title: Negros

text: When it comes to beaches and coastal resorts within the region, the most popular ones are Lakawon Island in Cadiz City, Jomabo Island in Escalante City, Sipaway/Refugio Island in the city of San Carlos, Sipalay City, Hinoba-an and Manjuyod's sand bar. The top attractions in Cauayan are the Punta Bulata White Beach Resort and Danjugan Island, which serves as a major diving spot in Negros Occidental. Also, a marine reserve is established in Sagay City, which protects the marine life and reefs of Carbin and Maca, making it a popular draw for marine life enthusiasts. Dauin is known for its beach resorts and Apo Island, a famous diving spot and marine reserve in Negros Oriental. The city of Dumaguete is popular amongst students, largely because of its presence as a university city in the region. Bais City has since then become a tourist spot for whale and dolphin watching, due to its coastline touching the Tañon Strait. Antulang Beach Resort and Tambobo Bay, as well as the inland Lake Balanan serve as three important attractions in the town of Siaton. Situated within the towns of Sibulan, San Jose and Valencia is the Balinsasayao Twin Lakes Natural Park, which serves as an important draw for tourists going to inland Negros Oriental.


title: Negros

text: Both provinces of Negros are interconnected by major inter-provincial roads. In Bacolod, there are two main roads, namely Lacson Street to the north and Araneta Street to the south. Cities, especially the provincial capitals of Bacolod and Dumaguete, are being served by jeepneys and taxis. Tricycles are mainly used for short-distance travel, and is common in city barangays, smaller cities and towns. Bus stations are present in major cities and towns within the region. Vallacar Transit Corporation, which operates the Ceres buses, serves the whole island of Negros. There are regularly scheduled fast ferry and roll-on/roll-off services for the island region's coastal cities and towns.


title: Negros

text: Currently, there are two airports serving Negros island. The Bacolod-Silay International Airport, located in the city of Silay, serves the general area of Bacolod Metropolitan Area, and is expected to become the primary international gateway to Negros. The Dumaguete-Sibulan Airport, located in the town of Sibulan, serves the general area of Dumaguete and its neighbouring towns. However, a new airport is being planned to be constructed in the town of Bacong, south of Dumaguete, to replace the older airport in Sibulan.


title: Negros

text: The island is known for using geothermal energy to provide electricity for its inhabitants. In San Carlos, Negros Occidental where energy company San Carlos Solar Energy (SaCaSol) is located, solar energy is being used to power the city and surrounding municipalities. Inland towns and cities of Negros uses hydroelectric power acquired from springs, rivers and waterfalls. Due to the island region's sugarcane-based agriculture, Negros may become the nation's major biofuel producer, with sugarcane being used for ethanol production.


title: Negros

text: Negros, like the Central Philippines (Visayas) overall, is generally recognized as a top priority area for wildlife conservation, both in terms of numbers of endemic species and severity of threat. More than half of the critically endangered species listed in the Philippines occur in Negros. It is the most threatened area of the Philippines, since it has the least remaining forest cover with just an estimated 3% remaining. It has the highest numbers of severely threatened endemic species and subspecies. Mt. Silay and Mt. Mandalagan are the two mountain peaks in the Northern Negros Natural Park. These mountains have the last remaining old-growth forests.


title: Negros

text: Negros shares a lot of its fauna with Panay. Due to high amounts of deforestation most of these Western Visayan endemics are threatened. These include the white-winged cuckooshrike, Visayan flowerpecker, flame-templed babbler, writhed-billed hornbill, Visayan tarictic hornbill, Negros bleeding-heart pigeon, Visayan rhabdornis, Negros scops owl, Visayan spotted deer and Visayan warty pig The Negros striped babbler and the possibly extinct Negros fruit dove are only found on the island and nowhere else. Other threatened species include Blue-backed parrot, Pinsker's hawk-eagle, Pink-bellied imperial pigeon, Green-faced parrotfinch and the possibly extinct subspecies of Celestial monarch and Spotted imperial pigeon.


title: Indirect rule

text: Indirect rule was a system of governance used by the British and others to control parts of their colonial empires, particularly in Africa and Asia, which was done through pre-existing indigenous power structures. Indirect rule was used by various colonial rulers: the French in Algeria and Tunisia, the Dutch in the East Indies, the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique and the Belgians in Rwanda and Burundi. These dependencies were often called "protectorates" or "trucial states". By this system, the day-to-day government and administration of areas both small and large were left in the hands of traditional rulers, who gained prestige and the stability and protection afforded by the Pax Britannica (in the case of British territories), at the cost of losing control of their external affairs, and often of taxation, communications, and other matters, usually with a small number of European "advisors" effectively overseeing the government of large numbers of people spread over extensive areas.


title: Indirect rule

text: Some British colonies were ruled directly by the Colonial Office in London, while others were ruled indirectly through local rulers who are supervised behind the scenes by British advisors. In 1890 Zanzibar became a protectorate (not a colony) of Britain. British Prime Minister Salisbury explained his position:


title: Indirect rule

text: The Princely states of India were also ruled indirectly, with the Indian territories ruled indirectly experiencing similar effects to those in Africa that experienced indirect rule. The same went for many of the West African holdings of the British and French empires.


title: Indirect rule

text: The ideological underpinnings, as well as the practical application, of 'indirect rule' in Uganda and Nigeria is usually traced to the work of Frederick Lugard, the High Commissioner of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria from 1899 to 1906.


title: Indirect rule

text: Indirect rule was by no means a new idea at the time since it had been in use in ruling empires throughout history. For instance, in addition to India and Uganda, it had been practiced in the Songhai and Ashanti Empires.


title: Indirect rule

text: In the lands of the Sokoto Caliphate, conquered by the British at the turn of the century, Lugard instituted a system whereby external, military, and tax control was operated by the British, while most every other aspect of life was left to local pre-conquest indigenous aristocracies who may have sided with the British during or after their conquest. The theory behind this solution to a very practical problem (a problem referred to as 'The Native Problem' by Mahmood Mamdani in his work Citizen and Subject) of control by a tiny group of foreigners of huge populations is laid out in Lugard's influential work, "The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa". Lugard copied the numerous empires before his time who had created and developed the indirect rule system.


title: Indirect rule

text: According to Lugard, Indirect Rule was a political doctrine which held that the Europeans and Africans were culturally different to this extent, Africans had to be ruled through the Africans own institution.


title: Indirect rule

text: It has been pointed out that the British were not prepared to pay for colonial administration, though interested in economically benefiting from their new colonies; neither aspect had the British enough resources to finance it. This economic question coupled with the shortage of or lack of European personnel in Africa at the time convinced the British that it would be cheaper to use the traditional institutions to achieve the same objective. The nature and operation of indirect rule in Northern Nigerian, amply confirm these contentions. When Lugard and his men conquered the Sokoto Caliphate of Northern Nigeria, in early twentieth century, his limited resources in terms of men and money, made it impracticable for him to rule the vast territory. Fortunately for him, however, the Sokoto Caliphate already possessed a highly developed and efficient system of administration headed by emirs, with the Sultan of Sokoto as the supreme head. The hierarchical nature of the political structure was ideal for the system of indirect rule because the British could control the emirs and the emirs in turn could control their people.


title: Indirect rule

text: Indirect rule was cheaper and easier for the European powers and, in particular, it required fewer administrators, but had a number of problems. In many cases, European authorities empowered local traditional leaders, as in the case of the monarchy of Uganda, but if no suitable leader could be found (in the traditional Western sense of the term), the Europeans would simply choose local rulers to suit them. This was the case in Kenya and Southern Nigeria, and the new leaders, often called "warrant chiefs", were not always supported by the local population. The European ruling classes also often chose local leaders with similar traits to their own, despite these traits not being suited to native leadership. Many were conservative elders, and thus indirect rule fostered a conservative outlook among the indigenous population and marginalised the young intelligentsia. Written laws, which replaced oral laws, were less flexible to the changing social nature, old customs of retribution and justice were removed or banned, and the removal of more violent punishments in some areas led to an increase in crime. Furthermore, leaders empowered by the governments of European powers were often not familiar with their new tasks, such as recruitment and tax.


title: Indirect rule

text: From the early 20th century, French and British writers helped establish a dichotomy between British indirect rule, exemplified by the Indian princely states and by Lugard's writings on the administration of northern Nigeria, and French colonial direct rule. As with British theorists, French colonial officials like Félix Eboué or Robert Delavignette wrote and argued throughout the first half of the 20th century for a distinct French style of rule that was centralized, uniform, and aimed at assimilating colonial subjects into the French polity. French rule, sometimes labeled "Jacobin", was said in these writings to be based on the twin ideologies of the centralized unitary French government of the Metropole, with the French colonial ideology of Assimilation. Colonial Assimilation argued that French law and citizenship was based on universal values that came from the French Revolution. Mirroring French domestic citizenship law, French colonial law allowed for anyone who could prove themselves culturally French (the "Évolués") to become equal French citizens. In French West Africa, only parts of the Senegalese "Four Communes" ever extended French citizenship outside a few educated African elite.


title: Indirect rule

text: While making more subtle distinctions, this model of direct versus indirect rule was dominant in academia from the 1930s until the 1970s.


title: Indirect rule

text: Academics since the 1970s have problematised the Direct versus Indirect Rule dichotomy, arguing the systems were in practice intermingled in both British and French colonial governance, and that the perception of indirect rule was sometimes promoted to justify quite direct rule structures.


title: Indirect rule

text: Mahmood Mamdani and other academics have discussed extensively how both direct and indirect rule were attempts to implement identical goals of foreign rule, but how the "indirect" strategy helped to create ethnic tensions within ruled societies which persist in hostile communal relations and dysfunctional strategies of government. Mamdani himself famously described indirect rule as "decentralised despotism".


title: Indirect rule

text: Some political scientists have even expanded the debate on how direct versus indirect rule experiences continue to affect contemporary governance into how governments which have never experienced being under colonial rule function.


title: Elis Regina

text: Elis Regina Carvalho Costa (March 17, 1945 – January 19, 1982), known professionally as Elis Regina (), was a Brazilian singer of popular and jazz music. She is also the mother of the singers Maria Rita and Pedro Mariano.


title: Elis Regina

text: She became nationally renowned in 1965 after singing "Arrastão" (composed by Edu Lobo and Vinícius de Moraes) in the first edition of TV Excelsior festival song contest and soon joined "O Fino da Bossa", a television program on TV Record. She was noted for her vocalization as well as for her interpretation and performances in shows. Her recordings include "Como Nossos Pais" (Belchior), "Upa Neguinho" (E. Lobo and Gianfrancesco Guarnieri), "Madalena" (Ivan Lins), "Casa no Campo" (Zé Rodrix and Tavito), "Águas de Março" (Tom Jobim), "Atrás da Porta" (Chico Buarque and Francis Hime), "O Bêbado e a Equilibrista" (Aldir Blanc and João Bosco), "Conversando no Bar" (Milton Nascimento).


title: Elis Regina

text: Elis Regina was born in Porto Alegre, where she began her career as a singer at an early age on the children's radio show "Clube de Guri". In her early teens she signed a record contract and a couple years later traveled to Rio de Janeiro, where she recorded her first album. She won her first festival song contest in 1965 singing "Arrastão" ("Pull the Trawling Net") by Edu Lobo and Vinícius de Moraes, which made her the biggest selling Brazilian recording artist since Carmen Miranda. Her second album, "Dois na Bossa" with Jair Rodrigues, set a national sales record and became the first Brazilian album to sell over one million copies. "Arrastão" increased her popularity because the festival was broadcast via TV and radio. The record represented the beginning of música popular brasileira (Brazilian popular music) and contrasted with bossa nova. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she helped popularize tropicalismo with Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil, and Caetano Veloso.


title: Elis Regina

text: Regina was nicknamed "hurricane" and "little pepper". She moved to Rio around the time Brazil was ruled by a military group. Although her popularity protected her from reprisal when she criticized the regime while on tour in Europe, she was threatened with imprisonment unless she sang the Brazilian national anthem at an event honoring the anniversary of the coup. In the 1970s she recorded the album "Elis and Tom" in Los Angeles with Antonio Carlos Jobim. In 1982 she was starting her third marriage when she died from a combination of alcohol and cocaine at the age of thirty-six.


title: Elis Regina

text: On January 19, 1982, Regina died at the age of 36 from a cardiac arrest after consuming vermouth, cocaine and tranquilizers. More than 15,000 fans attended a musical wake in the Teatro Bandeirantes in São Paulo. She was buried in Cemitério do Morumbi.


title: Sonic Boom (Kiss album)

text: Sonic Boom is the nineteenth studio album, and the first in 11 years, by the rock band Kiss, released on October 6, 2009. The album was recorded at Conway Recording Studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA and produced by Paul Stanley and co-produced by Greg Collins. This was the first studio album to be released with the current line-up, consisting of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer, and Eric Singer. It was also the first to feature lead vocal performances from Thayer and Singer. Stanley stated, "the purpose of this album isn't to let people know that we're still around – it's to let people know we can still knock out anybody who's out there!".


title: Sonic Boom (Kiss album)

text: A fan-routed North American tour promoted the album along with international shows throughout 2010, which included the band headlining the Rock am Ring festival in Germany. The cover artwork was created by artist Michael Doret who had worked with Kiss previously to create the cover of their 1976 album "Rock and Roll Over".


title: Sonic Boom (Kiss album)

text: Wal-Mart is the exclusive distributor of the album in the US and Canada, selling it as a three disc package including the album, "Kiss Klassics" (a completely re-recorded greatest hits album that until now had been exclusively released in Japan as "Jigoku-Retsuden)", and a six-song live DVD recorded April 5, 2009, in Buenos Aires, Argentina as part of the South American leg of the Kiss Alive/35 World Tour.


title: Sonic Boom (Kiss album)

text: The album was sold as a digipak including a 20-page booklet. The album's first single was announced on the band's official website to be "Modern Day Delilah". The album was also released on limited edition 180 gram vinyl and was pressed into five colors (red, green, black, blue and purple) with 1000 copies pressed of each. "Modern Day Delilah" was announced and released as the lead single from "Sonic Boom" on August 19, 2009, to radio. It was Kiss' first single release in 11 years, the last being "You Wanted the Best" released in 1998.


title: Sonic Boom (Kiss album)

text: The music video for "Modern Day Delilah" leaked online on the first days of December and was officially released on December 9, 2009, and premiered on Yahoo!. The video is topped and tailed by footage of giant sized members of Kiss walking through Detroit. The video went on to top UK music video channel Scuzz's "Most Rockin: Viewer Request Show" chart on December 3, 2009. The single was released as downloadable content for Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero on November 19, 2009, along with the singles "I Was Made for Lovin' You" and "Lick It Up". Modern Day Delilah peaked at #50 on the Billboard Rock songs chart. The song was used for their opening song for the Sonic Boom Over Europe Tour and The Hottest Show on Earth Tour.


title: Sonic Boom (Kiss album)

text: "Say Yeah" was added to the shows on the Sonic Boom Tour/Alive 35 North American Tour 2009. Later on, it was mentioned during Kiss' Facebook concert broadcast that "Say Yeah" was going to be the next single off "Sonic Boom". On December 5, it was announced that the single would be released to radios on December 8. The single was released on the second week of January 2010 in Argentina. "Say Yeah" also hit #1 on February 5, 2010, on a Russian Radio Chart after debuting at #11. "Never Enough" was released as the next radio single from "Sonic Boom" in early June 2010 and was mentioned on KISSonline.com. The song was not incorporated into the band's setlist on its 2010 Summer Tour of the US and Canada.


title: Sonic Boom (Kiss album)

text: The song "Modern Day Delilah" was also used in 2015 for the movie "" along with the second disc's rerecorded versions of "Rock and Roll All Nite", "Shout It Out Loud", and "Detroit Rock City".


title: Sonic Boom (Kiss album)

text: The album received generally positive reviews from critics. "Sonic Boom" debuted at #2 on the "Billboard" 200, selling 108,000 copies in its first week of release. The #2 position was the highest mark ever reached by the group, beating the #3 debut of "Psycho Circus" in 1998. The album finished 2009 with 238,000 units sold and finished 2010 as one of Billboard's Top 50 Rock Albums. Metal Hammer listed the album in 13th place on the list "Metal Hammer Albums of 2009" list. Since its release, Sonic Boom has received Gold certification in Norway.


title: Devon Terrell

text: Devon Terrell is an American-Australian actor best known for playing a young Barack Obama in the 2016 biographical film "Barry" and Arthur in the Netflix original series "Cursed."


title: Devon Terrell

text: Terrell was born in Long Beach, California to an African-American father and English Anglo-Indian mother. At age 5, he moved to Perth, Western Australia, growing up in the Forest Lakes estate in Thornlie. After finishing his secondary education at Lynwood Senior High School, he attended Edith Cowan University, specializing in drama education. He graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 2013.


title: Devon Terrell

text: Terrell's first role was in Steve McQueen's HBO miniseries "Codes of Conduct", which was canceled after the pilot was filmed. He then auditioned for "Barry", a biopic about Barack Obama's college years. Terrell said that he felt an affinity for Obama and that the president had been his dream role since the age of 19.


title: Devon Terrell

text: To prepare for the role, Terrell worked with a dialect coach and watched Obama's speeches to master his accent and manner of speaking. He was offered the part after one audition. He also trained himself to portray the left-handed Obama, including learning how to write and play basketball with his left hand. He read Obama's book "Dreams from My Father" three times to get into his mindset, and he received praise for his portrayal when the film was released.


title: Devon Terrell

text: Later, he portrayed Arthur in the Netflix original series "Cursed". The first season was released on July 17, 2020.


title: Devon Terrell

text: Terrell currently plays the role of Cliff in Issa Rae's "Rap Sh!t", which premiered July 21, 2022 on HBO Max.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Clarence Edward Smith (February 22, 1928 – June 13, 1969), better known as Clarence 13X and Allah, was an American religious leader and the founder of the Five-Percent Nation. He was born in Virginia and moved to New York City as a young man, before serving in the United States Army during the Korean War. After returning to New York, he learned that his wife had joined the Nation of Islam (NOI) and followed her, taking the name Clarence 13X. He served in the group as a security officer, martial arts instructor, and student minister before leaving for an unclear reason in 1963. He enjoyed gambling, which was condemned by the NOI, and disagreed with the NOI's teachings that Wallace Fard Muhammad was a divine messenger.


title: Clarence 13X

text: After leaving the NOI, Clarence 13X formed a new group with other former members. He concluded that all black men were divine and took the name Allah to symbolize this status. He rejected the belief in an invisible God, teaching that God could be found within each black man. In his view, women were "earths" that complemented and nurtured men; he believed that they should be submissive to men. He and a few assistants retained some NOI teachings and pioneered novel interpretations of them. They devised teachings about the meaning of letters and numerals: understanding the meaning of each letter and number was said to provide deep truths about God and the universe. Clarence 13X referred to his new movement as the "Five Percenters", referencing a NOI teaching that only five percent of the population knew and promoted the truth about God. One way that he distinguished his group from his previous faith was by rejecting dress codes or strict behavioral guidelines—he allowed the consumption of alcohol, and at times, the use of illegal drugs.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Clarence 13X was shot by an unknown assailant in 1964 but survived the attack. After an incident several months later in which he and several of his followers vandalized stores and fought with police, he was arrested and placed in psychiatric care. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He referred to himself as "Allah", which had become his preferred name. He was released from custody after a 1966 ruling by the Supreme Court placed limits on confinement without trial. Although he initially taught his followers to hate white people, he eventually began to cooperate with white city leaders. They gave him funding for a night school, and in return, he tried to prevent violence in Harlem. Clarence 13X was fatally shot in June 1969; the identity of his killer is unknown. The mayor of New York City and several other prominent leaders expressed condolences to his followers. Although the Five Percenters faltered in the immediate aftermath of his death, the movement rebounded after new leadership emerged. The group took a non-hierarchical approach to leadership, and no single leader replaced Clarence 13X. He has been held in high regard by Five Percenters, who celebrate his birthday as a holiday.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Clarence Edward Smith was born on February 22, 1928, and raised in Danville, Virginia, with his five brothers and one sister. During his childhood, Virginia was racially segregated, and he witnessed incidents of racism, including a fight between his father and a white man that was sparked by racial tensions. In 1946, he moved with his mother to New York City, where they settled in Harlem. He attended only two years of high school.


title: Clarence 13X

text: In 1949, Smith fathered a child, Clarence Jowers, with Willieen Jowers. Although he married a woman named Dora Smith in 1950, he fathered another child, Otis Jowers, with Willieen in 1951; he also had several sons and daughters with Dora. Smith joined the U.S. Army in the early 1950s and was stationed in Korea from 1952 to 1954, where he served as an infantryman in the Korean War. After returning to the U.S., he lived in Harlem and served in the United States Army Reserve until 1960. During his military service, he became skilled in karate.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Dora Smith embraced the Nation of Islam (NOI) while her husband was away and he converted after returning to New York. By 1961, he had registered at Mosque No. 7 and changed his name to Clarence 13X in accordance with NOI practice. Before his conversion, he often smoked marijuana and gambled, activities forbidden by the NOI. After joining the group, he studied the NOI's doctrines and quickly progressed within their organizational structure, possibly thanks to skills learned in the military. His responsibilities included teaching martial arts and serving on the Fruit of Islam security team. He was also recognized as a skilled speaker and reached the rank of "student minister" at Mosque No. 7. By 1963, he had come to the attention of the FBI—informants recorded his presence at rallies led by Malcolm X.


title: Clarence 13X

text: The early 1960s were a turbulent period for the NOI; unrest was caused by conflicts between leaders Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. Around that time, Clarence 13X became disenchanted with the organization, although the root of his qualms is not known. NOI members have offered contradictory accounts of the events that caused his exit and whether he left voluntarily. His departure has been variously attributed to doubts about the NOI's theology, violations of their moral code, objections to the luxurious lifestyles of their senior leadership, or Malcolm X's distrust of him. Dora Smith elected to stay with the group, prompting the couple's separation. Before leaving the NOI, Clarence 13X had begun to doubt their teaching that Wallace Fard Muhammad was a divine messenger. He believed that the NOI's teachings were contradictory because they taught that God is black but encouraged reverence of Fard Muhammad, who was not of exclusively African descent. Clarence 13X concluded that divinity was found in all black men, rather than in a single person. Several times before he left the NOI, he was censured by leadership for these assertions. His friend John 37X elected to leave with him. Malcolm X also left the NOI in 1963 and remained on good terms with Clarence 13X. Clarence 13X did not join Malcolm X's newly created group, Muslim Mosque, Inc.


title: Clarence 13X

text: After leaving the NOI, Clarence 13X and John 37X continued to study the group's teachings, sometimes while smoking marijuana. They assumed new names: Clarence 13X took Allah, and John 37X, Abu Shahid. After reading an NOI book with 34 riddles, known as the "Lost-Found Lessons", John 37X concluded that numbers represented specific concepts, such as knowledge or wisdom. He referred to this system as "living mathematics". During its development, he was imprisoned on firearms charges. While John 37X was in prison, Clarence 13X taught a system of beliefs he referred to as "supreme wisdom", which he saw as the core of Islam, to groups of young men. He was assisted by his friend James Howard, with whom he developed a modified version of living mathematics, "supreme mathematics", and an accompanying doctrine about letters, the "supreme alphabet". The development of these systems, considered a "divine science" by adherents, may have been influenced by the teachings of Sufism; like some schools of Sufism, they found esoteric meanings in the alphabet. David Smydra of "The Boston Globe" compares these teachings to Kabbalah; Felicia Miyakawa of Middle Tennessee State University sees similarities to Gnosticism and Kemetism.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Clarence 13X developed novel teachings, assigning backronyms to familiar words. He stated that the letters of the word "Allah" stood for "arm, leg, leg, arm, head", signifying the human body. This was said to prove that humanity held a divine nature. He named parts of the New York area after locations in the Middle East that are significant to Islam: Harlem was referred to as Mecca, and Brooklyn, Medina. Other disaffected NOI members, including some who served the Fruit of Islam, were soon drawn to his burgeoning group. Several people from the NOI who were unwilling to choose between loyalty to Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X also joined; Clarence 13X incorporated aspects of the theology taught by the feuding leaders. In the group's early years, some Five Percenters attended NOI events, and Clarence 13X's theology had much in common with the teachings of the NOI, although there were notable differences. He taught his followers that he was an incarnation of God, and they each were gods. His followers were thus encouraged to look within themselves in their search for God. Clarence 13X taught that there was an inherent greatness in those of African descent not found in Europeans and their descendants, echoing statements made by Elijah Muhammad. He did not enforce the NOI's strict moral rules: one way that the group appealed to potential converts was by allowing many practices condemned by the NOI, including gambling, alcohol consumption, and drug use. Clarence 13X told his followers to avoid developing addictions but that drug use was not inherently wrong. He strictly forbade the consumption of pork, arguing that pigs were similar to animals that are not eaten in the United States, such as rats and dogs, and hence should not be consumed. Owing to their belief that black men are gods, the group allowed its members to make choices about clothing and most aspects of diet.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Early members of the group often proselytized on street corners for hours, and Clarence 13X's assistants led classes about the group's teachings, strictly enforcing study habits. He instructed his followers to memorize his teachings on the significance of numbers and letters. Once they did so, they were said to gain an understanding of profound truths. These lessons were taught in a form that resembled catechisms. Rather than hold services in mosques, they gathered for monthly meetings known as parliaments, which were often held outdoors. Attendees were given wide freedom to speak in a system that Ted Swedenburg of the University of Arkansas has compared to Quaker meetings.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Clarence 13X's group was initially known as the "Suns of Almighty God Allah" or the "Blood Brothers". After Malcolm X's death, the group became known as the "Five Percenters" or the "Five Percent Nation". The name was drawn from the NOI's claim to be the five percent of the black community who knew and promoted the truth about God; Clarence 13X considered his movement to be the five percent of the NOI that still held to truth and integrity. The other 95 percent were said to be unaware of the truth or corrupt. Clarence 13X assembled an inner circle of assistants, nine of whom are referred to by Five Percenters as the "First Born": they are said to embody his attributes. The assistants were assigned to spread the group's teachings to younger people, many of whom took African names, including some from non-Islamic societies. Clarence 13X taught Afrocentrism to his disciples and often wore a dashiki; male Five Percenters members frequently wore tasseled kufis, and female members wore colorful African head wraps. Some Five Percenters supported themselves via drug dealing and petty theft; others intentionally committed minor legal infractions, hoping to proselytize to others who had been arrested.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Clarence 13X's followers saw him as a divine messenger and referred to him as "Father Allah". This elevated him to a higher position than Elijah Muhammad, who had deemed himself the "Messenger of Allah". Eventually, Clarence 13X stopped identifying himself as a Muslim and spoke out against the reverence of Fard Muhammad, casting him as a "mystery God". He rejected the idea that God is invisible, which he felt weakened people. He encouraged his followers to learn about and respect other spiritual traditions.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Although female converts were initially referred to as "nurses", Clarence 13X renamed them "earths" in 1967. He taught that women were not gods, as he believed that they were created by man and did not possess creative power. In his view, women could nurture, but only men could make children. Women were said to resemble the Earth in their ability to sustain life. Clarence 13X had a patriarchal philosophy, and the Five Percenters were initially overwhelmingly male. He spoke in favor of fathers' arranging their daughters' marriages and told women to embody submission by serving their husbands as God. Polygamy or serial monogamy were allowed, and legal marriage was discouraged. Clarence 13X encouraged his followers to have many children and discouraged the use of birth control.


title: Clarence 13X

text: NOI leaders were angry that Clarence 13X freely taught portions of their doctrine that they only revealed to committed members; although one of their captains repeatedly asked him to stop, he refused. Clarence 13X also experienced conflict within his family: his children did not revere him, and hostility quickly developed between core Five Percenters and some of his sons when Willeen Jowers brought them to visit him.


title: Clarence 13X

text: On December 9, 1964, Clarence 13X was shot twice in the torso while at a popular gathering place in the basement of a Harlem tenement. He was brought to Harlem Hospital, where he was treated and released. He later claimed that he died and returned to his body a short time later. In a 2007 study of the Five Percent movement, American journalist Michael Muhammad Knight speculates that this caused his followers to see him as a Christ figure. The identity and motivation of the shooter are unknown; Knight notes that law enforcement and rival Muslim groups both had a motive to attack Clarence 13X. Some Five Percenters have speculated that the attack was part of a robbery attempt or retaliation for unpaid gambling debts. Clarence 13X's companions reported that he instructed them not to seek revenge on the shooter and to forswear violence. While recuperating from his wounds, Clarence 13X sought to distinguish his movement from other Islamic movements, abandoning Arabic greetings for English expressions.


title: Clarence 13X

text: The Five Percenters soon attracted attention from media and law enforcement. Local papers published negative coverage of the group, describing them as a violent hate group or a street gang. The "New York Amsterdam News" reported that Clarence 13X had threatened to kill white children if his group did not receive a government subsidy. In 1965, the FBI initiated an investigation of his group and may have provided sensationalized rumors to the press. That year, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover deemed Clarence 13X as a "Harlem rowdy", and feared that he would form ties with more dangerous groups. The FBI developed a detailed file on Clarence 13X; in 1967, Hoover described him as a potential threat to President Lyndon B. Johnson, and sent a detailed folder about him to the United States Secret Service.


title: Clarence 13X

text: After Malcolm X's death in 1965, Clarence 13X mourned his loss but did not attend his funeral. In May 1965, while visiting the site of Mosque No. 7, then closed, Clarence 13X and several of his companions were told to leave by a police officer. They left, began to vandalize nearby buildings, and blocked the street near the former headquarters of Muslim Mosque, Inc. More police arrived and subdued Clarence 13X after an altercation, bringing him into custody with several of his followers. After being arrested, he refused to identify himself and was charged with assault and drug possession. About 60 of his followers attended his arraignment, but were removed from the court after shouting "Peace". Clarence 13X proclaimed his innocence and announced his intent to defend himself in court. He told the judge that he was Allah, and that the city would face grave judgment if he were not released. The judge disregarded his prognostication and set his bail at $9,500. At a court date in June, about 50 Five Percenters protested outside the court; afterwards, several were arrested on charges of making Molotov cocktails. In July, the court sent Clarence 13X to Bellevue Hospital Center for a psychiatric examination. While in the hospital, he made a few disciples and communicated with some followers through a hospital window. Under his instructions, Five Percenters resisted future NOI leader Louis Farrakhan's attempts to convert them.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Knight states that Clarence 13X's psychiatric results were not processed for an unusually long time; he posits that the delay was due to FBI involvement and argues that Clarence 13X was a political prisoner. In November 1965, Clarence 13X was ruled incompetent to stand trial and committed to the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, which placed him at the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. After he declared himself Allah and a "Master Gambler", the doctors concluded that he had schizophrenic reaction, paranoid type with delusions of grandeur; he faced indefinite commitment. Many Five Percenters and their converts traveled to the hospital to meet with him and receive instruction. He also proselytized to fellow inmates, converting one young white man, who later became a committed follower.


title: Clarence 13X

text: While Clarence 13X was in prison, the Five Percenters continued to proselytize and teach their doctrines. He instructed his followers to adopt names different from those used in the NOI to differentiate their group. After attaining a certain degree of knowledge of the group's doctrines, members were allowed to adopt the surname "Allah" and sometimes "God" as a first name. This was in recognition of Clarence 13X's teachings that black men were gods, and that each member should worship himself. His followers often took the name Allah, but would refrain from referring to themselves as such in his presence, in deference to his authority. After a decision ("Pate v. Robinson") by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1966, limits were placed on the confinement of mentally ill criminals, causing many to be released. Clarence 13X was consequently released in March 1967.


title: Clarence 13X

text: In mid-1967, New York City mayor John Lindsay sought to develop closer ties with leaders of impoverished neighborhoods. Prompted in part by concerns voiced by the New York Police Department (NYPD), the mayor dispatched one of his aides, Barry Gottehrer, to meet with Clarence 13X. Belying his fearsome reputation, Clarence 13X had a congenial meeting with Gottehrer, during which he requested more bus routes and school funding. Clarence 13X subsequently attended a meeting of black leaders at Gracie Mansion, the mayor's official residence. The city provided buses for Five Percenters to travel to a Long Island park, and with help from the National Urban League, obtained an abandoned storefront for use as a school. It became known as the Allah School in Mecca and aimed to prepare young people for college preparatory schools. Tensions soon formed between the Five Percenters and the school's overseers; Clarence 13X desired more control over the curriculum and had difficulty finding qualified teachers. Police regularly visited the school to ensure that the students were not being radicalized. In 1975, Gottehrer chronicled his friendship with Clarence 13X in "The Mayor's Man". The book was well received by some Five Percenters, who republished portions of it after it went out of print. They have not reprinted the entire book, owing to a passage in which Gottehrer relates that Clarence 13X offered to allow him to sleep with his teenage daughter.


title: Clarence 13X

text: In February 1968, Lindsay estimated that there were about 500 to 700 Five Percenters. Some of Clarence 13X's followers attempted to create break-away groups, proclaiming themselves prophets and starting their own movements. They generally retained aspects of Five Percenter doctrine with different emphases.


title: Clarence 13X

text: After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, Lindsay feared that rioting would occur in Harlem. He traveled to the neighborhood to express condolences; Clarence 13X and his followers were among those who accompanied him as he walked the streets. Clarence 13X also instructed his followers to try to prevent violence and looting. He was commended by the city's leadership for his efforts, and they subsequently agreed to help him publish a book of Five Percenter teachings and portions of the Quran. Willieen Jowers recalled that Clarence 13X admitted that his previous teachings about racial hatred were wrong around this time. He later described himself as "neither anti-white nor pro-black" and saw some of his white contacts with the city as allies in the advancement of his teachings. His white convert was released from state custody and joined his teacher in Harlem during the February 1969 nor'easter. He was accepted as a Five Percenter, as Clarence 13X maintained that "civilization"—rather than race—was valued by the group. Clarence 13X made possibly contradictory statements about whether white individuals could be reformed. Contrary to his radical reputation, he endorsed some conservative positions in the late 1960s, including capital punishment, respect for the U.S. flag, and American involvement in Vietnam. He also allowed his supporters to attend Christmas celebrations. Knight notes that these shifts may have been intended to decrease suspicions of law enforcement. Clarence 13X was then allowed to visit a juvenile detention center to speak to young Five Percenters and won some concessions from the institution's leadership. Some secular black leaders disliked him, owing to his supportive comments about the mayor and neglect of revolutionary rhetoric. On one occasion, he was invited to address an audience of black Marxists, then spoke to them about numerology.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Around 1968, Clarence 13X fathered a son with a young convert named Gusavia. That year, Gloria Steinem published an article about Clarence 13X in "New York" magazine. She blamed the NOI for the previous attempt to kill him, arguing that they were angered by his claim to be Allah and thus above Elijah Muhammad. Clarence 13X also received coverage from international media, including a Canadian television program.


title: Clarence 13X

text: By 1969, Clarence 13X was sleeping little. He feared that he would be killed and instructed his followers to remain strong if he died. On June 12, he spent time with several of his disciples at their school. He left the school between 2:00 and 3:00 am on June 13 and then gambled for an hour or two. As was his occasional practice, he traveled to Dora Smith's house to rest. He was ambushed by three assailants who fatally shot him while he was in the lobby of her apartment building. That morning, several people from the mayor's office met with his family, and the mayor later visited the Five Percenters' school to express condolences.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Clarence 13X's funeral was held four days after his death. It was attended by about 400 people and was followed by a procession through Harlem. His death put the leadership of his movement in question—there was no clear successor. At that time, his followers were primarily teenagers, and several of his top leaders subsequently struggled with drug addiction.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Most local media sources gave Clarence 13X positive coverage in the wake of his death. The "Daily News" connected his murder with the recent death of NOI activist Charles Kenyatta, casting them as part of a "Muslim War". The mayor believed that the NYPD told them this and was angered by their claim. Louis Farrakhan denied culpability, maintaining that he had good relations with Clarence 13X. NYPD investigators suspected that he was killed by members of an extortion ring, possibly connected to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. In August 1969, an arrest was made in connection with his murder. The suspect denied involvement, and charges were soon dropped. Five Percenters have posited different culprits, including the CIA, the NOI, or a disgruntled follower.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Five Percenter membership plunged after Clarence 13X's death, but rebounded in 1970 after new leadership emerged and revitalized the group. After his death, the group was not dominated by a single leader. This may have been a result of their teaching that all black men are gods, which rendered authoritarian leadership untenable.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Knight doubts that Clarence 13X set out to build a movement or a culture, but after his death, the movement expanded and gained converts across the United States. Five Percenters have celebrated Clarence 13X's birthday as a holiday, and minimized the descriptions of his flaws in their accounts of his life. Numerous apocryphal stories from his life have circulated among the group; some accounts have claimed that he gambled only as a means to reach others with his teachings. He did not leave behind a record of his teachings, and the group had few formalized tenets at the time of his death. In the following decades, the group's doctrine became more complicated.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Akbar Muhammad of the NOI described Clarence 13X as "confused", although relations between the Five Percenters and NOI leaders have improved over time. Clarence 13X's teachings may have influenced the doctrines of Dwight York, founder of the Nuwaubian Nation. York saw Clarence 13X's teachings as an insufficient, incomplete path.


title: Clarence 13X

text: Lawyer Sidney Davidoff, one of Lindsay's assistants, deemed Clarence 13X "a little bit snake-oil salesman and a little bit crazy, but no more unstable than anyone else preaching a gospel on the street corner." Davidoff saw Clarence 13X's black supremacist teachings as a way to instill confidence in young people. Knight states that Clarence 13X went from a "'Harlem rowdy' to [a] legitimate community leader", and Lindsay later cast Clarence 13X's role in the city as similar to that of Al Sharpton. Mattias Gardell of Uppsala University views Clarence 13X as a "gifted philosopher".


title: Illuminati (game)

text: Illuminati is a card game made by Steve Jackson Games (SJG), inspired by the 1975 book, "The Illuminatus! Trilogy", by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. The game has ominous secret societies competing with each other to control the world through various means, including legal, illegal, and even mystical. It was designed as a "tongue-in-cheek rather than serious" take on conspiracy theories. It contains groups named similarly to real world organizations, such as the Society for Creative Anachronism and the Symbionese Liberation Army. It can be played by two to eight players. Depending on the number of players, a game can take between one and six hours.


title: Illuminati (game)

text: In September 1981, Steve Jackson and his regular freelance cover artist Dave Martin discussed their shared admiration of the "Illuminatus! Trilogy", and the latter suggested a game. Steve Jackson decided against adapting the novel because of the expense of game rights, and the difficulty of adapting a novel with such convoluted plots. He decided "a game about the "secret-conspiracy idea" behind "Illuminatus!"" was viable. After researching the Illuminati and conspiracy theories, and "extensive and enthusiastic playtesting" it went on the market in July 1982 in the (at the time) usual SJG Pocket Box format. Over the next few years, three expansions for the Pocket Box Illuminati game were published. The first two were substantially incorporated into the deluxe edition, while the third was a version of what would become "Illuminati: Brainwash".


title: Illuminati (game)

text: Robert Shea provided a four-paragraph introduction to the rulebook for the "Illuminati Expansion Set 1" (1983), in which he wrote, "Maybe the Illuminati are behind "this game." They must be—they are, by definition, behind "everything.""


title: Illuminati (game)

text: In 2001, although "Illuminatus! Trilogy" co-author Robert Anton Wilson did not specifically name "Illuminati", he criticized some products for exploiting the "Illuminatus!" name without paying royalties by taking advantage of legal loopholes. Later commentators have attributed both the game and the "Illuminatus! Trilogy" as using real conspiracies as "targets of ridicule."


title: Illuminati (game)

text: The game is played with a deck of special cards, money chips (representing "millions of dollars in low-denomination unmarked banknotes") and two six-sided dice. There are three types of cards:


title: Illuminati (game)

text: The players take role of Illuminati societies that struggle to take over the world. The Pocket Box edition depicted six Illuminati groups: The Bavarian Illuminati, The Discordian Society, The UFOs, The Servants of Cthulhu, The Bermuda Triangle, and The Gnomes of Zürich. The deluxe edition added the Society of Assassins and The Network, and the Illuminati Y2K expansion added the Church of The SubGenius and Shangri-La. The aim of the game is fulfilled when Illuminati build a power structure consisting of given number of cards (dependent on number of players), or when Illuminati fulfill its "special goal", (such as controlling at least one card of each alignment for the Bermuda Triangle).


title: Illuminati (game)

text: The world is represented by group cards such as Secret Masters of Fandom, the CIA, The International Communist Conspiracy, Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow, California, and many more – there are over 300 official cards available. Every group and Illuminati has some Power, Resistance and Income values; most of the world groups have an Alignment. The game is written with the usual SJG humor. The game uses a multitude of conspiracy theory in-jokes, with cards such as the Boy Sprouts (where sinister youth leaders influence the world leaders of tomorrow), the Orbital Mind Control Lasers, the Mafia, two headed Anti-Nuclear Activists, or Trekkies. Special cards represent unexpected phenomena and features, for example increasing Income or Resistance of a group.


title: Illuminati (game)

text: The game is played in turns. The primary Illuminati (player) activity is taking control of groups. Other types of attacks are attacks to neutralize (removing from Illuminati power structure and returning to the table - to the world) and attack to destroy (removing from the game). Besides attacking groups the players can trade, form alliances, and many other activities. Tactics such as playing opponents off each other, backstabbing and concealing your true motives are encouraged in this game. In one variant of the game, players are allowed to cheat, steal money from the table and do anything it takes to win.


title: Illuminati (game)

text: During an attack to take control, the attacker must overcome the Resistance of attacked groups with combined Power of his groups (affected by Alignment of attacker and attacked), money spent, and influence of special cards. The attacked group can be defended by spending money and special cards by other players (especially by a controlling Illuminati). After a successful attack to take control, the card is placed (along the special markers) next to Illuminati, or another already controlled group forming a "power structure".


title: Illuminati (game)

text: Each group has its own money, marked by money counters on that group. Most groups have an income collected at the beginning of each turn; money can also be moved one step at a time between groups once per turn. Money in the Illuminated group is accessible for defense of or attacks on all groups in the entire world. Money in the groups can only be used by that group, but gives double defense bonus when spent in defense.


title: Illuminati (game)

text: Although the game can support two to ten players, a group of four or five is considered ideal. Some Illuminati might seem unbalanced, such as the high-income Gnomes and the low-level Discordians, but sometimes their true value is not visible at first or valuable only in certain circumstances. Planning the power structure is important, since groups close to the Illuminated core have a defense bonus. Also, groups can "block" each other's control arrows, through which groups control other groups. The flow of money is important, as a large lump of it will boost the offense / defense of the owning group.


title: Illuminati (game)

text: The game has attained cult status in some circles, been referenced in some geek media (like "User Friendly" comic strip). It is also mentioned in Dan Brown's novel Angels & Demons, which concerns an apparent attack by the revived Illuminati; the game is referred to as an online computer game, but references to Steve Jackson make clear that the reference is to this game.


title: Illuminati (game)

text: Steve Jackson Games also released a collectible card game version called "" and a stand-alone version called Illuminati: Crime Lords. SJG also developed some Illuminated role-playing game modules for its GURPS system, including GURPS Illuminati, GURPS Illuminati University and GURPS Warehouse 23.


title: Illuminati (game)

text: SJG also released two related games. One is the recent "Illuminati: Crime Lords" where the players control mobs in attempt to take over a city. This is a separate game based on a similar rules set. The other one is "Hacker" which is also similar to the original "Illuminati" (modulo terminology), but the players fight for the control of computer networks. It is more loose, and based primarily on interlocking access to different computer systems in the web. Players are not set directly towards each other, and several players can share access to a system.


title: Illuminati (game)

text: Adventure Systems created a Play-by-mail game (PBM) "Illuminati" game, based on and licensed from the Steve Jackson game, with many modifications. The game was eventually purchased, and is now run, by Flying Buffalo. The designer, Draper Kauffman, had been trying to develop a "global strategy game" for many years when he received a copy of Illuminati. Recalling the creation of the PBM version, Kauffman wrote, "It wasn't long before I found that every problem in my own game design had a suspiciously similar solution: 'Hey, how about if we just handle that like they did in "Illuminati?""


title: Illuminati (game)

text: Phil Masters reviewed "Illuminati" for "White Dwarf" #40, giving it an overall rating of 7 out of 10, and stated that "Overall, this is a playable game with a good element of skill; it creates an appropriate atmosphere of conspiracy and cynicism, although the open hands system rather removes the element of paranoid secrecy inherent in conspiracy theories. "Illuminati" will earn its devotees, especially in America, although it lacks the elegance of the best cult games."


title: Illuminati (game)

text: Phil Masters reviewed "Illuminati" Expansion Sets 1 & 2 for "White Dwarf" #44, giving it an overall rating of 6 out of 10, and stated that "the concept is certain to appeal to anyone with a pet dislike or a shred of cheap cynicism."


title: Illuminati (game)

text: In the December 1983 edition of "Dragon", Michael Lowrey believed that Steve Jackson Games had "a definite potential classic here, and one which, properly marketed, could appeal to folks who will never play a wargame in their lives". However Lowrey thought the two expansion sets were overly expensive, and advised consumers to see how they liked the basic game before buying the expansion sets.


title: Illuminati (game)

text: In "Space Gamer" No. 68, Dave Nalle concurred about the first two expansion sets: "These are excellent but high-priced expansions to a good and popular game. Before buying them and shelling out [the cash], you will probably want to pause to consider how much you will be using them, and as long as you play fairly frequently, the price may be worth the use you'll get."


title: Illuminati (game)

text: Several issues later, in "The Space Gamer" No. 76, Kevin Ross gave the "Illuminati Expansion Set 3" a positive review, saying, "If you want some great new wrinkles for your "Illuminati" game, you definitely need this supplement. The rules make for a longer but much more enjoyable game. And don't let the lack of a Pocket Box or the thinness of the package fool you. There's a lot here for [the price]."


title: Illuminati (game)

text: In the December 1993 edition of "Dragon" (Issue 200), Allen Varney called it "a brilliant card-and-token game." He concluded, "Ingenious and satirical,


title: Illuminati (game)

text: In 2007, almost 25 years after its original publication, "Iluminati" was chosen for the book "Hobby Games: The 100 Best". Scott Haring wrote that "Illuminati" is "too much fun and has too much replay value to fade away on its own. Indeed, 25 years after its initial release, "Illuminati" is still immensely popular, having spawned multiple editions, three expansion sets, Steve Jackson Games' corporate logo, a spinoff collectible card game that is still the single biggest-selling product line in SJ Games history, and — my favorite — a complete set of color-coded pins that identified Illuminati members and their specialty."


title: Fard

text: "Fard" or its synonym "wājib" () is one of the five types of ahkam () into which fiqh categorizes acts of every Muslim. The Hanafi fiqh, however, does not consider both terms to be synonymous, and makes a distinction between "wajib" and "fard", the latter being obligatory and the former slightly lesser degree than being obligatory.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Samuel Michael Vokes (born 21 October 1989) is a professional footballer who plays as a striker for EFL League One club Wycombe Wanderers and the Wales national team.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Vokes began his professional career at AFC Bournemouth in League One, making his debut in 2006. His form there earned a move to Championship side Wolverhampton Wanderers, where he helped them win promotion to the Premier League in his first season. In four seasons at Wolves, he played only 59 games, spending time on loan at six other clubs. In 2012, he transferred to Burnley, where he made 258 appearances and scored 62 goals, twice earning promotion to the Premier League. He signed for Stoke City in January 2019.


title: Sam Vokes

text: He has become an established member of the Wales national team, who he has also represented at under-21 level. Born and raised in England, Vokes is eligible to represent Wales through a grandfather born there. He has earned over 60 caps since his debut in 2008, and was part of their team that reached the semi-finals of UEFA Euro 2016.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Vokes was born in Southampton and raised in Lymington, and attended Priestlands School in Pennington. Vokes began playing in the Southampton Academy but was released when he was ten-years-old. Vokes took a BTEC at Brockenhurst College and was taken on by Bournemouth's Academy.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Vokes stepped up into AFC Bournemouth's first team on 5 December 2006 in a 2–0 victory over Nottingham Forest. His first senior goal came in a 1–1 draw at Gillingham on 16 December. The club gave him a three-and-a-half-year professional contract during the following month. He made 14 appearances and scored four goals in his debut season as the Cherries finished in 18th spot.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Vokes remained at Bournemouth during the 2007–08 season, despite being linked to several other clubs, including Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Everton and Celtic. He also turned down Crewe Alexandra in January 2008 who had made a £200,000 bid. Vokes was a bright spark in an otherwise tumultuous season for the Cherries as they were embroiled in a club ownership saga. His 12-goal tally could not prevent Bournemouth from being relegated to League Two.


title: Sam Vokes

text: He eventually signed a four-year contract with Championship side Wolverhampton Wanderers on 23 May 2008. Vokes marked his debut for the club by coming off the bench to equalise in a 2–2 draw away to Plymouth Argyle on the opening day of the 2008–09 season. With the goal-scoring form of Chris Iwelumo and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake firing the club to the top of the table – that they led for almost the entire season – Vokes was mostly only employed as a substitute. Nonetheless he contributed to eight goals to help the team win promotion to the Premier League as champions.


title: Sam Vokes

text: To gain playing time, Vokes moved to League One side Leeds United in October 2009 on loan until the New Year, making his Leeds debut in a 2–1 victory over Norwich City on 19 October. He scored once for the club against Bristol Rovers but competition between Leeds strikers meant Vokes returned to Wolves when the deal ended.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Vokes went out on loan once more in August 2010 when he moved to Championship side Bristol City. He endured a miserable stay, tearing his hamstring within minutes of making his debut in a match against Millwall and re-aggravating the injury in a reserve match in December. He returned to Wolves when his loan expired in January having played just 13 minutes of first team football.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Once again fit, he moved on a month-long loan to another Championship side, Sheffield United, in February 2011 and made his début the same evening in a 1–1 draw with Reading. With their other attacking options regaining fitness, the "Blades" elected not to extend Vokes' loan period, meaning he was instead signed up by promotion-chasing Norwich City on 23 March on an emergency loan for the rest of the season. However, an injury to Wolves' leading goalscorer Kevin Doyle saw the club recall him after just four appearances for the "Canaries", during which he scored once. Back at Molineux, he made two substitute appearances for the team during the run-in as they narrowly avoided relegation on the final day despite losing 3–2 against Blackburn Rovers.


title: Sam Vokes

text: During the 2011–12 season, he made four Premier League appearances for Wolves, but did not start a league match. In November 2011 he once more went out on loan to a Championship side, this time joining Burnley until 15 January. He played nine times for Burnley, scoring twice and impressed manager Eddie Howe.


title: Sam Vokes

text: On 30 January 2012, Vokes joined Championship side Brighton & Hove Albion on loan until the end of the season. He scored on his full home debut in a 2–2 draw with Millwall on 14 February 2012. He scored three goals in total during his 14 appearances for the Seagulls.


title: Sam Vokes

text: On 31 July 2012, Vokes joined Championship side Burnley permanently signing a three-year contract for an undisclosed fee, believed to be £350,000. On 2 December, Vokes scored an equalising goal for Burnley in the 89th minute against fierce rivals Blackburn Rovers a match which ended 1–1. Despite this goal, Vokes struggled to establish himself in the first eleven and was used predominantly as a substitute. This was mainly down to the form of top scorer Charlie Austin, with manager Sean Dyche often opting to partner Austin with fellow strikers Martin Paterson or Danny Ings, both being quicker and more mobile than Vokes.


title: Sam Vokes

text: On the eve of the 2013–14 Championship season, Burnley agreed a deal with Queens Park Rangers for the transfer of Charlie Austin, who had attracted much attention from Premier League teams throughout the summer. With Austin moving out of the club, this gave Vokes his long-awaited chance in the starting eleven, and he formed a striking partnership with Danny Ings and he finished the season with 21 goals in 44 matches helping the Clarets finished 2nd, gaining promotion to the Premier League. He missed the run in after he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament which kept him out until December 2014. He marked his return from injury with a goal against Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup. Vokes played 15 league matches in 2014–15 as Burnley suffered relegation back to the Championship.


title: Sam Vokes

text: On 8 August 2015, on the opening day of the 2015–16 Championship season, Vokes scored his first league goal since returning from a knee injury for Burnley against former club Leeds United in a 1–1 draw. Vokes signed a new three-and-a-half-year contract with Burnley in January 2016. He scored 16 goals in 46 appearances as Burnley returned to the Premier League as Championship title winners.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Vokes scored his first Premier League goal on 20 August 2016 at Turf Moor in a 2–0 win against Liverpool. Vokes scored 12 goals in 36 games in 2016–17 helping the team avoid relegation, finishing in 16th. Vokes scored twice in a 3–2 win away at champions Chelsea on the opening day of the 2017–18 season. He made 32 appearances as Burnley had a successful campaign finishing in 7th, qualifying for the UEFA Europa League. In the 2018–19 season, Vokes scored the club's first European goal in over half a century from close range for an equaliser away to Aberdeen. Burnley went out to Greek side Olympiacos in the play-off round. In October 2018 Vokes signed new contract at Turf Moor keeping him contract until 2021. However, in January 2019 manager Sean Dyche said he would allow Vokes to leave in the club in the January transfer window.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Vokes joined Stoke City on 31 January 2019 on a three-and-a-half-year contract for an undisclosed fee. He made his debut two days later against Hull City, and missed a penalty in a 2–0 defeat. Vokes scored his first goal for Stoke on 23 February in a 1–1 draw with Aston Villa. Vokes ended the 2018–19 season with three goals from 12 appearances. Stoke made a poor start to the 2019–20 season failing to win any of the first ten matches under Nathan Jones. Vokes scored in all three rounds of the EFL Cup in August and September but didn't score in the league until December. He scored a dramatic 97th-minute winner against Sheffield Wednesday on boxing day which lifted the team off the bottom of the table. The season extended into June due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Vokes played in all the remaining matches and scored against relegation rivals Barnsley on 4 July 2020. He ended the campaign with eight goals from 40 appearances as Stoke avoided relegation and finished in 15th position.


title: Sam Vokes

text: In the 2020–21 season, Vokes was used mainly as a substitute by Michael O'Neill, starting only five of his 30 league appearances as Stoke finished in mid-table. His only goal during the campaign came in a 1–0 EFL Cup win away at Aston Villa on 1 October 2020.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Vokes joined Wycombe Wanderers on 28 July 2021 for an undisclosed fee. On 16 May 2022, ahead of the play-off final, Vokes signed a new one-year contract with the club.


title: Sam Vokes

text: Born and brought up in England, Vokes is eligible to represent Wales through a grandfather born in Colwyn Bay. He did not know he was eligible for Wales until manager Brian Flynn called him up to the Welsh under-21 team, and he made his debut against Northern Ireland on 6 February 2007. The seventeen-year-old made an instant impression by scoring after 36 seconds, a team record, in a 4–0 victory. He remained in the team and featured in their European U-21 Championship qualifying campaign.


title: Sam Vokes

text: He was soon called up to the senior squad and made his debut in a 1–0 friendly win over Iceland on 28 May 2008, coming on as a substitute for Freddy Eastwood early into the second half. Vokes scored his first senior international goal when he netted the winner in a 1–0 win over Azerbaijan in their opening 2010 World Cup qualifier on 6 September 2008, striking seven minutes before the end at the Millennium Stadium.


title: Sam Vokes

text: In May 2016, Vokes was listed for the 29-man squad for a pre-Euro 2016 training camp, and was retained for the tournament final squad. On 1 July, he came on as a substitute and scored for Wales in a 3–1 win over Belgium at the finals, sealing the victory to take Wales to their first ever semi-final appearance at a major tournament.


title: Sam Vokes

text: At the 2018 China Cup, where Wales finished as runners-up, Vokes scored twice in a 6–0 win over the hosts in the semi-finals on 22 March.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The cinema of Italy (, ) comprises the films made within Italy or by Italian directors. Since its beginning, Italian cinema has influenced film movements worldwide. Italy is one of the birthplaces of art cinema and the stylistic aspect of film has been the most important factor in the history of Italian film. As of 2018, Italian films have won 14 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (the most of any country) as well as 12 Palmes d'Or (the second-most of any country), one Academy Award for Best Picture and many Golden Lions and Golden Bears.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The history of Italian cinema began a few months after the Lumière brothers began motion picture exhibitions. The first Italian director is considered to be Vittorio Calcina, a collaborator of the Lumière Brothers, who filmed Pope Leo XIII in 1896. The first films date back to 1896 and were made in the main cities of the Italian peninsula. These brief experiments immediately met the curiosity of the popular class, encouraging operators to produce new films until they laid the foundations for the birth of a true film industry. In the early years of the 20th century, silent cinema developed, bringing numerous Italian stars to the forefront until the end of World War I. In the early 1900s, artistic and epic films such as "Otello" (1906), "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1908), "L'Inferno" (1911), "Quo Vadis" (1913), and "Cabiria" (1914), were made as adaptations of books or stage plays. Italian filmmakers were using complex set designs, lavish costumes, and record budgets, to produce pioneering films.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The oldest European avant-garde cinema movement, Italian futurism, took place in the late 1910s. After a period of decline in the 1920s, the Italian film industry was revitalized in the 1930s with the arrival of sound film. A popular Italian genre during this period, the Telefoni Bianchi, consisted of comedies with glamorous backgrounds. Calligrafismo was instead in a sharp contrast to Telefoni Bianchi-American style comedies and is rather artistic, highly formalistic, expressive in complexity and deals mainly with contemporary literary material. While Italy's Fascist government provided financial support for the nation's film industry, notably the construction of the Cinecittà studios (the largest film studio in Europe), it also engaged in censorship, and thus many Italian films produced in the late 1930s were propaganda films. A new era took place at the end of World War II with the birth of the influential Italian neorealist movement, reaching a vast consensus of audiences and critics throughout the post-war period, and which launched the directorial careers of Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, and Vittorio De Sica. Neorealism declined in the late 1950s in favor of lighter films, such as those of the Commedia all'italiana genre and important directors like Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni. Actresses such as Sophia Loren, Giulietta Masina and Gina Lollobrigida achieved international stardom during this period.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: From the mid-1950s to the end of the 1970s, Commedia all'italiana and many other genres arose due to auteur cinema, and Italian cinema reached a position of great prestige both nationally and abroad. The Spaghetti Western achieved popularity in the mid-1960s, peaking with Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy, which featured enigmatic scores by composer Ennio Morricone, which have become popular culture icons of the Western genre. Erotic Italian thrillers, or giallos, produced by directors such as Mario Bava and Dario Argento in the 1970s, influenced the horror genre worldwide. Since the 1980s, due to multiple factors, Italian production has gone through a crisis that has not prevented the production of quality films in the 1990s and into the new millennium, thanks to a revival of Italian cinema, awarded and appreciated all over the world. During the 1980s and 1990s, directors such as Ermanno Olmi, Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuseppe Tornatore, Gabriele Salvatores and Roberto Benigni brought critical acclaim back to Italian cinema, while the most popular directors of the 2000s and 2010s were Matteo Garrone, Paolo Sorrentino, Marco Bellocchio, Nanni Moretti and Marco Tullio Giordana.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The country is also famed for its prestigious Venice Film Festival, the oldest film festival in the world, held annually since 1932 and awarding the Golden Lion; and for the David di Donatello. In 2008 the Venice Days ("Giornate degli Autori"), a section held in parallel to the Venice Film Festival, has produced in collaboration with Cinecittà studios and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage a list of 100 films that have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978: the "100 Italian films to be saved".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The history of Italian cinema began a few months after the French Lumière brothers, who made the first public screening of a film on 28 December 1895, an event considered the birth of cinema, began motion picture exhibitions. The first Italian director is considered to be Vittorio Calcina, a collaborator of the Lumière Brothers, who filmed Pope Leo XIII on 26 February 1896 in the short film "Sua Santità papa Leone XIII" ("His Holiness Pope Leo XIII"). He then became the official photographer of the House of Savoy, the Italian ruling dynasty from 1861 to 1946. In this role he filmed the first Italian film, "Sua Maestà il Re Umberto e Sua Maestà la Regina Margherita a passeggio per il parco a Monza" ("His Majesty the King Umberto and His Majesty the Queen Margherita strolling through the Monza Park"), believed to have been lost until it was rediscovered by the Cineteca Nazionale in 1979.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The Lumière brothers commenced public screenings in Italy in 1896 starting in March, in Rome and Milan; in April in Naples, Salerno and Bari; in June in Livorno; in August in Bergamo, Bologna and Ravenna; in October in Ancona; and in December in Turin, Pescara and Reggio Calabria. Not long before, in 1895, Filoteo Alberini patented his "kinetograph", a shooting and projecting device not unlike that of the Lumières brothers.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Italian Lumière trainees produced short films documenting everyday life and comic strips in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Before long, other pioneers made their way. Italo Pacchioni, Arturo Ambrosio, Giovanni Vitrotti and Roberto Omegna were also active. The success of the short films were immediate. The cinema fascinated with its ability to show distant geographic realities with unprecedented precision and, vice versa, to immortalize everyday moments. Sporting events, local events, intense road traffic, the arrival of a train, visits by famous people, but also natural disasters and calamities are filmed.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Titles of the time include, "Arrivo del treno alla Stazione di Milano" ("Arrival of the train at Milan station") (1896), "La battaglia di neve" ("The snow battle") (1896), "la gabbia dei matti" ("The madmen's cage") (1896), "Ballo in famiglia" ("Family dance") (1896), "Il finto storpio al Castello Sforzesco" ("The fake cripple at the Castello Sforzesco") (1896) and "La Fiera di Porta Genova" ("The fair of Porta Genova") (1898), all shot by Italo Pacchioni, who was also the inventor of a camera and projector, inspired by the cinematograph of Lumière brothers, kept at the Cineteca Italiana in Milan.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: If the interest of the masses were enthusiastic, the technological novelty would likely be snubbed, at least at the beginning, by intellectuals and the press. Despite initial doubt, in just two years, cinema climbs the hierarchy of society, intriguing the wealthier classes. On 28 January 1897, prince Victor Emmanuel and princess Elena of Montenegro attended a screening organized by Vittorio Calcina, in a room of the Pitti Palace in Florence. Interested in experimenting with the new medium, they were filmed in "S.A.R. il Principe di Napoli e la Principessa Elena visitano il battistero di S. Giovanni a Firenze " ("Their real heights the Prince of Naples and Princess Elena visit the baptistery of Saint John in Florence") and on the day of their wedding in "Dimostrazione popolare alle LL. AA. i Principi sposi (al Pantheon – Roma)" ("Popular demonstration at the their heights the princes spouses (at the Pantheon – Rome)").


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In the early years of the 20th century, the phenomenon of itinerant cinemas developed throughout Italy, providing literacy of the visual medium. This innovative form of spectacle ran out, in a short time, a number of optical attractions such as magic lanterns, cineographers, stereoscopes, panoramas and dioramas that had fueled the European imagination and favored the circulation of a common market for images. The nascent Italian cinema, therefore, is still linked to the traditional shows of the "commedia dell'arte" or to those typical of circus folklore. Public screenings take place in the streets, in cafes or in variety theaters in the presence of a swindler who has the task of promoting and enriching the story.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Between 1903 and 1909 the itinerant cinema Italian film was quieting, until then considered as a freak phenomenon, took on consistency assuming the characteristics of an authentic industry, led by three major organizations: Cines, based in Rome; and the Turin-based companies Ambrosio Film and Itala Film. Other companies soon followed in Milan and Naples, and these early companies quickly attained a respectable production quality and were able to market their products both within Italy and abroad. Early Italian films typically consisted of adaptations of books or stage plays, such as Mario Caserini's "Otello" (1906) and Arturo Ambrosio's 1908 adaptation of the novel, "The Last Days of Pompeii". Also popular during this period were films about historical figures, such as Caserini's "Beatrice Cenci" (1909) and Ugo Falena's "Lucrezia Borgia" (1910).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In 1905, Cines inaugurated the genre of the historical film, which in this decade gave great fortune to many Italian filmmakers. One of the first of these films was "La presa di Roma" (1905), lasting 10 minutes, and made by Filoteo Alberini. The operator employs for the first time actors of theatrical origin, exploiting the historical argument in a popular and pedagogical key. The film, assimilating Manzoni's lesson of making historical fiction plausible, reconstructs the Capture of Rome on 20 September 1870.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The discovery of the spectacular potential of the cinematographic medium favored the development of a cinema with great ambitions, capable of incorporating all the cultural and historical suggestions of the country. Education is an inexhaustible source of ideas, ideas that are easily assimilated not only by a cultured public but also by the masses. Dozens of characters from texts make their appearance on the big screen such as the Count of Monte Cristo, Giordano Bruno, Judith beheading Holofernes, Francesca da Rimini, Lorenzino de' Medici, Rigoletto, Count Ugolino and others. From an iconographic point of view, the main references are the great Renaissance and neoclassical artists, as well as symbolists and popular illustrations.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In the 1910s, the Italian film industry developed rapidly. In 1912, the year of the greatest expansion, 569 films were produced in Turin, 420 in Rome and 120 in Milan. Popular early Italian actors included Emilio Ghione, Alberto Collo, Bartolomeo Pagano, Amleto Novelli, Lyda Borelli, Ida Carloni Talli, Lidia Quaranta and Maria Jacobini. Nino Martoglio's "Lost in Darkness", produced in 1914, documented life in the slums of Naples, and is considered a precursor to the Neorealist movement of the 1940s and 1950s.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In the three years leading up to World War I, as production consolidates, mythological, comedy and drama films are exported all over the world. In the meantime, in the actor's field, the phenomenon of stardom was born which for a few years will experience unstoppable success. With the end of the decade, Rome definitively established itself as the main production center; this will remain, despite the crises that will periodically shake the industry, right up to the present day.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The archetypes of this film genre was "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1908), by Arturo Ambrosio and Luigi Maggi and "Nero" (1909), by Maggi himself and Arrigo Frusta. This last film was inspired by the work of Pietro Cossa who is iconographically based on the etchings of Bartolomeo Pinelli, neoclassicism and the show "Nero, or the Destruction of Rome" represented by the Barnum circus. Followed by "Marin Faliero, Doge of Venice" (1909), by Giuseppe De Liguoro, "Otello" (1909) by Yambo and "L'Odissea" (1911), by Bertolini, Padovan and De Liguoro.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: "L'Inferno", produced by Milano Films in 1911, even before being an adaptation of Dante's canticle, was a cinematic translation of Gustave Doré's engravings that experiments with the integration of optical effects and stage action, and it was the first Italian feature film ever made. "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1913), by Eleuterio Rodolfi, used innovative special effects.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Enrico Guazzone's 1913 film "Quo Vadis" was one of the first blockbusters in the history of cinema, using thousands of extras and a lavish set design. The international success of the film marked the maturation of the genre and allows Guazzoni to make increasingly spectacular films such as "Antony and Cleopatra" (1913) and "Julius Caesar" (1914). Giovanni Pastrone's 1914 film "Cabiria" was an even larger production, requiring two years and a record budget to produce, it was the first epic film ever made and it is considered the most famous Italian silent film. It was also the first film in history to be shown in the White House. After Guazzoni came Emilio Ghione, Febo Mari, Carmine Gallone, Giulio Antamoro and many others who contributed to the expansion of the genre.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: After the great success of "Cabiria", with the changing tastes of the public and the first signs of the industrial crisis, the genre began to show signs of crisis. Pastrone's plan to adapt the "Bible" with thousands of extras remained unfulfilled. Antamoro's "Christus" (1916) and Guazzoni's "The Crusaders" (1918) remained notable for their iconographic complexity but offered no substantial novelties. Despite sporadic attempts to reconnect with the "grandeur" of the past, the trend of historical blockbusters was interrupted at the beginning of the 1920s.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In the first and second decade of the 20th century, came a prolific film production aimed at investigative and mystery contents, supported by a well-assorted Italian and foreign literature that favors its transposition into film. What would later take on the synthesis of the "giallo", in fact, was produced and distributed at the dawn of Italian cinema. The most prolific production houses in the 1910s were Cines, Ambrosio Film, Itala Film, Aquila Films, Milano Films and many others, while titles such as "Il delitto del magistrato" (1907), "Il cadavere misterioso" (1908), "Il piccolo Sherlock Holmes" (1909), "L'abisso" (1910) and "Alibi atroce" (1910), breached the imagination of the first cinema users who demanded a greater offer. The popular consensus is remarkable to the point of encouraging the film industry to invest further production resources, since these films are also distributed on the French and Anglo-Saxon markets. Thus directors among the most prolific in this field such as Oreste Mentasti, Luigi Maggi, Arrigo Frusta and Ubaldo Maria Del Colle, together with many others less known, direct several dozen films where classic narrative elements of the silent proto-giallo (mystery, crime, investigation investigative and final twist) constitute the structural aspects of cinematic representation.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Elvira Notari, the first female director ever in Italy and one of the premieres in the history of world cinema, directs "Carmela, la sartina di Montesanto" (1916), while in Palermo, Lucarelli Film produced "La cassaforte n. 8" (1914) and "Ipnotismo" (1914), the Azzurri Film "La regina della notte" (1915) and the Lumen Film "Il romanzo fantastico del Dr. Mercanton o il giustiziere invisibile" (1915) and "Profumo mortale" (1915), all films ascribable to the proto-giallo that multiplied in the following decades, becoming preparatory to the subsequent birth of the "giallo".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Between 1913 and 1920 there was the rise, development and decline of the phenomenon of cinematographic stardom, born with the release of "Ma l'amor mio non-muore" (1913), by Mario Caserini. The film had great success with the public and encoded the setting and aesthetics of female stardom. Within just a few years, Eleonora Duse, Pina Menichelli, Rina De Liguoro, Leda Gys, Hesperia, Vittoria Lepanto, Mary Cleo Tarlarini and Italia Almirante Manzini established themselves.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Films such as "Fior di male" (1914), by Carmine Gallone, "Il fuoco" (1915), by Giovanni Pastrone, "Rapsodia satanica" (1917), by Nino Oxilia and "Cenere" (1917), by Febo Mari, changed the national costume, imposing canons of beauty, role models and objects of desire. These models, strongly stylized according to the cultural and artistic trends of the time, moved away from naturalism in favor of melodramatic acting, pictorial gesture and theatrical pose; all favored by the incessant use of close-up which focuses the attention on the expressiveness of the actress.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The most successful comedian in Italy was André Deed, better known in Italy as "Cretinetti", star of comic short film for Itala Film. Its success paved the way for Marcel Fabre ("Robinet"), Ernesto Vaser ("Fricot") and many others. The only actor of a certain substance, however, was Ferdinand Guillaume, who became famous with the stage name of "Polidor".


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The historical interest of these films lay in their ability to reveal the aspirations and fears of a petty-bourgeois society torn between the desire for affirmation and the uncertainties of the present. It was significant that the protagonists of Italian comedians never place themselves in open contrast with society or embody the desire for social revenge (as happens for example with Charlie Chaplin), but rather tried to integrate into a strongly desired world.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Italian futurist cinema was the oldest movement of European avant-garde cinema. Italian futurism, an artistic and social movement, impacted the Italian film industry from 1916 to 1919. It influenced Russian Futurist cinema and German Expressionist cinema. Its cultural importance was considerable and influenced all subsequent avant-gardes, as well as some authors of narrative cinema; its echo expands to the dreamlike visions of some films by Alfred Hitchcock.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Futurism emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. Its key figures were the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, and Luigi Russolo. It glorified modernity and aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The 1916 Manifesto of Futuristic Cinematography was signed by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Armando Ginna, Bruno Corra, Giacomo Balla and others. To the Futurists, cinema was an ideal art form, being a fresh medium, and able to be manipulated by speed, special effects and editing. Most of the futuristic-themed films of this period have been lost, but critics cite "Thaïs" (1917) by Anton Giulio Bragaglia as one of the most influential, serving as the main inspiration for German Expressionist cinema in the following decade.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The Italian film industry struggled against rising foreign competition in the years following World War I. Several major studios, among them Cines and Ambrosio, formed the Unione Cinematografica Italiana to coordinate a national strategy for film production. This effort was largely unsuccessful, however, due to a wide disconnect between production and exhibition (some movies weren't released until several years after they were produced).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: With the end of World War I, Italian cinema went through a period of crisis due to many factors such as production disorganization, increased costs, technological backwardness, loss of foreign markets and inability to cope with international competition, in particular with that of Hollywood. The main causes included the lack of a generational change with a production still dominated by filmmakers and producers of literary training, unable to face the challenges of modernity. The first half of the 1920s marked a sharp decrease in production; from 350 films produced in 1921 to 60 in 1924.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Literature and theater are still the preferred narrative sources. The feuilletons resist, mostly taken from classical or popular texts and directed by specialists such as Roberto Roberti and the religious blockbusters of Giulio Antamoro. On the basis of the latest generation of divas, a sentimental cinema for women spread, centered on figures on the margins of society who, instead of struggling to emancipate themselves (as happens in contemporary Hollywood cinema), go through an authentic ordeal in order to preserve their own virtue. Protest and rebellion by the female protagonists are out of the question. It is a strongly conservative cinema, tied to social rules upset by the war and in the process of dissolution throughout Europe. An exemplary case is that of "A Woman's Story" (1920) by Eugenio Perego, which uses an original narrative construction to propose a 19th-century morality with melodramatic tones.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: A particular genre is that of a realist setting, due to the work of the first female director of Italian cinema, Elvira Notari, who directs numerous films influenced by popular theater and taken from famous dramas, Neapolitan songs, appendix novels or inspired by facts of chronicle. Another film with a realist setting is "Lost in the Dark" (1914) by director Nino Martoglio, considered by critics as a prime example of neorealist cinema.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The revival of Italian cinema took place at the end of the decade with the production of larger-scale films. During this period, a group of intellectuals close to the fortnightly "cinematografo" led by Alessandro Blasetti launched a program that was as simple as it was ambitious. Aware of the Italian cultural backwardness, they decided to break all ties with the previous tradition through a rediscovery of the peasant world, hitherto practically absent in Italian cinema. "Sun" (1929) by Alessandro Blasetti shows the evident influence of the Soviet and German avant-gardes in an attempt to renew Italian cinema in accordance with the interests of the fascist regime. "Rails" (1929) by Mario Camerini blends the traditional genre of comedy with kammerspiel and realist film, revealing the director's ability to outline the characters of the middle class. While not comparable to the best results of international cinema of the period, the works of Camerini and Blasetti testify to a generational transition between Italian directors and intellectuals, and above all an emancipation from literary models and an approach to the tastes of the public.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The sound cinema arrived in Italy in 1930, three years after the release of "The Jazz Singer" (1927), and immediately led to a debate on the validity of spoken cinema and its relationship with the theater. Some directors enthusiastically face the new challenge. The advent of talkies led to stricter censorship by the Fascist government.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The first Italian talking picture was "The Song of Love" (1930) by Gennaro Righelli, which was a great success with the public. Alessandro Blasetti also experimented with the use of an optical track for sound in the film "Resurrection" (1931), shot before "The Song of Love" but released a few months later. Similar to Righelli's film is "What Scoundrels Men Are!" (1932) by Mario Camerini, which has the merit of making Vittorio De Sica debut on the screens. Historical films such as Blasetti's "1860" (1934) and Carmine Gallone's "" (1937) were also popular during this period.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: With the transition to sound cinema, most of the Italian silent film actors, still linked to theatrical stylization, find themselves disqualified. The era of divas, dandies and strongmen, who barely survived the 1920s, is definitely over. Even if some performers will move on to directing or producing, the arrival of sound favors the generational change and the consequent modernization of the structures.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Italian-born director Frank Capra received three Academy Awards for Best Director for the films "It Happened One Night" (1934, the first Big Five winner at the Academy Awards), "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936) and "You Can't Take It with You" (1938).


title: Cinema of Italy

text: In 1934, the Italian government created the General Directorate for Cinema ("Direzione Generale per le Cinematografia"), and appointed Luigi Freddi its director. With the approval of Benito Mussolini, this directorate called for the establishment of a town southeast of Rome devoted exclusively to cinema, dubbed the Cinecittà ("Cinema City"), under the slogan ""Il cinema è l'arma più forte"" ("Cinema is the most powerful weapon"). The studios were constructed during the Fascist era as part of a plan to revive the Italian film industry, which had reached its low point in 1931.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: Mussolini himself inaugurated the studios on 21 April 1937. Post-production units and sets were constructed and heavily used initially. Early films such as "" (1937) and "The Iron Crown" (1941) showcased the technological advancement of the studios. Seven thousand people were involved in the filming of the battle scene from "Scipio Africanus", and live elephants were brought in as a part of the re-enactment of the Battle of Zama.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: The Cinecittà provided everything necessary for filmmaking: theaters, technical services, and even a cinematography school, the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, for younger apprentices. The Cinecittà studios were Europe's most advanced production facilities, and greatly boosted the technical quality of Italian films. Many films are still shot entirely in Cinecittà. Benito Mussolini founded Cinecittà studio also for the production of Fascist propaganda until World War II.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: During this period, Mussolini's son, Vittorio, created a national production company and organized the work of noted authors, directors and actors (including even some political opponents), thereby creating an interesting communication network among them, which produced several noted friendships and stimulated cultural interaction.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: With an area of 400,000 square metres (99 acres), it is still the largest film studio in Europe, and is considered the hub of Italian cinema. Filmmakers such as Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Mel Gibson have worked at Cinecittà. More than 3,000 movies have been filmed there, of which 90 received an Academy Award nomination and 47 of these won it.


title: Cinema of Italy

text: During the 1930s, light comedies known as Telefoni Bianchi ("white telephones") were predominant in Italian cinema. These films, which featured lavish set designs, promoted conservative values and respect for authority, and thus typically avoided the scrutiny of government censors. Telefoni Bianchi proved to be the testing ground of numerous screenwriters destined to impose themselves in the following decades (including Cesare Zavattini and Sergio Amidei), and above all of numerous set designers such as Guido Fiorini, Gino Carlo Sensani and Antonio Valente, who, by virtue successful graphic inventions led these productions to become a kind of "summa" of the petty-bourgeois aesthetics of the time.