as part of a shared community, which the band management serves. In comparison, fans of mainstream music "often portray band management as part of a ruthless industry that ... mistreats fans and musicians alike".


title: Jam band

text: Professor Tom R. Tyler considered the main law-enforcement strategies for copyright protection, finding that deterrence and process-based strategies could both be effective, but that the latter was more efficient.


title: Jam band

text: Jam bands encourage fans to bring recording equipment to live performances and give away copies of what they record. This practice may increase the sizes of their audiences and the total revenue received from concerts and the sale of recorded music. The fans reciprocate the generosity of the jam bands by helping enforce the copyright rules that the bands write, consistent with Tyler's "process-based" law enforcement. Schultz said the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) seems to call most fans pirates intent on stealing their music.


title: Jam band

text: Schultz said that the key concept here is reciprocity: Fans treated with generosity and respect by jam bands tend to be more loyal even to the point of helping enforce the copyrights the jam bands claim. Fans similarly reciprocate the hostility they perceive in the anti-piracy lawsuits filed by the mainstream recording industry. It is unclear which business model is most remunerative for music industry managers, but Schultz insisted that jam bands tend to have more loyal fans, and the mainstream music industry might benefit from following this model and treating their fans with more respect.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The Army of the Republic of North Macedonia () is a defense force consisting of an army and air force; it is responsible for defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of North Macedonia. Since 2005, it is a fully professional defense force compatible with NATO standards.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The emblem of the Army is a stylized depiction of a shield found in the St. George Church in Lazarovci.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The national defence policy and doctrine are determined and based upon the following basic security policy goals of North Macedonia:


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: Starting out from the security policy provisions and goals, the defence policy of North Macedonia is based upon the following principles:


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: North Macedonia maintains a defensive potential and combat readiness of its Armed Forces which function as a deterring factor in case of a potential aggression in accordance with its capabilities and international arrangements.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: In accordance with the Article 123 of the Constitution of North Macedonia, no one in the state has the right to declare capitulation. Therefore, the defence system of North Macedonia is based on the determination to give resistance by use of an armed force against any possible aggression and for a defensive combat on the whole territory. For that purpose, the defence system is responsible to provide conditions so that all of the state authorities and institutions function and conditions for joining the collective defence and security systems as a protection of the independence and sovereignty are provided.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: North Macedonia could maintain all the guarantees for its security through the collective defence and security systems. That is why North Macedonia supports the reinforcement of these collective systems and determines itself to actively participate in these systems and to cooperate with regard to the construction of the new European security architecture based upon NATO, OSCE and WEU.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: To fulfill these principles and strategic goals, the defence system of North Macedonia is a completed with the peacetime and warfare organisation, the basic development goals, the preparations and the use of the Armed Forces as well as the full civilian control over the Armed Forces. The defence system comprises the whole defence potential of the country: civilians, state authorities, civil protection forces, local self-management, public institutions and services and enterprises of special significance for the defence.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The preparations for a successful defence are conducted during peacetime. These include preparations of the state authorities; preparations and training of the Armed Forces and their deployment on the territory of North Macedonia; preparation of the public institutions and the local self-management; preparations of the civil population and participation in joint exercises and other forms of co-operation with the PfP and NATO member countries.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The management and the procedures in the field of defence of North Macedonia are defined by the Constitution, the Defence Law and by the responsibilities of the executive and judicial authorities.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The commanding with the Armed Forces is based upon the uniformity in command when using the forces and the resources, and the responsibility to execute the decisions and the orders of the one that is superior in command.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The President passes the defence plan and strategy, the decisions for readiness conducting, organisation and formation structure of the Army, passes documents on development, decision on mobilization etc.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The President at the same time is the Chairman of the Security Council of North Macedonia. The Security Council considers all the defence and security related issues of North Macedonia and makes recommendations to the Parliament and to the Government.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The Parliament of North Macedonia supervises the competence of the Government with regard to the defence, it passes decisions on the existing of a direct threat from a war, declares warfare situation and peace and passes the defence budget.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The Government of North Macedonia has the following responsibilities: proposes the defence plan, the defence budget etc.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The Ministry of Defence develops the defence strategy and works out the assessment of the possible threats and risks. The MOD is also responsible for the defence system, training, readiness of the Armed Forces, the equipment and the development and it proposes the defence budget, etc.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The Macedonian Army was formed in 1992 with the withdrawal of the Yugoslav National Army under agreement that it would take all of its equipment with it, stripping the facilities bare, and mining them for demolition, in some case even army apartments were stripped of wire and plumbing. According to Belgrade newspapers the army removed equipment worth $14 billion and $20 billion which could equip an army of 30.000.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: On March 26, 1992 the last and largest military object in Macedonia was taken over by the new Army, the Marshall Tito barracks and renamed "Ilinden" after the Ilinden Uprising.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: In 1993 the government of the Republic of Macedonia proclaimed August 18th as "Day of the Army", the day when in 1943 on Slavej mountain the first regular Macedonian military formation, the Mirče Acev battalion was formed as part of the Macedonian National Liberation Army


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: In 1995 the Macedonian government passed the military academy law and became the 27th member of the NATO "Partnership and peace" initiative.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: In 1996 for the first time a Macedonian army unit participated in a multinational exercise called "Peace Eagle 96" in Albania.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: In 1999 the first class of 64 sergeants were presented in the Goce Delčev barracks to had started and finished their schooling in the new military academy of Macedonia "Mihailo Apostolski".


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: In 2006 the Macedonian army became a fully professional force and the Second Mechanized Infantry Brigade was formed.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The then-Republic of Macedonia began its participation in the NATO-led ISAF operation in August 2002, with the allocation of two officers to the Turkish contingent. On 8 September, independence day of the Republic of Macedonia, the Macedonian flag was flown for the first time in Kabul. In March 2003, the Army of the Republic of Macedonia increased its contribution in the ISAF mission by sending one section from the 2nd Infantry Brigade as part of the German contingent. As a result of the successful execution of the mission and the high marks received for participation in ISAF, from August 2004 until the end of 2006, the ARM participated with one mechanized infantry platoon from the Leopard unit. At the same time, in August 2005 medical personnel was sent in ISAF as part of the Combined Medical Team in the A3 format (Macedonia, Albania, Croatia), which successfully carried out tasks at the Kabul airport, firstly in the composition of the Greek Field Hospital, and later in the composition of the Czech Field Hospital.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: Based on the assessments of the Alliance in the part of the declared units from the ARM, which achieved the required strict standards in the field of training and operational procedures, and in line with the Operational Capabilities Concept (OCC), the ARM in June 2006 sent also one mechanized infantry company, part of the first mechanized infantry brigade, in the composition of the British contingent in ISAF. The trust shown from the United Kingdom towards the ninety "Scorpions" from the first infantry brigade, was justified in full.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The high marks from the highest command structures for the work of the unit as well as the learned lessons are only an imperative for continuing the successful mission. In the second rotation of the company for securing the ISAF command, the Republic of Macedonia increased the participation from ninety to one hundred and twenty seven participants, and from January 2008 it sent three staff officers in the ISAF Command in Kabul.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: As a support to the efforts for self-sustainability of the Afghanistan National Army (ANA), beginning from March 2008, the Republic of Macedonia sent two soldiers (one officer and one NCO) as part of the Combined Multinational Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT) in Mazar-i-Sharif while, beginning from December 2008, in cooperation with the Kingdom of Norway, a Macedonian medical team is included through one Surgical team in the organizational structure of the surgical unit of the Norwegian Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Meymanah, Afghanistan.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: North Macedonia has reaffirmed its strategic commitment for attaining membership to the EU by its resolute political commitment to support the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CSFP) and by declaring a concrete contribution to the civilian and military operations in the framework of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The participation of the then-Republic of Macedonia in the EU crisis management military operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina marked the first in the series of concrete and substantial contributions that the country provided in the framework of the civilian and military CSDP operations aimed at enhancing the EU capacities.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The Agreement with the EU for its participation in Althea was signed on 3 July 2006, in Brussels. The contribution of the Republic of Macedonia to the EU operation Althea has confirmed its progress from a consumer of the first EU military operation (Concordia 2003) into an active contributor to the CSDP (Althea 2006).


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The country's first contribution to an EU-led operation began in July 2006, by declaring a helicopter detachment, consisting of two Mi-8/17 helicopters and 21crew.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: In November 2006, the Republic of Macedonia enhanced its own contribution to the EU operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina by declaring a medical team composed of 10 personnel for providing Role 1 medical support in Camp Butmir.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: With the political consensus of all political entities in the RM as well as the overall Macedonian public in terms of the support of the Coalition in the "fight against terrorism", the Republic of Macedonia took active participation by sending its units in the Iraqi Freedom Mission. Based on all legal authorizations, the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia adopted decisions for sending its units to the Iraqi Freedom Mission in the period between June 2003 and December 2008 for each mission separately every 6 months during the term of the mission. The Mission started by sending two officers in the US Central Command in Tampa, in March 2003. Upon the completion of the major combat operations, the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime, and the adoption of Resolution 1546 of the United Nations Security Council, in June 2003 on sending a special task platoon that executed the tasks as part of the 4th infantry division of the Multi-National Force Iraq. In 2008, participation in the Iraqi Freedom Mission was increased by an additional platoon. A total of 11 rotations were conducted between June 2003 and December 2008. The eleventh rotation was the last, which completed participation in the Iraqi Mission. The overall number of personnel that participated in this mission is 490.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: Having in mind the priorities in the part of logistics not only in national terms, but even more in proportion with the requirements and requests of the Alliance, the Host Nation Support Coordination Centre began to work in April 2005 as part of the NATO HQ in Skopje, a project implemented for the first time with a member nation from the Partnership for Peace. The project at the beginning was implemented on proposal of General Blease, who at that time was the Commander of NATO forces in Skopje. At the beginning, the project included 11 officers from the ARM, who successfully completed the training for the obligations related to giving support from the host nation. Promoting the personal professionalism and achievements, in 2006 these officers became the basis of the Coordination Centre, which gradually began the preparations for undertaking the tasks for support to KFOR.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: In June 2007, having in mind the large meaning and the projected goals, the Coordination Centre was included in the formation of the Logistics Support Command in the General Staff of the ARM. In this manner as an addition to the participation in the mission in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Lebanon, the ARM participates also in the mission for support to Kosovo.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The security and prosperity in global terms depend more and more on the effective multilateral system. The strategic partnership with the Organization of the United Nations, whose Treaty represents the fundamental framework of the international relations, are the priority of the European Union and NATO on the international security scene. Hence, the contribution of the Republic of Macedonia in the military part with respect to the missions led by the Organization of the United National is a confirmation of the effective membership of the Republic of Macedonia in the Organization and its strategic determinations.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The primary arm of the military in North Macedonia is the Army of the Republic of North Macedonia; it is commanded by the Minister of Defense through the Chief of the General Staff (CGS). Two Deputy CGS positions include the Deputy CGS for planning, operations and readiness, under whom operates the General Staff of the ARM, and the Deputy CGS for civil-military cooperation.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: It plays the key role in securing the safety and unity of the territory of the country. The army is divided into the rapid reaction force and strategic reserve forces. The rapid reaction forces represent the main active combat capability of the military and consist of the 1st Mechanized Infantry Brigade. The strategic reserve forces provide reserve brigades that can be called up in times of emergency.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: Air Warfare and Air Defence of North Macedonia has an important role as air support element of ground forces and in enhancing flight safety. One of the main goals of the Aviation Brigade is to build up an air surveillance system, which will be the cornerstone of the air traffic safety and airspace control. The air component is made up by the Aviation and the Air Defense Forces. It is located in Skopje International Airport (near Skopje)


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: Special Operations Regiment, is the main command for Special Units of the Army of Republic of North Macedonia. Under the command of the Special Operations Regiment are, The Special Forces Battalion "Wolves" and The Rangers Battalion as well as a Regimental Headquarters Company and Logistical Support Company.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: Special Forces Battalion "Wolves" was formed in 1994. It consists of a Headquarters and an undisclosed number of Special Forces detachments and specializes in covert actions, Foreign Internal Defence assistance, Special Reconnaissance, Counter Terrorist operations, and Drug interdiction tasks. Its members wear the Maroon Beret.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The Rangers Battalion was formed in 2004. It consists of a Headquarters and 3 Reconnaissance and Direct Action Companies, its members wear the Ranger Green Beret. The Rangers Battalion is well respected by its allies and is continually preparing for success in conducting its missions. Since 2004 the unit has gone through an intensive development period and has put maximum effort into improving its operative ability and its readiness to manage all challenges of modern time conflicts.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: The Mission of Special Operations Regiment is to provide fully organized, trained and equipped units to perform special operations and conventional specific operations, independently or in cooperation with other units of the Army and other coalition forces, in all weather and land conditions during peace, crisis and war and to support peace and conflict prevention as part of overall efforts to support internal security and foreign policy of the Republic of North Macedonia.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: Formed in 2001, the Logistics Command oversees all combat service support operations, and controls the Land Forces Logistic Base and the Military Hospital.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: Planning, organizing, coordinating and executing logistical support to commands and units of the Army of the Republic of North Macedonia, of level II and III.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: 1. Planning, organizing, coordinating and executing logistical support in the following functional areas:


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: 4. Strengthening the logistics capacity of the Army in conducting training, work in field conditions, combat engagement and participation in missions


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: 5. Coordinating support of allied forces in transit or maintain in the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: 6. Execution of logistical support for the administrative bodies and bodies of local self-governments, organizations, associations, etc. (in special circumstances and for special orders and instructions)


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: Organization, coordination and dimensional task of training the individual soldiers, cadets, NCOs and officers of the active and reserve forces, support collective training commands and units of the Army of the Republic and the development of doctrine and lessons learned in the Army of Republic of North Macedonia.In particular for meeting NATO requirements.


title: Army of North Macedonia

text: In order to improve the quality of training of the Army in 1996, were established several centers for basic and specialized training of individual soldiers, and collective training was done in the units. Centers were established to train: infantry, artillery, logistics, border guards, military police and reconnaissance.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: The historicity of Muhammad refers to the study of Muhammad as a historical figure and critical examination of sources upon which traditional accounts are based.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: The earliest Muslim source of information for the life of Muhammad, the Quran, gives very little personal information and its historicity is debated. Prophetic biography, known as "sīra", along with records of the words, actions, and the silent approval of Muhammad, known as "hadith", survive in the historical works of writers from the third and fourth centuries of the Muslim era (c. 800−1000 CE), and give a great deal of information on Muhammad, but the reliability of this information is very much debated in some academic circles. In addition there are a relatively small number of contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous non-Muslim sources which attest to the existence of Muhammad and are valuable both in themselves and for comparison with Muslim sources.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: The main Islamic source on Muhammad's life are the Quran and accounts of Muhammad's life based on oral traditions known as "sīra" and hadith.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: According to traditional Islamic scholarship, all of the Quran was written down by Muhammad's companions while he was alive (during CE 610–632), but it was primarily an orally related document.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Following the death of Muhammad the Quran ceased to be revealed, and companions who had memorized the Quran began to die off (particularly after the Battle of Yamama in 633). Worried that parts of the Quran might be irretrievably lost, senior companion Umar urged Caliph Abu Bakr to order the collection of the pieces of the Quran which had hitherto been scattered among "palm-leaf stalks, thin white stones, ... [and] men who knew it by heart, ..." put them together.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Under Caliph Uthman, a committee of five copied the scraps into a single volume, "monitoring the text as they went", resolving disagreements about verses, tracking down a lost verse. This "muṣḥaf" – that became known as the "Uthmanic codex" – was finished around 650 CE, whereupon Uthman issued an order for all other existing personal and individual copies and dialects of the Quran (known as "Ahruf") to be burnt.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Modern scholars differ in their assessment of the Quran as a historical source about Muhammad's life.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: According to the "Encyclopedia of Islam", the "Qur'an responds constantly and often candidly to Muhammad's changing historical circumstances and contains a wealth of hidden data that are relevant to the task of the quest for the historical Muhammad." In contrast, Solomon A. Nigosian writes that the Quran tells us very little about the life of Muhammad. Unlike the Bible's narratives of the life of Moses or Jesus, Michael Cook notes that


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: while the Koran tells many stories after its fashion, that of Muhammad is not among them. There are references to events in his life, but they are only references, not narratives. In addition, the book is not given to mentioning names in the context of its own time. Muhammad himself is named four times, and a couple of his contemporaries once each ... and for this reason it is almost impossible to relate the scripture to his life without going outside it.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Unlike the Quran, the hadith and "sīra" are devoted to Muhammad, his life, his words, deeds, approval, and example to Muslims in general.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: The life of Muhammad is known as the "Sira" and was lived in the full light of history. Everything he did and said was recorded. Because he could not read and write himself, he was constantly served by a group of 45 scribes who wrote down his sayings, instructions, and his activities. Muhammad himself insisted on documenting his important decisions. Nearly three hundred of his documents have come down to us, including political treaties, military enlistments, assignments of officials, and state correspondence written on tanned leather. We thus know his life to the minutest details: how he spoke, sat, slept (sic), dressed, walked; his behavior as a husband, father, nephew; his attitudes toward women, children, animals; his business transactions and stance toward the poor and the oppressed ...


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: In the sīra literature, the most important extant biography are the two recensions of Ibn Ishaq's (d. 768), now known as "Sīrat Rasūl Allah" ("Biography/Life of the Messenger/Apostle of Allah"), which survive in the works of his editors, most notably Ibn Hisham (d. 834) and Yunus b. Bukayr (d.814–815), although not in its original form. According to Ibn Hisham, Ibn Ishaq wrote his biography some 120 to 130 years after Muhammad's death. Many, but not all, scholars accept the accuracy of these biographies, though their accuracy is unascertainable.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: After Ibn Ishaq, there are a number of shorter accounts (some of which are earlier than Ibn Ishaq) recorded in different forms (see List of earliest writers of sīra). Other biographies of Muhammad include al-Waqidi's (d. 822) and then Ibn Sa'd's (d.844–45). Al-Waqidi is often criticized by early Muslim historians who state that the author is unreliable. These are not "biographies" in the modern sense of the word, but rather accounts of Muhammad's military expeditions, his sayings, the reasons for and interpretations of verses in the Quran.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Tom Holland notes that Ibn Hisham credits angels with helping Muslims to victory at the Battle of Badr, and wonders why he should be considered a reliable historical source any more than Homer (who portrayed gods as influencing battles in his epic poem the Iliad).


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: According to Wim Raven, it is often noted that a coherent image of Muhammad cannot be formed from the literature of sīra, whose authenticity and factual value have been questioned on a number of different grounds. He lists the following arguments against the authenticity of sīra, followed here by counter-arguments:


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Nevertheless, other content of sīra, like the Constitution of Medina, are generally considered to be authentic by both Muslim and non-Muslim historians.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Henri Lammens complains of contradictions in the Traditions about Muhammad's life, including on the number of his children and wives. Some accounts have him having one child, others two, and still another claimed he had twelve children, including eight boys. While most accounts state he had nine wives, "some passages of the sira speak of twenty three wives." Muhammad is thought to have lived between 60 and 65 years according to tradition.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: The hadith collections include traditional, hagiographic accounts of the verbal and physical traditions of Muhammad, and often explain what a verse in the Quran is referring to in regards to Muhammad.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Early Muslim scholars were concerned that some hadiths (and sīra reports) were fabricated, and thus they developed a science of hadith criticism (see Hadith studies) to distinguish between genuine sayings and those that were forged, recorded using different words, or were wrongly ascribed to Muhammad.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: In general, the majority of western academics view the hadith collections with considerable caution. Bernard Lewis states that "The collection and recording of Hadith did not take place until several generations after the death of the Prophet. During that period the opportunities and motives for falsification were almost unlimited."


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: The main feature of hadith is that of Isnad (chains of transmission), which are the basis of determining the authenticity of the reports in traditional Islamic scholarship. According to Stephen Humphreys, while a number of "very capable" modern scholars defended the general authenticity of "isnads", most modern scholars regard "isnads" with "deep suspicion".


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Jonathan A. C. Brown, a Sunni who follows the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence, asserts that the hadith tradition is a "common sense science" or a "common sense tradition" and is "one of the biggest accomplishments in human intellectual history ... in its breadth, in its depth, in its complexity and in its internal consistency."


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Early Islamic history is also reflected in sources written in Greek, Syriac, Armenian, and Hebrew by Jewish and Christian communities, all of which are dated after 633 CE. These sources contain some essential differences with regard to Muslim sources, in particular regarding the chronology and Muhammad's attitude towards the Jews and Palestine. According to Neva and Koren, no Byzantine or Syriac sources provide any detail on "Muhammad's early career ... which predate the Muslim literature on the subject".


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: According to Syriac and Byzantine sources studied by historian S.P. Brock, "The title 'prophet'" applied to Muhammad "is not very common, 'apostle' even less so. Normally he is simply described as the first of the Arab kings, and it would be generally true to say that the Syriac sources of this period see the conquests primarily as Arab, and not Muslim".


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: There is a reference recording the Arab conquest of Syria (known as Fragment on the Arab Conquests), that mentions Muhammed. This much faded note is preserved on folio 1 of BL Add. 14,461, a codex containing the Gospel according to Matthew and the Gospel according to Mark. This note appears to have been penned soon after the battle of Gabitha (636 CE) at which the Arabs inflicted crushing defeat of the Byzantines. Wright was first to draw the attention to the fragment and suggested that "it seems to be a nearly contemporary notice", a view which was also endorsed by Nöldeke. The purpose of jotting this note in the book of Gospels appears to be commemorative as the author appears to have realized how momentous the events of his time were. The words "we saw" are positive evidence that the author was a contemporary. The author also talks about olive oil, cattle, ruined villages, suggesting that he belonged to peasant stock, i.e., parish priest or a monk who could read and write. It is worthwhile cautioning that the condition of the text is fragmentary and many of the readings unclear or disputable. The lacunae (gaps in the text) are supplied in square brackets:


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: The 7th-century "Chronicle of 640" was published by Wright who first brought to attention the mention of an early date of 947 AG (635–36 CE). The contents of this manuscript has puzzled many scholars for their apparent lack of coherence as it contains an assembly of texts with diverse nature. In relation to Arabs of Mohamed, there are two important dates mentioned in this manuscript.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: It is the first date above which is of great importance as it provides the first explicit reference to Muhammad in a non-Muslim source. The account is usually identified with the battle of Dathin. According to Hoyland, "its precise dating inspires confidence that it ultimately derives from first-hand knowledge".


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Another account of the early seventh century comes from Sebeos who was an Armenian bishop of the House of Bagratuni. His account indicates he was writing at a time when memories of sudden eruption of the Arabs were fresh. He knows Muhammad's name, that he was a merchant by profession, and hints that his life was suddenly changed by a divinely inspired revelation. Sebeos is the first non-Muslim author to present a theory for the rise of Islam that pays attention to what the Muslims themselves thought they were doing.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: From this chronicle, there are indications that he lived through many of the events he relates. He maintains that the account of Arab conquests derives from the fugitives who had been eyewitnesses thereof. He concludes with Mu'awiya's ascendancy in the Arab civil war (656–661 CE), which suggests that he was writing soon after this date.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Though the Quran contains few and rudimentary details of the prophet's life, most of the biographical information about Muhammad comes from the sirah (biographical literature), especially the work of Ibn Ishaq. These sources normally provide a historical trail of names that lead, in some cases, to an eyewitness and sometimes converge with other earlier sources near the time of the prophet. Though "there is no compelling reason to suggest that the basic scaffolding of the traditional Islamic account of Muhammad's life is unhistorical", a much more detailed biography is difficult to be understood as historically certain knowledge. According to Wim Raven, attempts to distinguish between the historical elements and the unhistorical elements of many of the reports of Muhammad have been problematic. According to F. E. Peters, despite any difficulties with the biographical sources, scholars generally see valuable historical information about Muhammad therein and suggest that what is needed are methods to be able to sort out the likely from the unlikely.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: In the 1970s the Revisionist School of Islamic Studies raised fundamental doubts about the reliability of traditional Islamic sources and applied the historical-critical methods to the early Islamic period, including the veracity of the conventional account of Muhammad. A major source of difficulty in the quest for the historical Muhammad is the modern lack of knowledge about pre-Islamic Arabia. According to Harald Motzki, "On the one hand, it is not possible to write a historical biography of the Prophet without being accused of using the sources uncritically, while on the other hand, when using the sources critically, it is simply not possible to write such a biography."


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: In 1952 French Arabist Régis Blachère, author of a critical biography of Muhammad that took "fully into account the skeptical conclusions" of Ignác Goldziher and Henri Lammens, i.e that Islamic hadith had been corrupted and could not be considered reliable sources of information, wrote We no longer have any sources that would allow us to write a detailed history of Muhammad with a rigorous and continuous chronology. To resign oneself to a partial or total ignorance is necessary, above all for everything that concerns the period prior to Muhammad's divine call [ca. 610 CE]. All a truly scientific biography can achieve is to lay out the successive problems engendered by this preapostolate period, sketch out the general background atmosphere in which Muhammad received his divine call, give in broad brush strokes the development of his apostleship at Mecca, try with a greater chance of success to put in order the known facts, and finally put back into the penumbra all that remains uncertain. To want to go further is to fall into hagiography or romanticization.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Historian John Burton states In judging the content, the only resort of the scholar is to the yardstick of probability, and on this basis, it must be repeated, virtually nothing of use to the historian emerges from the sparse record of the early life of the founder of the latest of the great world religions ... so, however far back in the Muslim tradition one now attempts to reach, one simply cannot recover a scrap of information of real use in constructing the human history of Muhammad, beyond the bare fact that he once existed.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Michael Cook laments that comparing Ibn Ishaq with the later commentator Al-Waqid — who based his writing on Ibn Ishaq but added much colorful but made-up detail — reveals how oral history can be contaminated by the fiction of storytellers ("qussa"). "We have seen what half a century of story-telling could achieve between Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi, at a time when we know that much material had already been committed to writing. What the same processes may have brought about in the century before Ibn Ishaq is something we can only guess at."


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Overall, Cook takes the view that evidence independent of Islamic tradition "precludes any doubts as to whether Muhammad was a real person" and clearly shows that he became the central figure of a new religion in the decades following his death. He reports, though, that this evidence conflicts with the Islamic view in some aspects, associating Muhammad with Israel rather than Inner Arabia, complicating the question of his sole authorship or transmission of the Quran, and suggesting that there were Jews as well as Arabs among his followers.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Cook's fellow revisionist Patricia Crone complains that "Sīrat" is written "not by a grandchild, but a great grandchild of the Prophet's generation", that it is written from the point of view of the ulama and Abbasid, so that "we shall never know ... how the Umayyad caliphs remembered their prophet".


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: While Crone argues that Muhammad was a person whose existence is supported by various sources, she takes a view that Muhammad's traditional association with the Arabian Peninsula may be "doctrinally inspired", and is put in doubt by the Quran itself, which describes agricultural activity that could not have taken place there, as well as making a reference to the site of Sodom which appears to place Muhammad's community close to the Dead Sea.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Concerning the dates of Muhammad's life, Lawrence Conrad writes that "well into the second century A.H. [Islamic] scholarly opinion on the birth date of the Prophet displayed a range of variance of 85 years. On the assumption that chronology is crucial to the stabilization of any tradition of historical narrative, whether transmitted orally or in writing, one can see in this state of affairs a clear indication that "sīra" studies in the second century were still in a state of flux". Since second century A.H. scholarly opinion is the earliest scholarly opinion, and assuming the closer scholars were to the actual event the more likely their sources are to be accurate, this suggests a surprising lack of information among Islamic scholars about basic information on Muhammad.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: Robert Hoyland suggests his historical importance may have been exaggerated by his followers, writing that "other" Arab leaders "in other locations" had preceded Muhammad in attacking the weakened Byzantine and Persian empires, but these had been "airbrushed out of history by later Muslim writers". (Hoyland and other historians arguing that the original Arab invaders were not all Muslims.)


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: A minority of historians have posited that Muhammad may be mythical. In the 2003 book "Crossroads to Islam", Yehuda D. Nevo and Judith Koren advanced a thesis, based on an extensive examination of archaeological evidence from Negev desert from the early Islamic period, that Muhammad may never have existed, with monotheistic Islam only coming into existence some time after he is supposed to have lived. This has been described as "plausible or at least arguable" by David Cook of Rice University, but also compared to Holocaust denial by historian Colin Wells, who suggests that the authors deal with some of the evidence illogically.


title: Historicity of Muhammad

text: In 2007, Karl-Heinz Ohlig suggested that the person of Muhammed was not central to early Islam at all, and that at this very early stage Islam was in fact an Arabic Christian sect which had objections to the concept of the trinity, and that the later hadith and biographies are in large part legends, instrumental in severing Islam from its Christian roots and building a full-blown new religion. In 2008, Sven Kalisch, a former Muslim convert and Germany's first professor of Islamic theology, also questioned whether the prophet Muhammad existed. In 2011, Hans Jansen, a Dutch scholar, expressed similar views.


title: Low-Life

text: Low-Life is the third studio album by English rock band New Order, released on 13 May 1985 by Factory Records. It is considered to be among the band's strongest work, displaying the moment they completed their transformation from post-punk hold-overs to dance-rockers. The album shows New Order's increased incorporation of synthesisers and samplers, while still preserving the rock elements of their earlier work. The original Factory CD issues of the album were mastered with pre-emphasis.


title: Low-Life

text: The songs on this album formed the basis of the band's live concert video "Pumped Full of Drugs", filmed in Tokyo shortly before the album's release. The music video for "The Perfect Kiss" was directed by Jonathan Demme.


title: Low-Life

text: The album's artwork is the only New Order release to feature photographs of the band members on its cover; according to designer Peter Saville, the decision to do this was due to him growing tired of his previous "concept covers." To photograph the band, Saville took portraits of them with instant film, which he saw as more versatile than conventional 135 film, stating that "you could push it and do funny things with it. It was very graphic and very dynamic. The grain and the texture made everything look like a movie film." Saville further stated that the band were initially reluctant to depict themselves in the artwork; however, thanks in part to the rapid turnaround of instant film, they grew to enjoy the photoshoot after seeing the results. The album comes packaged with drummer/keyboardist Stephen Morris on the front cover, while inside the case are four photographs and a semi-transparent piece of paper with the band's name, allowing consumers to choose which band member is seen through the sleeve.


title: Low-Life

text: The album was preceded by the release of the full-length version of "The Perfect Kiss" as a single (only an edited version appears on the album). John Robie's remix of "Sub-culture" was also released as a 12″ single. Both of these extended versions eventually were included on 1987's "Substance".


title: Low-Life

text: In 2008, the album was re-released in a Collector's Edition with a bonus disc, including the 17-minute complete version of "Elegia", which was only previously available on a limited edition disc of the 2002 box set "Retro" and, for the first time in digital format, the unedited 12″ mix of "The Perfect Kiss".


title: Low-Life

text: In a contemporary review of "Low-Life" for the "Los Angeles Times", Richard Cromelin stated that New Order's "varied menu of soul-pop, techno-rock, delicate instrumental moods, and driving, clattering percussion offers adventure in texture at every turn", and that while the album does not contain "anything as transcendent" as "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by New Order's precursor Joy Division, "its confidence and imagination suggest that the possibility is still there." Robert Christgau of "The Village Voice" noted New Order's attempt to insert some "affect" into its music and wrote that the band "has its heart (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) in the right place, so one doesn't want to quibble." While panning "Love Vigilantes" as "an appallingly naive self-parody", Steve Sutherland of "Melody Maker" found that the remainder of the album "boasts the most articulate sound since The Cocteaus' "Treasure", elevating depression to ecstasy."


title: Low-Life

text: John Bush of AllMusic wrote that "Low-Life" was "in every way, the artistic equal" of New Order's previous album "Power, Corruption & Lies", as well as "the point where the band's fusion of rock and electronics became seamless". "The A.V. Club"s Josh Modell similarly noted that the album "completely locked the disco influences into sync with New Order's pop leanings". David Quantick, writing in "Uncut", felt that "Low-Life" was "the first New Order album that sounds like an album", with Bernard Sumner's "most human lyrics" complementing Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris' "pop axis" and Peter Hook's "breath-taking" bass performances. In 2000, "Q" magazine placed "Low-Life" at number 97 on its list of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever". "Low-Life" was included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".


title: Luis Scola

text: Luis Alberto Scola Balvoa (born April 30, 1980) is an Argentine former professional basketball player and current executive who currently serves as the chief executive officer for the Italian Lega Basket Serie A (LBA) team Pallacanestro Varese. A three-time All-EuroLeague selection with Tau Ceramica, he signed with the Houston Rockets in 2007, and was voted to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. Later on, he played for the Phoenix Suns, Indiana Pacers, Toronto Raptors and Brooklyn Nets.


title: Luis Scola

text: Scola has been a regular member of the Argentina national basketball team since 1999, winning an Olympic gold team medal in 2004 and a bronze team medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics.


title: Luis Scola

text: In 2010 Scola won the Konex Award Merit Diploma as one of the five best basketball players from the last decade in Argentina. He was honored as the national flag bearer at the 2016 Summer Olympics.


title: Luis Scola

text: Scola started his career with the Buenos Aires youth teams of Ferro Carril Oeste. He made his professional debut with the same club's pro team in the Argentine league during the 1995–96 season, at the age of 15.


title: Luis Scola

text: After the 1997–98 basketball season in the Argentine League, Scola moved to Spain and signed with Saski Baskonia. He was loaned to Gijón Baloncesto, where he helped the then Spanish League Second Division club achieve promotion to the Spanish League First Division. He then was loaned back to Gijón through the 1999–2000 season, before arriving at Baskonia, where he played for seven seasons.


title: Luis Scola

text: With Saski Baskonia, Scola reached the EuroLeague Finals in the 2000–01 season, and three consecutive EuroLeague Final Fours, between 2005 and 2007. His outstanding performances earned him an All-EuroLeague Second Team selection in 2005, as well as two All-EuroLeague First Team selections in 2006 and 2007.


title: Luis Scola

text: Although Scola did not win the EuroLeague championship with Baskonia, he did win with them every major Spanish League title, winning a Spanish ACB League championship in 2002, three Spanish King's Cups in 2002, 2004, 2006, and three Spanish Supercups in 2005, 2006, 2007.


title: Luis Scola

text: In the summer of 2005, the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA (who drafted Scola in 2002), attempted to negotiate with Baskonia to buy out his contract. The teams settled on a number of over $3 million for the buyout of the contract. This made it difficult for Scola to join fellow Argentina national team member Manu Ginóbili in San Antonio, because of the NBA's rule which limits teams to paying no more than $500,000 of a player's buyout. Scola would have been responsible for paying Baskonia the remaining $2.5 million amount of the buyout. When the deal to buy out Scola's contract fell through, the Spurs instead signed an Argentine national team teammate and friend of Scola's, Fabricio Oberto.


title: Luis Scola

text: On July 12, 2007, the Spurs traded the rights to Scola, along with center-forward Jackie Butler, to the Houston Rockets, in return for Vassilis Spanoulis, a future second-round draft pick, and cash considerations. He signed with the Rockets soon after and his US$3.2 million buyout was completed a few days later. Scola signed a three-year contract with the Rockets, at a salary of $9.5 million. Scola placed third in the NBA 2007–08 Rookie of the Year Award voting and he was also named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. On March 13, 2010, he scored a career-high 44 points against the New Jersey Nets.


title: Luis Scola

text: On the afternoon of December 8, 2011, the day before the 2011 NBA lockout ended and players could move between teams, the Rockets, the Los Angeles Lakers and the New Orleans Hornets agreed to a trade that would have sent Scola, along with Goran Dragić, Kevin Martin, and Lamar Odom to the Hornets. In exchange, the Rockets would have received Pau Gasol, and the Lakers would have received star point guard Chris Paul. That night, after other team owners voiced their opposition, league commissioner David Stern nullified the trade.


title: Luis Scola

text: On July 13, 2012, he was waived by the Rockets using the league's amnesty clause to provide salary cap relief. It was widely noted, however, that Scola was not cut due to a lack of performance; rather, the deal was an attempt to clear cap space for the Rockets to trade for former Orlando Magic All-Star center Dwight Howard. Howard was instead traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, but the Rockets used their cap space to gain former Oklahoma City Thunder Sixth Man of the Year shooting guard and Olympic gold medalist James Harden.


title: Luis Scola

text: On July 15, 2012, Scola was claimed off amnesty waivers by the Phoenix Suns. Reportedly, the Dallas Mavericks and the Cleveland Cavaliers were also interested in acquiring him during the amnesty process. On November 21, 2012, he was relegated to playing off the bench for the first time in his NBA career since the start of his rookie season. He regained his starting spot less than a month later, and on December 29, he scored a season-high 33 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves. While Scola did become a leader for the Suns, he finished the season with declining averages, as his 12.8 points per game were his lowest since the 2008–09 season.


title: Luis Scola

text: On July 27, 2013, the Suns traded Scola to the Indiana Pacers in exchange for Gerald Green, Miles Plumlee, and a future second round draft pick. In his two seasons for the Pacers, he played a back-up power forward role to David West as he started just 18 games over his two-year stint.


title: Luis Scola

text: On July 15, 2015, Scola signed with the Toronto Raptors. He made his debut for the Raptors in their season opener on October 28, recording eight rebounds while taking no field goal attempts in a 106–99 win over the Indiana Pacers. He helped the Raptors make the Eastern Conference Finals in 2016 for the first time in franchise history.


title: Luis Scola

text: On July 13, 2016, Scola signed with the Brooklyn Nets. He made his debut for the Nets in their season opener on October 26, scoring eight points in a 122–117 loss to the Boston Celtics.


title: Luis Scola

text: Scola's final NBA game was played on February 13th, 2017 in a 103 - 112 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies where he recorded 4 assists and 4 rebounds but no points in 15 minutes of playing time. On February 27, 2017, he was waived by the Nets.


title: Luis Scola

text: On 29 September 2019, Olimpia Milano head coach, Ettore Messina, during the press conference of the 2nd round match of the 2019–20 LBA season lost against Germani Basket Brescia, announced that Scola had signed with the team for the rest of season. On 11 June 2020, Scola left Olimpia Milano.


title: Luis Scola

text: On 1 July 2020, Scola announced that he would play at least one year more before retirement and signed with Pallacanestro Varese of the LBA for the 2020–21 season with an option to extend for the next year.


title: Luis Scola

text: On September 20, 2021, Pallacanestro Varese announced that Scola would re-join them as Chief executive officer.


title: Luis Scola

text: With Argentina's junior national teams, Scola won the gold medal at the 1995 South American Cadet Championship, the gold medal at the 1996 South American Junior Championship, the gold medal at the 2000 FIBA Americas Under-20 Championship, and the bronze medal at the 2001 FIBA Under-21 World Cup.


title: Luis Scola

text: As a member of the senior Argentina national team, Scola has won multiple medals: the silver medal at the 1999 South American Championship, the bronze medal at the 1999 FIBA Americas Championship, the gold medal at the 2001 FIBA Americas Championship, the silver medal at the 2002 FIBA World Championship, the silver medal at the 2003 FIBA Americas Championship, the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics, the silver medal at the 2007 FIBA Americas Championship, the bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics, the bronze medal at the 2009 FIBA Americas Championship, the gold medal at the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship and the bronze medal at the 2013 FIBA Americas Championship among other titles. At the 2015 FIBA Americas Championship tournament, Scola became the all-time leading scorer in FIBA AmeriCup history, and won his 4th tournament MVP.


title: Luis Scola

text: Scola broke two records of the Argentina national team at the FIBA World Cup, during the 2010 edition: top overall scorer for Argentina at a World Cup (beating 's 331 points) and most points scored for Argentina in one game at a World Cup (scoring 37 against Brazil in the round of 16, therefore beating 's 35 points scored against Mexico in 1963).


title: Luis Scola

text: At the 2019 FIBA World Cup, he scored 135 points and 57 rebounds in the seven matches en route to the final. Scola scored 23 points against Nigeria in a preliminary round of the 2019 World Cup game at Wuhan, giving him a total of 611 points in his World Cup career. With this Scola passed Andrew Gaze's total of 594, and is now second only to Brazilian scoring great Oscar Schmidt's 906 points in the tournament.


title: Luis Scola

text: Scola scored a team high 23 points in a loss to Slovenia in the preliminary round of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.


title: Luis Scola

text: Play was paused during Scola's final game at the 2020 Summer Olympics, when his Argentinian team was playing Australia. With less than a minute left in the game Scola was checked out and players from both teams, coaches and those in the stadium gave him a standing ovation out of respect. The referee's allowed this pause in the game as they understood the importance of the occasion.


title: Luis Scola

text: Scola and his wife, fellow Argentine Pamela, have four children together. He also holds a Spanish passport.


title: Luis Scola

text: In July 18, 2017, Scola was named as an ambassador for the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: Two Point Hospital is a 2018 business simulation game developed by Two Point Studios and published by Sega for Linux, MacOS, and Microsoft Windows. Console versions for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch were released in February 2020. A version for Amazon Luna was also made available in November 2020. A spiritual successor to Bullfrog Productions' 1997 game "Theme Hospital", players are tasked with constructing and operating an empire of hospitals in the fictional Two Point County, with the goal of curing patients of fictitious, comical ailments. Because visiting real hospitals is often unpleasant, the emphasis on humour to lighten the mood was deemed important by the developers. The game was designed and developed by some of the creators of "Theme Hospital", including Mark Webley and Gary Carr.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: Within weeks of release, "Two Point Hospital" was the second most downloaded game in the sales charts for Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Australia. The game was received positively by critics, garnering acclaim for its style, humour and its faithfulness to "Theme Hospital"'s aesthetics, but criticised for its repetitiveness and room design. The game received seven major updates as downloadable content after its release which added new regions and illnesses to cure, as well as four item packs. A successor titled "Two Point Campus" was released in 2022.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: "Two Point Hospital" features a similar style of gameplay to that of "Theme Hospital". Players take on the role of a hospital administrator charged with constructing and maintaining a hospital. Tasks include building rooms and amenities that satisfy the needs (such as hunger and thirst) of patients and staff (such as toilets, staff rooms, reception desks, cafés, seating, and vending machines), expanding the hospital into new plots, the hiring and management of doctors, nurses, janitors, and assistants to maintain the hospital; and dealing with a variety of comical illnesses. The player can manage several hospitals, each with their own layout objectives. "Two Point Hospital" features unique, comical conditions such as "Light-Headedness" (having a light bulb for a head), "Pandemic" (having a pan on one's head), "Mock Star" (patients are Freddie Mercury impersonators), and "Animal Magnetism" (having animals stuck to the patient's body). When patients die, they sometimes become ghosts, which disrupt the hospital by terrorising patients and staff. Only janitors with the Ghost Capture skill can remove them.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: The process of diagnosing patients begins in a GP's Office before they are sent for further diagnosis in other rooms, and eventually treatment. From time to time, an influx of patients with a specific disease can occur. On later levels, players can also experience epidemics, during which an infectious disease spreads throughout the hospital. Players are issued with a certain number of vaccines to inoculate patients, and there is a reward if all infected patients are immunised. Otherwise, the player's reputation (a performance rating that affects the chances of new patients coming) is tarnished. Every game year, there is an awards ceremony in which the player is given performance-based rewards. Examples of objectives include: making the hospital attractive enough, and finding cures for certain diseases, though the general goal is curing as many patients as possible. The completion of challenges and other tasks awards "Kudosh", a currency that can be used to unlock new items that can be placed within rooms and corridors. Players can research new rooms and machine upgrades in the Research room.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: Newly introduced elements include star ratings, hospital levels, and room prestige. The achievement of a one-star rating allows players to progress to the next hospital, though they may continue building up their current hospital by completing additional objectives to increase the rating to two or three stars. If the player moves on, they can return to the hospital at any time. Hospital levels are determined by the number of rooms and staff members a hospital has – increasing the level attracts more patients and skilled staff. A room's prestige is affected by its size and ornamentation, and the higher a room's prestige level, the happier staff are inside it (if staff become unhappy, they may quit).


title: Two Point Hospital

text: Staff training is more complex than in "Theme Hospital"; all staff, not just doctors, can learn and receive qualifications that grant them new skills or improve their ability in a certain department. For example, the General Practitioner skill improves a doctor's skill in the GP's Office. Additionally, staff have personalities and specialisations which affect their job performance. Assistants can run marketing programmes to attract patients with a certain illness or staff with certain skills.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: The game features online leaderboards, along with co-operative and competitive multiplayer modes. An update released in October 2018 also added a sandbox mode. Steam Workshop support was added in February 2019, giving players the ability to customise the pictures, walls, and floors of the hospital, either by using image files from the player's computer, or by downloading other players' items. In April 2019, the "Superbug Initiative" update added co-operative community challenges, featuring numerous goals along progression system. The community completing these goals works together towards unique in-game content as a reward for. The update also added the ability to customise the game's soundtrack.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: "Two Point Hospital" is a spiritual sequel to "Theme Hospital", a 1997 simulation game developed by Bullfrog Productions and released by Electronic Arts. The game was developed using the Unity engine. Among those involved in the development of both games were "Theme Hospital"s producer Mark Webley, "Theme Hospital"s lead artist Gary Carr, and "Theme Hospital"s composer Russell Shaw. "Theme Hospital" followed "Theme Park", also developed by Bullfrog, and there had been plans to expand the range of "Theme" simulation games. After "Theme Hospital"s release, Webley left Bullfrog to found Lionhead Studios with Peter Molyneux, Carr left to join Mucky Foot Productions, and the expansion of Bullfrog's "Theme" series never happened.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: After they left Bullfrog, Webley and Carr continued to discuss a follow-up to "Theme Hospital". Their first attempt was "ER Tycoon", which was planned during Carr's time at Mucky Foot Productions but was cancelled because they could not find a publisher for the game. After postponing their ambition of continuing the "Theme" series for 20 years after they left Bullfrog, they founded Two Point Studios in 2016 to follow up on "Theme Hospital". Carr said: "I wanted to work on something like "Theme Hospital" again, appealing to a broader range of people", and Webley stated that they "had been talking about this project for a number of years".


title: Two Point Hospital

text: The timing of a "Theme Hospital"-style game was also apt: art director Mark Smart said making a hospital-simulation game "felt right" and that there was "a lot of love for "Theme Hospital"", while studio co-founder and technical director Ben Hymers said players had been wanting a sequel to "Theme Hospital" for years. According to Webley and Carr, "Two Point Hospital" is a completely new game, rather than a reapplication of new assets to an existing game. The game was developed by envisioning fictional symptoms (often based on wordplay) and the means to cure them. Webley and Carr also wanted to develop a graphics style that would remain "future-proof" relative to changes in graphics rendering technology, and opted to use claymation-like effects, which they found would not become dated and made it easy for players to observe on-screen situations.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: Online features were an early target of the design of "Two Point Hospital"; Webley and Carr recognised that players of management games tend to prefer single-player experiences. They designed the online elements of the game to be opt-in and to feature asynchronous gameplay elements, including multiplayer challenges. Players would be tasked with achieving objectives such as curing patients within a set number of months and their scores would be placed on online leaderboards. Players would be able to view their progress compared to that of friends and other players during the challenge from these leaderboards, an approach Webley and Carr took from ghosts (a recorded version of a racer that replays a time record for a given track) that are used in some racing games. Hymers said "Two Point Hospital" would feature mod support, which will not be available at launch.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: To produce the game, Webley and Carr considered a few approaches before signing with Sega. They originally considered crowdfunding the development through Kickstarter. Shortly afterwards, however, they found video game development via Kickstarter was waning and decided this approach was too risky. They also considered taking an early access approach. Hymers suggested they approach Sega as a publisher, which was fortuitous because Sega wanted to expand their profile with games similar to "Theme Hospital". While they were in negotiations with Sega, they selected a number of Lionhead Studios developers to help with "Two Point Hospital"s development. However, Microsoft closed Lionhead in April 2016 before the Sega deal was complete and they had to quickly choose their staff on limited funds.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: According to Hymers, the developers used their experience in making games including "Theme Hospital", "Populous", and "Black & White" to make "Two Point Hospital". Smart said the team wanted the game to be accessible and that they wanted players to have confidence when examining the sub-menus and realising the level of strategy involved. Smart also said people do not like to visit hospitals and that using humour makes a difference to the atmosphere. According to Smart, the ailments were concocted from "terrible puns", or backwards from what someone wanted.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: Hymers said that patient queues and their movement along corridors were difficult to develop because the game is in 3D, which raised questions about wall thickness and cell width. He believed that this was less of an issue in "Theme Hospital", which is 2D with graphics made from sprites, and that people were drawn in front of the walls. He also stated that making people avoid each other was tricky. A later patch for the game added character customisation and a "copy and paste" rooms feature.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: The sound effects were created by Tom Puttick and Phil French of Cedar Studios (with Shaw being the Audio Director) using an Audient ASP880 pre-amplifier, which facilitated the conversion of the two-channel setup into a 10-channel setup. Two Point Studios gave Cedar Studios a brief for the music that enabled them to create "elevator music with a jukebox feel". Ambient tree sound effects were recorded in Guildford, Surrey, river sounds in Scotland, and waves on a beach in Spain. Other background sounds were recorded in a hospital. They also went to Two Point Studios' offices to record their staff members and emotive sounds for the interactions.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: Their original intention was to create all the sound effects themselves and not use any samples, but they changed their minds when they saw the machines (which diagnose or treat patients) in the game. Many of the sounds they created originally sounded too realistic; for example, Cubism (a disease which causes the patient's body to become a set of cubes) sounded "a bit gory" and was changed to make it more bubbly. For the user interface, Puttick and French originally used real-world sounds. One of the most difficult parts of the sound implementation was making the machines sound the same on all three game speeds.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: According to French, the process of creating the sounds was "weird"; it included watching animations and "looking at everything that could make a sound" in an effort to figure out how to recreate those sounds. For example, an umbrella, some straws, and a yoghurt drink were used by French to create the sounds for Chromotherapy (a disease which causes patients to turn grey and requires them to be re-coloured). French stated that the songwriting process began with a guitar or piano riff together with percussion elements (which included bongos and claves). They recorded many sounds of their own in the studio, for example, French made his own instrument by using PVC bathroom pipes, which was sampled so it could be played on a keyboard.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: The DJ voice-overs were recorded with voice actor Marc Silk at his studio. The voice-overs were then sent to Cedar Studios, and Puttick and French went through them and chose the best ones to put in the game. Due to the presence of a radio DJ, Two Point Studios did not want the songs to have any vocals. For one of the radio advertisements, singer Sophie Worsley was hired to sing the lyrics sung by the game's popstar. The public address voices were recorded at Cedar Studios, and Puttick and French added the public address effect.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: "Two Point Hospital" was announced on 16 January 2018 in a short YouTube video showing the game's visuals and comedic styling, and depicted a patient suffering from Light Headedness. "Edge" compared this disease's role in the game's marketing to that of "Theme Hospital"s Bloaty Head, which was described as its "poster disease".


title: Two Point Hospital

text: The first public viewing of "Two Point Hospital" was held at the "PC Gamer" Weekender event on 17 February 2018. The gameplay demo explored the game's user interface and its turning camera, which was not present in "Theme Hospital". The game's publisher also announced a potential release date in August 2018. The panel discussed some of the new ailments that would be included in the game, confirming one that changes the patient into a mummy. In a "GamesTM" preview, Smart stated that the closest illness in the game to a real one is Hurty Leg, which he described as "almost like somebody in plaster". Developer Two Point Studios announced in a newsletter that subscribers would receive a "golden ticket" that would allow the player to download an in-game "golden toilet".


title: Two Point Hospital

text: In July 2018, Steam began accepting pre-orders for the game, which was released on 30 August 2018, for Microsoft Windows, MacOS, and Linux. On 2 September 2018, "Two Point Hospital" was the second most-downloaded game in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Australia. A Halloween patch was released on 23 October 2018, which introduced a "creepier" soundtrack, new DJ lines, a night-time intervention, and the 'Frightheadedness' disease. A free update in March 2019 added new decorative objects based on other game series on Steam, including "", "Endless Space", "Football Manager", and "Half-Life 2".


title: Two Point Hospital

text: The game's first paid downloadable content, "Bigfoot", was released on 5 December 2018. It adds additional hospital scenarios set in snow-based areas and a number of new illnesses to be cured related to the setting, among other improvements. On 18 March 2019, the "Pebberley Island" add-on was released. It is set on a tropical island and adds 34 diseases. The third expansion, "Close Encounters", released on 29 August 2019 adds science fiction elements such as aliens and the mysterious Chasm 24. The fourth expansion, "Off the Grid", was released on 25 March 2020, and adds new plant-themed ailments and items with a focus on eco-friendliness. "Culture Shock", released in October 2020, introduced hospitals in culture settings like a film studio, which alongside curing patients with new diseases, will need to help with creating a television medical drama. "A Stitch in Time", released in February 2021, added hospital settings in different time eras along with medical conditions specific to those periods.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: Sega announced in July 2019 that the game will be brought to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch consoles, with all post-release updates that have been added to the personal computer version including the "Bigfoot" expansion, sometime later in 2019. The release for consoles was pushed to 25 February 2020, with the developers trying to better implement the game for console systems. A Jumbo edition release for consoles, which includes all prior DLC and the "Off the Grid" and "Close Encounters" packs, released on 5 March 2021. The game was released for Amazon Luna on 19 November 2020.


title: Two Point Hospital

text: "Two Point Hospital" was received positively by critics. Media review aggregation website Metacritic summarised the game as garnering "generally favorable reviews".


title: Two Point Hospital

text: Critics were especially positive about how it holds up in comparison to "Theme Hospital", with many giving praise for its nostalgic value as well as the improvements. Rachel Weber of "GamesRadar+" was positive about the game's use of nostalgia, stating that the game had "taken the funny bones" from the original and transplanted them into "Two Point Hospital". "Game Informer"s Ben Reeves thought that Two Point Studios had done "a remarkable job reviving Theme Hospital". "GamesMaster" described "Two Point Hospital" as "the perfect cure" for the "Bullfrog deficiency" and said it is precisely what "Theme Hospital" fans wanted it to be. Even before release, Dominic Tarason of "Rock, Paper, Shotgun" described "Two Point Hospital" as "Theme Hospital 2 in all but name", a view shared by "Bit-Tech"s Rick Lane and "GamesTM". Similar views were held by "Edge", Johnny Chiodini of "Eurogamer", and Jacob Bukacek of "Hardcore Gamer". Other critics who noted the similarity to "Theme Hospital" include "Jeuxvideo.com" and James Ide of the "Daily Mirror".