text: In February 2012, Shawn Oakman was dismissed from the Penn State Nittany Lions football team for a violation of team rules for stealing a sandwich and, while demanding the return of his identification card, for grabbing the wrist of the clerk who took it. Oakman enrolled at Baylor. In 2013, Oakman had been previously accused of assaulting an ex-girlfriend, but no charges were pressed, which led to Oakman not being disciplined by Baylor. It is unclear if Baylor knew of the incident.


title: Baylor University sexual assault scandal

text: A woman reported an assault that happened early Sunday morning of April 3, 2016, according to a Waco police affidavit. The woman told police she met Oakman at a nightclub and walked with him to his apartment, where she said Oakman forcibly removed her clothing and sexually assaulted her. The Associated Press generally does not identify alleged sexual assault victims. The woman told police she was able to leave the apartment after she was assaulted. The affidavit says the woman was "treated for her injuries" at a medical center, where a sexual assault examination was performed. Oakman was freed on $25,000 bond after his arrest.


text: On July 20, 2016, Oakman was indicted by a grand jury on charges of second-degree felony sexual assault. Oakman, once considered a potential second- or third-round pick in the 2016 NFL draft, went undrafted after his arrest. The trial was initially slated for December 2018. However, it didn't begin until February 26 of the following year.


text: In May 2016, Baylor terminated the contract of longtime head football coach Art Briles over the scandal. Then, Baylor University President Ken Starr resigned due to the scandal.


text: The Title IX Coordinator Patty Crawford resigned after alleging that Baylor University did not allow her to do her job properly. She claimed that the more she pushed to help the victims, the more resistance she felt from the board of advisors. She insisted that the board was full of “a group of seniors that made sure that they were protecting the brand... instead of our students”, contradicting earlier statements that she had made in an August interview. In that interview, Crawford had said that the university had an “excellent board that listens and is very supportive”, that she had a “good partnership” with the athletics department and an "excellent board (of regents) that listens and is very supportive, specifically the committee that I report to. One step at a time, we’re building it." Crawford also mentioned that she decided to resign because she did not want to be a part of the problem, rather, part of the solution to seeking justice for Jane Doe.


text: As early as 2014, KWTX-TV claimed, "the football team may have only played a very minor role in any documented sexual assaults on Baylor students." In a 2016 story, the television station stated, "a closer review of [a 2014 report commissioned by Baylor University officials] reveals years of failures by University officials to fully adopt federal laws and guidelines governing student safety″.


text: In a 2017 lawsuit, victims suing the university alleged that from 2011 to 2014 at least 31 football players committed at least 52 rapes. In March 2017, the Texas Ranger Division confirmed that it was investigating the university. On March 7, 2017, US District Judge Robert L. Pitman refused to dismiss a lawsuit by victims against the university.


title: The World Won't Listen

text: The World Won't Listen is a compilation album by English rock band the Smiths, released in the United Kingdom on 23 February 1987 by Rough Trade Records. The album is the second of three compilation albums—following "Hatful of Hollow"—released by the Smiths in the 1980s. It reached No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart, staying on the charts for 15 weeks.


title: The World Won't Listen

text: The album was conceived as a collection of the band's singles and their B-sides from 1985 to 1987. Additionally, the scrapped single "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby" (which was passed over for "Shoplifters of the World Unite") and the near-single "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" (a single candidate from "The Queen Is Dead" that was passed over in favour of "Bigmouth Strikes Again") were included.


title: The World Won't Listen

text: The title reflects Smiths singer Morrissey's belief that mainstream radio and record buyers weren't paying attention to the band. The compilation was succeeded three months later by "Louder Than Bombs", released in the US by Rough Trade and featuring a similar, but extended track listing. "The World Won't Listen" contains two versions of songs that do not appear on "Louder Than Bombs": the single version of "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" and the single edit of "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore". Additionally, "The World Won't Listen" contains different versions of two songs that would appear on "Louder Than Bombs:" "Stretch Out and Wait" features an alternate vocal, and "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby" appears in a slightly different and longer mix. In some territories, a double LP (and double cassette) second edition was released with an additional 12 tracks on the extra disk. The 12 extra tracks are mostly sourced (in order) from "Louder than Bombs" as well as "Panic" B-side "The Draize Train", which doesn't otherwise appear on either. The 2011 reissue replaced the single version of "The Boy With the Thorn in His Side" with the album version. Also of note is the fact that "Ask" appears on both "The World Won't Listen" and "Louder Than Bombs" in a slightly different and longer mix than its single version.


title: The World Won't Listen

text: After WEA acquired the Smiths' back catalogue in 1992, all Smiths albums were re-released at mid-price, including "The World Won't Listen", which was expanded to include a cover of "Golden Lights" and the original Rough Trade cassette edition bonus track "Money Changes Everything" (the "Bigmouth Strikes Again" B-side, also later released on the deluxe edition of "The Sound of The Smiths").


title: The World Won't Listen

text: The CD sleeve for "The World Won't Listen" is based on the cassette version of the sleeve layout; the original album featured a larger picture of a 1960s fairground scene, of which this is a crop. The sleeve was designed by Morrissey, using a photo by Jürgen Vollmer from the book "Rock 'N' Roll Times: The Style and Spirit of the Early Beatles and Their First Fans".


title: The World Won't Listen

text: The album was released on 23 February 1987, exclusively in the UK. It first charted on 3 March 1987, remaining in the top 100 for 15 weeks and peaking at No. 2. "The World Won't Listen" returned to the UK top 100 for two weeks in 1995, following its re-release by WEA. In 2011, "The World Won't Listen" was included in the Smiths' compilation box set "Complete".


title: The World Won't Listen

text: British artist Phil Collins produced an exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art that included a three-part video project entitled "The World Won't Listen", which was filmed in Turkey, Indonesia and Colombia. The video features young people performing karaoke versions of songs by The Smiths.


title: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (song)

text: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is a song written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney), released in 1967 on the album of the same name by the Beatles. The song appears twice on the album: as the opening track (segueing into "With a Little Help from My Friends"), and as "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)", the penultimate track (segueing into "A Day in the Life"). As the title song, the lyrics introduce the fictional band that performs on the album.


text: Since its original album release, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" has also been released on various Beatles singles and compilation albums. The song has also been performed by several other artists, including Jimi Hendrix, U2, and a comic interpretation by Bill Cosby, using the opening to John Philip Sousa's "Washington Post March" as the instrumental bridge.


text: In November 1966, on the flight back to England after a holiday, McCartney conceived an idea in which an entire album would be role-played, with each of the Beatles assuming an alter-ego in the "Lonely Hearts Club Band", which would then perform a concert in front of an audience.


text: The inspiration is said to have come when roadie Mal Evans innocently asked McCartney what the letters "S" and "P" stood for on the pots on their in-flight meal trays, and McCartney explained it was for salt and pepper. This then led to the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" concept, as well as the song.


text: The group's road manager, Neil Aspinall, suggested the idea of Sgt. Pepper being the compère, as well as the reprise at the end of the album. According to his diaries, Evans may have also contributed to the song. John Lennon attributed the idea for Sgt. Pepper to McCartney, although the song is officially credited to Lennon–McCartney. The Beatles recorded the track in Abbey Road's studio 2, with George Martin producing, and Geoff Emerick engineering. Work on the song started on 1 February 1967, and after three further sessions the recording was completed on 6 March 1967.


text: On the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album, the song opens to the sound of a chattering audience, and an orchestra tuning up, which was taken from the 10 February orchestra session for "A Day in the Life". The crowd sounds edited into the song were recorded in the early 1960s by Martin, during a live recording of the stage show "Beyond the Fringe". The band is then introduced by name. The song's structure is:


text: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" is a modified repeat of the opening song at a faster tempo and with heavier instrumentation. The track opens with McCartney's count-in; between 2 and 3, Lennon jokingly interjects "Bye!" Ringo Starr starts the song proper by playing the drum part unaccompanied for four bars, at the end of which a brief bass glissando from McCartney cues the full ensemble of two distorted electric guitars (played by George Harrison and Lennon), bass, drums and overdubbed percussion. In addition, McCartney overdubbed a Hammond organ part onto the track.


text: While the first version of the song had stayed largely in the key of G major (except for transient modulation to F and perhaps C in the bridges), the reprise starts in F and features a modulation, to G. The mono and stereo mixes of the song differ slightly: the former has a fractionally different transition from the previous song, and includes crowd noise and laughter in the opening bars that are absent from the stereo mix.


text: The idea for a reprise was Aspinall's, who thought that, as there was a "welcome song", there should also be a "goodbye song". The song contains broadly the same melody as the opening version, but with different lyrics and omitting the ""It's wonderful to be here"" section. At 1:18, it is one of the Beatles' shorter songs (the shortest is "Her Majesty" at 0:23). The reprise was recorded on 1 April 1967, two months after the version that opens the album. At the end of the track, Martin's applause sample segues into the final track of the album, "A Day in the Life".


text: It was originally released in the UK on 26 May 1967, and in the US on 2 June 1967 on the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" LP.


text: When the Beatles' recording contract with EMI expired in 1976, EMI were free to re-release music from the Beatles' catalogue, and in 1978 issued "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"/"With a Little Help from My Friends" as the A-side of a single, with "A Day in the Life" as the B-side. The single was released on Capitol in the US on 14 August (closely following the release there of the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" film), reaching number 71 on 30 September 1978 where it stayed for two weeks. The single was issued on Parlophone in the UK in September.


text: The original recording of the song is included on the Beatles compilation albums "1967–1970" (1973) and "Yellow Submarine Songtrack" (1999). A run-through of the reprise is included on the outtakes album "Anthology 2" (1996).


text: In 2006, the reprise was re-released on the album "Love", which was a theatrical production by Cirque du Soleil. The updated version is a remix featuring samples of other Beatles' songs and fades out before the cross-fade into "A Day in the Life".


text: The notebook used by McCartney containing the lyrics for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and other songs was put up for sale in 1998.


text: In 1967, Jimi Hendrix played the song live at the Saville Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, which was leased by Brian Epstein, only three days after it had been released on record, with McCartney and Harrison in the audience. Another live version by Hendrix recorded at the Isle of Wight Festival was included on a posthumous live album, "".


text: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was never performed live by the Beatles. It was performed by three of the former band members (McCartney, Harrison and Starr) plus Eric Clapton on 19 May 1979, at Clapton's wedding party.


text: Paul McCartney played the song live on the 1989–90 Paul McCartney World Tour. On subsequent tours he would play the reprise version and use that as a segue into "The End". When the performance is released, it usually is listed as "Sgt. Pepper's/The End", shortening the name of the song. When McCartney performs it, he usually adds the count-in "after" the drum part begins, as opposed to McCartney's count-in preceding the drum opening.


text: In 1988, hair metal band Zinatra played the song at an arena tour in Europe where they opened for then-former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth. Zinatra also covered part of the song under the title "Peppermania" on the band's 2004 version of their self-titled debut album.


text: McCartney and U2 played the song at the start of the Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park on 2 July 2005. The song, starting with ""It was twenty years ago, today"", was chosen among others to commemorate that Live 8 took place approximately twenty years after Live Aid. The single was released for charity on iTunes, hitting number 48 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number 1 on the UK Downloads chart, setting a world record for the fastest-selling online song of all time.


text: In 2007, Bryan Adams and Stereophonics recorded the album's two versions of the song for "It Was 40 Years Ago Today", a television film with contemporary acts recording the album's songs using the same studio, technicians and recording techniques as the original.


text: On 4 April 2009, McCartney performed the song during a benefit concert at New York's Radio City Music Hall and segued it into "With a Little Help From My Friends", sung by Starr.


text: In 2009, Cheap Trick released a live album and DVD called "Sgt. Pepper Live", which is a live performance of the entire original album, including the title song and reprise.


text: In 2011, Robbie Williams performed the song on Take That's Progress tour, replacing "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with "Robbie Williams and the Take That Band", and "Mr Martin told the Band to play" – a reference to Take That's manager in the 1990s, Nigel Martin-Smith.


text: In 2013, the song was performed by Ryder Lynn (Blake Jenner), Marley Rose (Melissa Benoist), Jake Puckerman (Jacob Artist), and Wade "Unique" Adams (Alex Newell) in the "Glee" episode "Tina in the Sky with Diamonds".


text: On 9 February 2014, during a tribute show commemorating the Beatles' first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show", 50 years earlier, McCartney again sang "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and Starr sang "With a Little Help from My Friends".


text: The Flaming Lips recorded the song on their track-for-track tribute album "With a Little Help from My Fwends", released on 27 October 2014.


text: According to Ian MacDonald, Mark Lewisohn, Olivier Julien and Kevin Howlett, the line-up on the two Beatles recordings was as follows:


title: Damnation (TV series)

text: Damnation is an American period drama television series. The series was ordered on May 12, 2017. The series is a co-production between Universal Cable Productions and Netflix. Netflix streamed the show worldwide outside the United States, where it aired on USA Network. The series premiered on November 7, 2017. On January 25, 2018, it was announced that the series had been cancelled after one season.


title: Damnation (TV series)

text: Set in 1931 amidst the American labor wars of the Great Depression, "Damnation" follows Seth Davenport, a man with a violent past who poses as a preacher as he rallies townsfolk to stand up against greedy industrialists and the corruption of the local bank, sheriff's department, and newspaper. He is opposed by Creeley Turner, an ex-con who works for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and has been hired by a rich industrialist to stop Davenport's strike. Neither the townsfolk nor the industrialists know that Seth and Creeley are estranged brothers.


title: Damnation (TV series)

text: According to creator and showrunner Tony Tost, "Damnation" is "1/3 Clint Eastwood, 1/3 John Steinbeck, 1/3 James Ellroy. That is, it takes some characters you’d normally see in a tough western, plops them in the world of "Grapes of Wrath", and places them in the sort of pulpy paranoid narrative you see in Ellroy’s novels."


title: Damnation (TV series)

text: The Farmers' Holiday Association campaign for a farm strike in the early 1930s was the event on which the story is based; the Iowa locale in the series is based on Plymouth County, Iowa, during this time, the strike and related events in the county seat of Le Mars, Iowa, and rural areas of the county beginning in early May 1932. This was also the period when the penny auction became a common farmer tactic.


title: Damnation (TV series)

text: A coal miners' strike at the same time in Kentucky, known as the Harlan County War or Bloody Harlan, is the basis for that element of the plot. The Sheriff J. H. Blair and Florence Reece are historical characters, with Reece's folk song "Which Side Are You On?" (performed in the second episode) being inspired by Sheriff Blair's actions during the Harlan County War.


title: Damnation (TV series)

text: The Pinkerton Detective Agency, which employs Creeley Turner and the William J. Burns International Detective Agency, which employs Connie Nunn, are real agencies that focused on strikebreaking in the 1930s.


title: Damnation (TV series)

text: The villainous Black Legion vigilante group in "Damnation" is based on the 1930s militant fascistic paramilitary group of the same name. The Black Legion terrorized ethnic, political and religious minorities throughout the Midwest, targeting labor organizers and striking workers in particular.


title: Damnation (TV series)

text: Originally, Aden Young was set to play the lead role, but he dropped out due to creative differences and was later replaced by Killian Scott.


title: Damnation (TV series)

text: Reviews for the show were positive to mixed. Alan Sepinwall wrote: "Tost and company do a nice job illustrating all the people in the story — usually women — pushing up against barriers that go beyond economics...The men dominate the story because of the era and the type of show this is, but the women feel much more complex and original. Emily VanDerWerff wrote that at Damnation's center "is a world and time period that TV hasn’t ever explored as thoroughly as it could, and it’s clear that all involved (but especially creator Tony Tost) have done their research. The same growing pains that nearly all dramas face are clear and evident, but Damnation has a setting and point of view...Slow-moving and enamored of its own darkness as Damnation is, there’s something vital and real in the show’s insistence that the United States’ institutions have failed and are only looking out for themselves." Alexis Gunderson compared Damnation favorably to Netflix's Godless, writing that "Damnation actually followed through on its promise to interrogate the corruption of capitalism and racism and the gulf of messy morality between what is good for the individual and what is good for society." Mark Dawidziak of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote that the show feels like "a powerful collaboration between Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck and pioneering mystery writer Dashiell Hammett...Although set during the Depression, "Damnation" is a series packing a tremendous thematic punch for 2017 viewers."


title: Damnation (TV series)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 64% approval rating, with an average rating of 6.36/10 based on 25 reviews. Users gave the show a 91% approval rating, with an average rating of 4.5/5 based on 272 reviews. The website's consensus states "'Damnation's' complex character driven mystery is intriguing, though it occasionally feels like homework."


title: Susan Orlean

text: Susan Orlean (born October 31, 1955) is a journalist, television writer, and bestselling author of "The Orchid Thief" and "The Library Book". She has been a staff writer for "The New Yorker" since 1992, and has contributed articles to many magazines including "Vogue", "Rolling Stone", "Esquire", and "Outside". In 2021, Orlean joined the writing team of HBO comedy series "How To with John Wilson".


title: Susan Orlean

text: She is best known as the author of the 1998 book "The Orchid Thief", which was adapted into the film "Adaptation" (2002). Meryl Streep received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Orlean.


title: Susan Orlean

text: Orlean was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, the daughter of Edith (née Gross 1923–2016) and Arthur Orlean (1915–2007). She has a sister and a brother. Her family is Jewish. Her mother's family is from Hungary and her father's family from Poland. Her father was an attorney and businessman.


title: Susan Orlean

text: Orlean graduated from the University of Michigan with honors in 1976, studying literature and history. After college she moved to Portland, Oregon, and was planning on going to law school, when she began writing for the "Willamette Week".


title: Susan Orlean

text: Orlean has published stories in "Rolling Stone", "Esquire", "Vogue", "Outside" and "Spy". In 1982, she became a staff writer for the "Boston Phoenix" and later a regular contributor to the "Boston Globe" Sunday Magazine. Her first book, "Saturday Night", was published in 1990, shortly after she moved to New York City from Boston and began writing for "The New Yorker" magazine. She started contributing to "The New Yorker" in 1987 and became a staff writer in 1992.


title: Susan Orlean

text: Orlean authored the book "The Orchid Thief", a profile of Florida orchid grower, breeder and collector John Laroche. The book formed the basis of Charlie Kaufman's script for the Spike Jonze film "Adaptation." Orlean (portrayed by Meryl Streep, who won a Golden Globe for the performance) was, in effect, made into a fictional character. The movie portrayed her becoming Laroche's lover and partner in a drug production operation, in which orchids were processed into a psychoactive substance.


title: Susan Orlean

text: She also wrote the "Women's Outside" article "Life's Swell", published in 1998. That article, a feature on a group of young surfer girls in Maui, was the basis of the film "Blue Crush".


title: Susan Orlean

text: In 1999, she co-wrote "The Skinny: What Every Skinny Woman Knows About Dieting (And Won't Tell You!)" under her married name, Susan Sistrom. Her previously published magazine stories have been compiled in two collections, "The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People" and "My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere". She also served as editor for "Best American Essays 2005" and "Best American Travel Writing 2007". She contributed the Ohio chapter in "State By State" (2008), and in 2011 she published a biographical history of the dog actor Rin Tin Tin titled "Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend".


title: Susan Orlean

text: When Orlean's son had a school assignment to interview a city employee, he chose a librarian and together they visited the Studio City branch of the Los Angeles Public Library system which reignited her own childhood passion for libraries. After an immersive project involving three years of research and two years of writing on the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Central Library, "The Library Book" was released in October 2018. The book uses the context of the April 1986 fire to explore the role of the public library, who uses them, and the void created if they are lost. Orlean hired a fact-checker to ensure the book was accurate, explaining "I don't want a substantial error that changes the meaning of my book, but I also don't want silly errors". She collaborated on the adaption for television.


title: Susan Orlean

text: In 2021, Orlean joined the writing staff of television series "How To with John Wilson" for the show's second season on HBO.


title: Susan Orlean

text: Orlean married lawyer Peter Sistrom (1955–2021) in 1983, and they divorced after 16 years of marriage. She was introduced by a friend to author and businessman John Gillespie, whom she married in 2001, and she gave birth to their son in 2004.


title: Susan Orlean

text: Orlean was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2004. She received an honorary Doctor of Human Letters degree from the University of Michigan at the spring commencement ceremony in 2012. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014 in the "General Nonfiction" field of study. Orlean was the winner of the 7th Annual Shorty Awards in the Author category, which honors the best social and digital media.


title: Susan Orlean

text: Orlean joined Brendan O'Meara on The Creative Nonfiction Podcast for Episode 61 to talk about the entrepreneurial nature of a writing career.


title: RCDE Stadium

text: RCDE Stadium, also known as Estadi Cornellà-El Prat (; ), is an all-seater football stadium on the outskirts of Cornellà de Llobregat and El Prat de Llobregat, in the wider Barcelona urban area (Catalonia, Spain). It took three years to build and cost approximately €60 million. Opened in August 2009, it was awarded as "Venue of the Year" getting the Stadium Business Awards on 18 June 2010 in Dublin.


title: RCDE Stadium

text: With a capacity of 40,000 seats. it is the 10th-largest stadium in Spain and the 3rd-largest in Catalonia. It became the home of RCD Espanyol in 2009, replacing their previous stadium, the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, being the 8th stadium in the club's history.


title: RCDE Stadium

text: The stadium is known as the Estadi Cornellà-El Prat because it is located on the borders of the municipalities Cornellà and El Prat. The club hopes to find a buyer for the naming rights for the stadium.


title: RCDE Stadium

text: After the death of club captain Daniel Jarque on 8 August 2009, just six days after the inaugural match, it was proposed that the stadium should be renamed in his honour. However, the club has not taken a definite stance on the subject.


title: RCDE Stadium

text: In July 2014, the stadium was renamed as "Power8 Stadium" for sponsorship reasons. It was discovered that Power8 was an investment fraud which duped 100s of Asian investors, organised by Bryan Cook and Thomas Yi of London Capital. In January 2016, the club renamed the stadium as "RCDE Stadium" ending the sponsorship of Power8.


title: RCDE Stadium

text: On 3 July 2010, the stadium received a live concert of American hip hop group The Black Eyed Peas, during "The E.N.D World Tour", in front of 30,000 fans.


title: RCDE Stadium

text: On 1 June 2019, German metal band Rammstein performed at the stadium as part of their Europe Stadium Tour 2019 with 33,825 fans in attendance.


title: Manhole cover

text: A manhole cover or maintenance hole cover is a removable plate forming the lid over the opening of a manhole, an opening large enough for a person to pass through that is used as an access point for an underground vault or pipe. It is designed to prevent anyone or anything from falling in, and to keep out unauthorized persons and material.


title: Manhole cover

text: Manhole covers date back at least to the era of ancient Rome, which had sewer grates made from stone.


title: Manhole cover

text: Manhole covers are often made out of cast iron, concrete or a combination of the two. This makes them inexpensive, strong, and heavy, usually weighing more than . The weight helps to keep them in place when traffic passes over them, and makes it difficult for unauthorized people without suitable tools to remove them.


title: Manhole cover

text: Manhole covers may also be made from glass-reinforced plastic or other composite material (especially in Europe, or where cover theft is of concern). Because of law restricting acceptable manual handling weights, Europe has seen a move towards lighter weight composite manhole cover materials, which also have the benefits of greater slip resistance and electrical insulating properties.


title: Manhole cover

text: A manhole cover sits on a metal base, with a smaller inset rim which fits the cover. The base and cover are sometimes called "castings", because they are usually made by a casting process, typically sand-casting techniques.


title: Manhole cover

text: The covers usually feature "pick holes", into which a hook handle tool is inserted to lift them. Pick holes can be concealed for a more watertight lid, or can allow light to shine through. A manhole pick or hook is typically used to lift them, though other tools can be used as well, including electromagnets.


title: Manhole cover

text: Although the covers are too large to be easily collectible, their ubiquity and the many patterns and descriptions printed on them has led some people to collect pictures of covers from around the world. According to Remo Camerota, the author of a book on the subject titled "Drainspotting", 95% of Japanese municipalities have their own cover design, often with colorful inlaid paint.


title: Manhole cover

text: Despite their weight and cumbersome nature, manhole covers are sometimes stolen, usually for resale as scrap, particularly when metal prices rise.


title: Manhole cover

text: Manhole covers may be marked to indicate what sort of services exist under them and what group maintains those services, such as the local water system, telecommunications firm, subway or train services, or natural gas firm.


title: Manhole cover

text: The name "manhole" is sometimes changed to make it gender neutral. The city of Berkeley, California, for example, changed the official term to "maintenance hole" in 2019.


title: Manhole cover

text: The question of why manhole covers are typically round (in some countries) was made famous by Microsoft when they began asking it as a job-interview question. Originally meant as a psychological assessment of how one approaches a question with more than one correct answer, the problem has produced a number of alternative explanations, from the tautological ("Manhole covers are round because manholes are round") to the philosophical.


title: Manhole cover

text: Other manhole shapes can be found, usually squares or rectangles. For example, in the United Kingdom nearly all manhole covers are square or rectangular and very occasionally triangular, but almost never circular. Nashua, New Hampshire, is unusual for having triangular manhole covers that point in the direction of the underlying flow. In 2011, the city began gradually phasing out the triangles, which were made by a local foundry, because they were not large enough to meet modern safety standards and a manufacturer for larger triangles could not be found. Some manhole covers in Hamilton, Bermuda, are triangular, and hinged. Some triangular water-main covers also exist in San Francisco.


title: Manhole cover

text: A robotics research paper in 2011 suggested that robots could examine the shapes of specific manhole covers and use them to calculate their geographic position, as a double-check on GPS data.


title: Manhole cover

text: In urban areas, stray voltage issues have become a significant concern for utilities. On January 16, 2004, Jodie S. Lane was electrocuted after stepping on a metal manhole cover, while walking her dog in New York City. As result of this and other incidents, increased attention has been focused on these hazards, including technical conferences on stray voltage detection and prevention.


title: Manhole cover

text: Insulation failures can be caused by road salt, age, rats biting the wires, or vibrations from traffic.


title: Manhole cover

text: Electrical arcing can ignite insulation, leaking natural gas, methane from decaying organic matter, fumes from smouldering insulation, or even gasoline poured down the toilet. This can cause a fire, power outages, and in some cases, an explosion. In the United States, they are most common in New York City, with 3,369 "manhole events", including 32 explosions recorded in 2014. They were most common in summer due to increased electricity use. Chicago reported fewer than 10 events with no explosions, despite also using road salt in the winter.


title: Manhole cover

text: The Boston area experienced 62 "events" in 2021 (down from 212 in 2018). As of 2022, local utility company Eversource is replacing maintenance hole 38,000 covers, starting in high-traffic areas, with a safer design. A rail allows the cover to lift up to and let gases escape, but prevents it from flying into the air and damaging buildings or cars or injuring pedestrians. In some places where road salt is not a concern, the covers have vents to let gases escape. To prevent and mitigate safety problems, the company is also installing monitoring equipment to detect dangerous gases and fires, and increasing inspection frequency.


title: Manhole cover

text: Because of their aerodynamic design, some modern racing cars create enough vacuum to lift a manhole cover off its recess. During races on city streets, manhole covers must therefore be welded or locked down to prevent injury. In 1990, during the Group C World Sportscar Championship race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve (located in a public park in Montreal, Quebec), a Brun Motorsport Porsche 962 struck a manhole cover that was lifted by the ground effect of the car he was following, a Courage C24 Porsche. This caused the trailing Porsche to catch fire, and safety issues ended the race shortly afterwards.


title: Manhole cover

text: Manhole cover theft can be a serious problem in China, where missing manhole covers caused at least eight deaths in 2004. According to China's Xinhua News Agency, about "240,000 manhole and street-drain covers were stolen in Beijing in 2004."


title: Manhole cover

text: In "China Shakes the World", James Kynge describes the phenomenon:...in the several weeks beginning in mid-February 2004, when, slowly at first but with mounting velocity, manhole covers started to disappear from roads and pavements around the world. As Chinese demand drove up the price of scrap metal to record levels, thieves almost everywhere had the same idea. As darkness fell, they levered up the iron covers and sold them to local merchants, who cut them up and loaded them onto ships to China. The first displacements were felt in Taiwan, the island country just off China's southeast coast. The next were in other neighbors such as Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan... Wherever the sun set, pilferers worked to satisfy China's hunger. More than 150 covers disappeared during one month in Chicago. Scotland's "great drain robbery" saw more than a hundred vanish in a few days. From Montreal to Gloucester to Kuala Lumpur, unsuspecting pedestrians stumbled into holes.In Newham, East London, nearly 200 grates and covers were stolen in 2004. A manhole cover designed by artist Antony Gormley was stolen in 2013, ten years after its installation.


title: Manhole cover

text: In the city of Kolkata, India more than 10,000 manhole covers were taken in two months in 2004. These were replaced with concrete covers, but these were also stolen, this time for the rebar inside them.


title: Manhole cover

text: In March and April 2012, Ajax, Ontario and Niagara Falls, Ontario had dozens of manhole covers stolen.


title: Manhole cover

text: According to urban legend, a manhole cover was accidentally launched from its shaft during an underground nuclear test in the 1950s, at high enough speed to achieve escape velocity. The myth is based on a real incident during the Operation Plumbbob nuclear tests, when a steel plate cap was blasted off the test shaft at an unknown speed, and appears as a blur on a single frame of film of the test; it was never recovered, but it likely burned up in the atmosphere due to friction. A calculation before the event gave a predicted speed of six times Earth escape velocity, but the calculation is not likely to have been accurate. After the event, Dr. Robert R. Brownlee described the best estimate of the cover's speed from the photographic evidence as "going like a bat out of hell!"


title: Manhole cover

text: The European norm of 1994 applies to manhole and storm drain tops with a clear opening up to 1 m for areas subjected to pedestrian or vehicular traffic (covers with a clear opening over 1 m are specified in the British Standard BS9124 for example). EN 124 specifies several weight classes depending on the application and is also being used in some countries outside the European Union. The lightest class A15 (cast iron) manhole cover can withstand a maximum weight of 1.5 tonnes. It would typically be restricted to light duty applications in pedestrian areas, gardens, patios, driveways and similar. The heaviest F900 class manhole cover would typically be used in docks, airports and other extreme heavy-duty applications. By contrast, the heaviest class F900 manhole cover can withstand a maximum weight of 90 tons, making it suitable for docks, airports, and extreme heavy duty applications.


title: Manhole cover

text: EN 124 does not apply for gratings of prefabricated drainage channels (according to EN 1433) or floor and roof gullies in buildings (specified in EN 1253-1).


title: Manhole cover

text: The Fabricated Access Covers Trade Association (FACTA) provides its own specification which came into effect in 2013. It has a similar scope as the EN 124, focuses on wheel loadings and is based on the European standards for structural steelwork.


title: Manhole cover

text: The FACTA specification applies to solid top covers, recessed covers designed for structural or non-structural infill and surface drainage products.


title: Manhole cover

text: In Japan, a number of manhole covers have been featuring artistic designs since the 1980s. There is enough interest in them to allow merchandise and conventions, with an estimated 12,000 designs spread across Japan by 2019. These could be found in nearly all cities and towns in the country. Popular media franchises, such as Gundam and Pokémon, have also been featured in the covers with hundreds of Pokémon-themed manhole covers across Japan.


title: Arctic Dogs

text: Arctic Dogs (also known as Arctic Justice or Polar Squad in the UK) is a 2019 computer-animated comedy film co-written and directed by Aaron Woodley and co-directed by Dimos Vrysellas. The film stars the voices of Jeremy Renner, Heidi Klum, James Franco, John Cleese, Omar Sy, Michael Madsen, Laurie Holden, Anjelica Huston, and Alec Baldwin. Entertainment Studios released the film on November 1 in Canada and the United States. It was a box-office bomb, grossing less than a fifth of its production budget of $50 million, and was panned by critics.


title: Arctic Dogs

text: Swifty the Arctic Fox (Jeremy Renner) works in the mailroom of the Arctic Blast Delivery Service, but he has much bigger dreams. He wishes to become a Top Dog, the Arctic's star husky couriers. To prove he can do it, he commandeers one of the sleds and delivers a mysterious package to a secret location. Once there, he stumbles onto a hidden fortress, overseen by the nefarious Otto Von Walrus (John Cleese). The blubbery evil genius commands an army of oddly polite puffin henchmen. Swifty discovers Otto Von Walrus' villainous plan to drill beneath the snow-packed surface to unleash masses of ancient gas to melt the Arctic and become the world's supreme ruler. To stop this sinister scheme, Swifty enlists the help of his friends: P.B.(Alec Baldwin), a neurotic polar bear, Lemmy (James Franco), a scatterbrained albatross, Jade Fox (Heidi Klum), a brainy red fox engineer and Swifty's love interest, Leopold (Omar Sy) and Bertha (also voiced by Heidi Klum), two conspiracy theorist otters, and Magda (Anjelica Huston), his curmudgeonly caribou boss.


title: Arctic Dogs

text: "Arctic Dogs" was released on November 1, 2019, in both Canada and the United States. Lionsgate Home Entertainment released it on DVD and Blu-ray on February 4, 2020. It made $1.3 million in total US video sales.


title: Arctic Dogs

text: In the United States and Canada, "Arctic Dogs" was released alongside "Harriet", "", and "Motherless Brooklyn", and was projected to gross $5–10 million from 2,835 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $700,000 on its first day, and ended up debuting to just $2.9 million, finishing 10th and marking the worst opening of all-time for a film playing in over 2,800 theaters.


title: Arctic Dogs

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews and an average rating of . Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 28 out of 100 based on four critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 64% and a 41% "definite recommend".


title: Arctic Dogs

text: A web series set after the events of the film titled "Arctic Friends" was released on September 15, 2020 on both Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video, consisting of 40 collections (160 shorts). Another spin-off series titled "Puffins" was also released, featuring the voice of Johnny Depp as Johnny Puff. A spin-off of "Puffins", entitled "Puffins Impossible", is slated for release and is to consist of 16 five-minute episodes with Depp to reprise his role as Puff.


title: Arctic Dogs

text: Αlso released two Christmas live action/animation spin off films titled Christmas Thieves (2021) and The Good Witch of Christmas (2022)


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: The Panama–Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California, United States, from February 20 to December 4, 1915. Its stated purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely seen in the city as an opportunity to showcase its recovery from the 1906 earthquake. The fair was constructed on a site along the northern shore, between the Presidio and Fort Mason, now known as the Marina District.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: Among the exhibits at the Exposition was the "C. P. Huntington", the first steam locomotive purchased by Southern Pacific Railroad; the locomotive is now on static display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. A telephone line was also established to New York City so people across the continent could hear the Pacific Ocean. The Liberty Bell traveled by train on a nationwide tour from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to attend the exposition.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: The 1915 American Grand Prize and Vanderbilt Cup auto races were held February 27 and March 6 on a circuit set up around the Exposition grounds. The Smithsonian Institution also had an exhibition at the Exposition.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: Native American culture was a topic of interest during the nine-month-long exposition with multiple attractions dedicated to Native American life. The most popular attraction at the exposition that depicted Native American life is James Earle Fraser's statue "The End of the Trail". Fraser's statue, which showed a Native American man slumped over on a horse, reflected the American idea at the time, that the Native American race was doomed for extinction. The exposition not only celebrated the completion of the Panama Canal, but also advances made by the American people, part of which were the conquests of indigenous people by Americans as well as Europeans. These celebrations over the Native community, can be seen through artworks such as "The End of the Trail" and "The Pioneer" or tributes to Francisco Pizarro and Hernán Cortés. In comparison to previous world fairs, the Panama–Pacific International Exposition showcased Native Americans more as nobles rather than savage people, but who were still inevitably destined to become extinct. These ideas were presented in plays, known as pageants, where Native Americans played small roles such as in “Catalonian dragoons, muleteers, and a tribe of Carmel Indians.” While the demise of Native American people was a rhetoric created by fair organizers, scholars have argued that in reality, the Native persona was very present and did not reflect the idea that it was a disappearing civilization. Indians were in fact part of the fair, but also attended as visitors, performers, and workers. More recently, scholars have focused on Native representation in San Francisco's 1915 rival world fair, San Diego's 1915 Panama-California Exposition, that showed Native American life in a more anthropological light versus this American ideal.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: During the Panama–Pacific International Exposition women were in charge of their own board, known as the Woman's Board of San Francisco's Panama–Pacific International Exposition. The board, also called the Board of Lady Managers, allowed women to take part in organizing different aspects of the fair and more importantly gave them the opportunity to have a campaigning platform for discussing women's rights and social issues. It was commonly argued that the fair celebrated male dominance over women by not providing a building for women. Also, men and women were depicted differently in artworks advertising the exposition. White women, specifically, were presented as caretakers while men as strong and powerful saviors, such as in the poster “13th Labor of Hercules.”


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: At the time, there was an idea of a “New Woman” who was more progressive and advanced intellectually and sexually. This idea of a “New Woman” related to the overarching themes of the fair: modernity, and progress. In efforts to promote the fair, organizers used the “New Woman” as an advertising tactic and proof that San Francisco was an evolving and safe environment for tourists. During the fair, women could be seen posing with agriculture from around the state in celebration of California's produce. All the women were young, beautiful white women who were often the highlight of newspaper articles and events. This use of women presented the idea that they were useful only for their beauty but failed to appreciate their intellectual capacity and physical abilities.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: One of the most memorable achievements of the Women's Board was the installation of statues that celebrated women, specifically mothers, known as the "Pioneer Mother."


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: The centerpiece was the Tower of Jewels, which rose to and was covered with over 100,000 cut glass Novagems. The colored "gems" sparkled in sunlight throughout the day and were illuminated by over 50 powerful electrical searchlights at night.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: South of the Tower, the Fountain of Energy flowed at the center of the South Gardens, flanked by the Palace of Horticulture on the west and the Festival Hall to the east. The arch of the Tower served as the gateway to the Court of the Universe, leading to the Court of the Four Seasons to the west and the Court of Abundance to the east. These courts formed the primary exhibit area for the fair, which included the Palaces of Food Products , Agriculture , Liberal Arts , and Education and Social Economy and surrounding the Court of the Four Seasons; and the Palaces of Transportation , Mines and Metallurgy , Varied Industries , and Manufacturers surrounding the Court of Abundance.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: The central court group was bookended on the east by the Palace of Machinery , the largest of all the halls built for the Exhibition, and on the west by the Palace of Fine Arts , which survives onsite.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: Further west into the Presidio, down The Avenue of the Nations, were national and states' buildings, displaying customs and products unique to the area represented. The far western end of the Fair, past the states' pavilions, was reserved for live stock exhibits . At the opposite end of the Fair, near Fort Mason was "The Zone", an avenue of popular amusements and concessions stands.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: Constructed from temporary materials (primarily staff, a combination of plaster and burlap fiber), almost all the fair's various buildings and attractions were pulled down in late 1915. Intended to fall into pieces at the close of the fair (reportedly because the architect believed every great city needed ruins), the only presently-surviving building on the Exposition grounds, Bernard Maybeck's Palace of Fine Arts, remained in place, slowly falling into disrepair. The hall, used to display painting and sculpture during the Fair, was repurposed as a garage for jeeps during World War II. The Palace, including the colonnade with its signature weeping women and rotunda dome, was completely reconstructed in the 1960s and a seismic retrofit was completed in early 2009. The Exploratorium, an interactive science museum, occupied the northern 2/3 of the Palace from 1969 to 2013; the city-owned Palace of Fine Arts Theater, has occupied the southern 1/3 since 1970.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: Several other buildings were saved immediately following the Exposition, including the California, Missouri, and Philippine buildings, which were built on government land.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: Buildings from the Exposition that still stand today (other than the Palace of Fine Arts) include what is now called the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium at Civic Center Plaza and the Japanese Tea house, which was barged down the Bay to Belmont, California, and operated successively as a private residence, speakeasy, and restaurant.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: Also surviving are the one-third scale steam locomotives of the Overfair Railroad that operated at the Exposition. They are maintained in working order at the Swanton Pacific Railroad Society located on Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's Swanton Ranch just north of Santa Cruz.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: The Legion of Honor Museum, in Lincoln Park, was the gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, wife of the sugar magnate and thoroughbred racehorse owner/breeder Adolph B. Spreckels. The building is a full-scale replica of the French Pavilion from the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, which in turn was a three-quarter-scale version of the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur also known as the Hôtel de Salm in Paris by George Applegarth and H. Guillaume. At the close of the exposition, the French government granted Spreckels permission to construct a permanent replica of the French Pavilion, but World War I delayed the groundbreaking until 1921.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: The warehouse for the exposition was moved to Fort Hunter Liggett in South Monterey County and the structure, nicknamed the "Tin Barn", has served as the base fire department for the last 30 years. After its move, it initially served as a horse barn, and since then, it has served as a gym, PX and a movie theater for the base.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: The US Post Office issued a set of four postage stamps to commemorate the exposition, with designs depicting a profile of Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1¢), the Pedro Miguel Locks of the Panama Canal (2¢), the Golden Gate (5¢), and the discovery of San Francisco Bay (10¢). The stamps were first put on sale in 1913, to promote the coming event, and perforated 12, and then reissued in 1914 and 1915, perforated 10. Their prices today range widely; the 2¢ of 1913 is available for under a dollar in used condition, while an unused 10¢ of the scarcer orange-yellow variety in 1915 can be worth up to a thousand United States dollars.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: The United States Congress authorized the San Francisco Mint (also known as "The Granite Lady") to issue a series of five commemorative coins. Said coins were the 1915-S silver Panama-Pacific half dollar and four gold coins. The denominations of the gold coins were $1, $ (quarter eagle) and $50 (in two types: a round coin, and an unusual octagonal coin). The Panama-Pacific coins have the distinction of being the first commemorative coins to bear the motto "In God We Trust", and were also the first commemoratives to be struck at a branch mint. The two lower denomination gold coins are scarce, while the two $50 ones are extremely rare. The silver half dollar had a mintage of 27,134 and in modestly worn condition is available for several hundred dollars.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: Numismatist Farran Zerbe supervised the creation of a series of commemorative medals, an award medal, a souvenir medal, and diplomas.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: In 2015, the California Historical Society, the Maybeck Foundation, and Innovation Hangar partnered with the City and County of San Francisco to commemorate the centennial of the transformative 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: On June 20, 2015 a commemorative orchestra, chorus and band concert was held at the Palace of Fine Arts to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the fair.


title: Panama–Pacific International Exposition

text: A feature film, "When the World Came to San Francisco", which tells the story of the fair, was made by writer and director R. Christian Anderson. It was part of the city's official centennial celebration sanctioned by the California Historical Society. The film had its world premiere at the de Young Fine Arts Museum in Golden Gate Park on October 30, 2015.


title: Herd behavior

text: Herd behavior is the behavior of individuals in a group acting collectively without centralized direction. Herd behavior occurs in animals in herds, packs, bird flocks, fish schools and so on, as well as in humans. Voting, demonstrations, riots, general strikes, sporting events, religious gatherings, everyday decision-making, judgement and opinion-forming, are all forms of human-based herd behavior.


title: Herd behavior

text: Raafat, Chater and Frith proposed an integrated approach to herding, describing two key issues, the mechanisms of transmission of thoughts or behavior between individuals and the patterns of connections between them. They suggested that bringing together diverse theoretical approaches of herding behavior illuminates the applicability of the concept to many domains, ranging from cognitive neuroscience to economics.


title: Herd behavior

text: A group of animals fleeing from a predator shows the nature of herd behavior, for example in 1971, in the oft cited article "Geometry For The Selfish Herd", evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton asserted that each individual group member reduces the danger to itself by moving as close as possible to the center of the fleeing group. Thus the herd appears as a unit in moving together, but its function emerges from the uncoordinated behavior of self-serving individuals.


title: Herd behavior

text: Asymmetric aggregation of animals under panic conditions has been observed in many species, including humans, mice, and ants. Theoretical models have demonstrated symmetry-breaking similar to observations in empirical studies. For example, when panicked individuals are confined to a room with two equal and equidistant exits, a majority will favor one exit while the minority will favor the other.


title: Herd behavior

text: Possible mechanisms for this behavior include Hamilton’s selfish herd theory, neighbor copying, or the byproduct of communication by social animals or runaway positive feedback.


title: Herd behavior

text: The philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche were among the first to criticize what they referred to as "the crowd" (Kierkegaard) and "herd morality" and the "herd instinct" (Nietzsche) in human society. Modern psychological and economic research has identified herd behavior in humans to explain the phenomenon of large numbers of people acting in the same way at the same time. The British surgeon Wilfred Trotter popularized the "herd behavior" phrase in his book, "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War" (1914). In "The Theory of the Leisure Class", Thorstein Veblen explained economic behavior in terms of social influences such as "emulation," where some members of a group mimic other members of higher status. In "The Metropolis and Mental Life" (1903), early sociologist George Simmel referred to the "impulse to sociability in man", and sought to describe "the forms of association by which a mere sum of separate individuals are made into a 'society' ". Other social scientists explored behaviors related to herding, such as Sigmund Freud (crowd psychology), Carl Jung (collective unconscious), Everett Dean Martin (Behavior of Crowds) and Gustave Le Bon (the popular mind).


title: Herd behavior

text: Swarm theory observed in non-human societies is a related concept and is being explored as it occurs in human society. Scottish journalist Charles Mackay identifies multiple facets of herd behaviour in his 1841 work, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.


title: Herd behavior

text: "Benign" herding behaviors may occur frequently in everyday decisions based on learning from the information of others, as when a person on the street decides which of two restaurants to dine in. Suppose that both look appealing, but both are empty because it is early evening; so at random, this person chooses restaurant A. Soon a couple walks down the same street in search of a place to eat. They see that restaurant A has customers while B is empty, and choose A on the assumption that having customers makes it the better choice. Because other passersby do the same thing into the evening, restaurant A does more business that night than B. This phenomenon is also referred as an information cascade.


title: Herd behavior

text: Crowds that gather on behalf of a grievance can involve herding behavior that turns violent, particularly when confronted by an opposing ethnic or racial group. The Los Angeles riots of 1992, New York Draft Riots and Tulsa Race Riot are notorious in U.S. history. The idea of a "group mind" or "mob behavior" was put forward by the French social psychologists Gabriel Tarde and Gustave Le Bon.


title: Herd behavior

text: Sheeple (; a portmanteau of "sheep" and "people") is a derogatory term that highlights the passive herd behavior of people easily controlled by a governing power or market fads which likens them to sheep, a herd animal that is "easily" led about. The term is used to describe those who voluntarily acquiesce to a suggestion without any significant critical analysis or research, in large part due to the majority of a population having a similar mindset. Word Spy defines it as "people who are meek, easily persuaded, and tend to follow the crowd (sheep + people)". Merriam-Webster defines the term as "people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced: people likened to sheep". The word is "pluralia tantum", which means it does not have a singular form.


title: Herd behavior

text: While its origins are unclear, the word was used by W. R. Anderson in his column "Round About Radio", published in London 1945, where he wrote:The simple truth is that you can get away with anything, in government. That covers almost all the evils of the time. Once in, nobody, apparently, can turn you out. The People, as ever (I spell it "Sheeple"), will stand anything.Another early use was from Ernest Rogers, whose 1949 book "The Old Hokum Bucket" contained a chapter entitled "We the Sheeple". "The Wall Street Journal" first reported the label in print in 1984; the reporter heard the word used by the proprietor of the American Opinion bookstore. In this usage, taxpayers were derided for their blind conformity as opposed to those who thought independently. The term was first popularized in the late 1980s and early 1990s by conspiracy theorist and broadcaster Bill Cooper on his radio program "The Hour of the Time" which was broadcast internationally via shortwave radio stations. The program gained a small, yet dedicated following, inspiring many individuals who would later broadcast their own radio programs critical of the United States government. This then led to its regular use on the radio program "Coast to Coast AM" by Art Bell throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. These combined factors significantly increased the popularity of the word and led to its widespread use.


title: Herd behavior

text: The term can also be used for those who seem inordinately tolerant, or welcoming, of widespread policies. In a column entitled "A Nation of Sheeple", columnist Walter E. Williams writes, "Americans sheepishly accepted all sorts of Transportation Security Administration nonsense. In the name of security, we've allowed fingernail clippers, eyeglass screwdrivers, and toy soldiers to be taken from us prior to boarding a plane."


title: Herd behavior

text: Currency crises tend to display herding behavior when foreign and domestic investors convert a government's currency into physical assets (like gold) or foreign currencies when they realize the government is unable to repay its debts. This is called a speculative attack and it will tend to cause moderate inflation in the short term. When consumers realize that the inflation of needed commodities is increasing, they will begin to stockpile and hoard goods, which will accelerate the rate of inflation even faster. This will ultimately crash the currency and likely lead to civil unrest.


title: Herd behavior

text: Large stock market trends often begin and end with periods of frenzied buying (bubbles) or selling (crashes). Many observers cite these episodes as clear examples of herding behavior that is irrational and driven by emotion—greed in the bubbles, fear in the crashes. Individual investors join the crowd of others in a rush to get in or out of the market.


title: Herd behavior

text: Some followers of the technical analysis school of investing see the herding behavior of investors as an example of extreme market sentiment. The academic study of behavioral finance has identified herding in the collective irrationality of investors, particularly the work of Nobel laureates Vernon L. Smith, Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman, and Robert Shiller. Hey and Morone (2004) analyzed a model of herd behavior in a market context.


title: Herd behavior

text: Some empirical works on methods for detecting and measuring the extent of herding include Christie and Huang (1995) and Chang, Cheng and Khorana (2000). These results refer to a market with a well-defined fundamental value. A notable incident of possible herding is the 2007 uranium bubble, which started with flooding of the Cigar Lake Mine in Saskatchewan, during the year 2006.


title: Herd behavior

text: There are two strands of work in economic theory that consider why herding occurs and provide frameworks for examining its causes and consequences.


title: Herd behavior

text: The first of these strands is that on herd behavior in a non-market context. The seminal references are Banerjee (1992) and Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer and Welch (1992), both of which showed that herd behavior may result from private information not publicly shared. More specifically, both of these papers showed that individuals, acting sequentially on the basis of private information and public knowledge about the behavior of others, may end up choosing the socially undesirable option. A large subsequent literature has examined the causes and consequences of such "herds" and information cascades.


title: Herd behavior

text: The second strands concerns information aggregation in market contexts. A very early reference is the classic paper by Grossman and Stiglitz (1976) that showed that uninformed traders in a market context can become informed through the price in such a way that private information is aggregated correctly and efficiently. Subsequent work has shown that markets may systematically overweight public information; it has also studied the role of strategic trading as an obstacle to efficient information aggregation.


title: Herd behavior

text: Herd behavior is often a useful tool in marketing and, if used properly, can lead to increases in sales and changes to the structure of society. Whilst it has been shown that financial incentives cause action in large numbers of people, herd mentality often wins out in a case of "Keeping up with the Joneses".


title: Herd behavior

text: Communications technologies have contributed to the proliferation to consumer choice and "the power of crowds", Consumers increasingly have more access to opinions and information from both opinion leaders and formers on platforms that have largely user-generated content, and thus have more tools with which to complete any decision-making process. Popularity is seen as an indication of better quality, and consumers will use the opinions of others posted on these platforms as a powerful compass to guide them towards products and brands that align with their preconceptions and the decisions of others in their peer groups. Taking into account differences in needs and their position in the socialization process, Lessig & Park examined groups of students and housewives and the influence that these reference groups have on one another. By way of herd mentality, students tended to encourage each other towards beer, hamburger and cigarettes, whilst housewives tended to encourage each other towards furniture and detergent. Whilst this particular study was done in 1977, one cannot discount its findings in today's society. A study done by Burke, Leykin, Li and Zhang in 2014 on the social influence on shopper behavior shows that shoppers are influenced by direct interactions with companions, and as a group size grows, herd behaviour becomes more apparent. Discussions that create excitement and interest have greater impact on touch frequency and purchase likelihood grows with greater involvement caused by a large group. Shoppers in this Midwestern American shopping outlet were monitored and their purchases noted, and it was found up to a point, potential customers preferred to be in stores which had moderate levels of traffic. The other people in the store not only served as company, but also provided an inference point on which potential customers could model their behavior and make purchase decisions, as with any reference group or community.


title: Herd behavior

text: Social media can also be a powerful tool in perpetuating herd behaviour. Its immeasurable amount of user-generated content serves as a platform for opinion leaders to take the stage and influence purchase decisions, and recommendations from peers and evidence of positive online experience all serve to help consumers make purchasing decisions. Gunawan and Huarng's 2015 study concluded that social influence is essential in framing attitudes towards brands, which in turn leads to purchase intention. Influencers form norms which their peers are found to follow, and targeting extroverted personalities increases chances of purchase even further. This is because the stronger personalities tend to be more engaged on consumer platforms and thus spread word of mouth information more efficiently. Many brands have begun to realise the importance of brand ambassadors and influencers, and it is being shown more clearly that herd behaviour can be used to drive sales and profits exponentially in favour of any brand through examination of these instances.


title: Herd behavior

text: Marketing can easily transcend beyond commercial roots, in that it can be used to encourage action to do with health, environmentalism and general society. Herd mentality often takes a front seat when it comes to social marketing, paving the way for campaigns such as Earth Day, and the variety of anti-smoking and anti-obesity campaigns seen in every country. Within cultures and communities, marketers must aim to influence opinion leaders who in turn influence each other, as it is the herd mentality of any group of people that ensures a social campaign's success. A campaign run by Som la Pera in Spain to combat teenage obesity found that campaigns run in schools are more effective due to influence of teachers and peers, and students' high visibility, and their interaction with one another. Opinion leaders in schools created the logo and branding for the campaign, built content for social media and led in-school presentations to engage audience interaction. It was thus concluded that the success of the campaign was rooted in the fact that its means of communication was the audience itself, giving the target audience a sense of ownership and empowerment. As mentioned previously, students exert a high level of influence over one another, and by encouraging stronger personalities to lead opinions, the organizers of the campaign were able to secure the attention of other students who identified with the reference group.


title: Herd behavior

text: Herd behaviour not only applies to students in schools where they are highly visible, but also amongst communities where perceived action plays a strong role. Between 2003 and 2004, California State University carried out a study to measure household conservation of energy, and motivations for doing so. It was found that factors like saving the environment, saving money or social responsibility did not have as great an impact on each household as the perceived behaviour of their neighbours did. Although the financial incentives of saving money, closely followed by moral incentives of protecting the environment, are often thought of as being a community's greatest guiding compass, more households responded to the encouragement to save energy when they were told that 77% of their neighbours were using fans instead of air conditioning, proving that communities are more likely to engage in a behaviour if they think that everyone else is already taking part.


title: Herd behavior

text: Herd behaviours shown in the two examples exemplify that it can be a powerful tool in social marketing, and if harnessed correctly, has the potential to achieve great change. It is clear that opinion leaders and their influence achieve huge reach among their reference groups and thus can be used as the loudest voices to encourage others in any collective direction.


title: I Started a Joke

text: "I Started a Joke" is a song by the Bee Gees from their 1968 album "Idea", which was released as a single in December of that year. It was not released as a single in the United Kingdom, where buyers who could not afford the album had to content themselves with a Polydor version by Heath Hampstead. This is the last Bee Gees single to feature Vince Melouney's guitar work, as he left the band in early December after this song was released as a single.


title: I Started a Joke

text: The song's B-side was "Kilburn Towers", except in France, where "Swan Song" was used. "I Started a Joke" was written by Robin mainly, with help from Barry and Maurice Gibb on the bridge. It was produced by the Bee Gees with Robert Stigwood.


title: I Started a Joke

text: Songs for the "Idea" album were completed on 20 June. "I Started A Joke" was the last to be recorded.


title: I Started a Joke

text: According to Robin Gibb, the melancholic melody of the song was inspired by the sounds on board an aeroplane:


title: I Started a Joke

text: "There was a lot of that in those days" Barry laughed, "There was a lot of psychedelia and the idea that if you wrote something, even if it sounded ridiculous, somebody would find the meaning for it, and that was the truth".


title: I Started a Joke

text: The song was originally recorded in the key of G major and has two contrasting sections. The verse sections consist of a cycle of G Bm C and D chords. The chords for the bridge section are Em Bm C G Bm Em Am D.


title: I Started a Joke

text: The promotional video for "I Started a Joke" was directed by Jean-Christophe Averty. It was filmed in Brussels as part of the "Idea TV Special" and features floating question marks on the song while Robin sings. In the video, Maurice is shown playing a Rickenbacker 4001 and Vince Melouney playing a Gibson ES-335.


title: I Started a Joke

text: The song reached #1 in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. In Canada, it spent two weeks as the number one in "RPM" charts. "I Started a Joke" debuted at #66 at the United States "Cashbox" magazine in the week of 14 December 1968.


title: I Started a Joke

text: Robin Gibb's son played "I Started a Joke" on his phone just after his father died on 20 May 2012. Robin-John Gibb told "The Sun":


title: I Started a Joke

text: When he passed away we went out, they took the equipment away and we came back in, I picked up my phone and found "I Started a Joke" on YouTube and played it. I put the phone on his chest and that was the first time I broke down. I knew that song and its lyrics were perfect for that moment. That song will always have new meaning to me now.


title: I Started a Joke

text: "Cash Box" described it as being in the Bee Gees' "softer" style, saying it was more in the style of "Words" than "Gotta Get a Message to You," and said that the "paradoxical imagery offers magnetic charm to mystical interpretation."


title: I Started a Joke

text: Faith No More originally covered "I Started a Joke" as a B-side for their 1995 single "Digging the Grave". It also appeared on some versions of their fifth studio album "King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime" but following the band's dissolution in 1998 it was released as a single with their greatest hits album "Who Cares a Lot?". The music video was filmed on 8 September 1998, after Faith No More had disbanded five months earlier and featured none of the band members. It was directed by Vito Rocco, filmed by Nick Sawyer with make-up by Julie Nightingale and Dani Richardson with Gabi Norland as the clapper loader. British actors Martin Freeman and Shaun Dingwall both feature in the promo, along with performance artist David Hoyle as the karaoke singer, and also stars Michelle Butterly of the ITV series, "Benidorm". Derren Litten, the writer of "Benidorm" and a contributor to "The Catherine Tate Show", is also seen in the video.


title: I Started a Joke

text: "I Started a Joke" was parodied by a "Radio Free Vestibule" sketch in which a voiced-over commentary takes the lyrics completely literally, appeared on the film "Zoolander" as covered by The Wallflowers.


title: I Started a Joke

text: The song "I Started a Joke" was featured heavily in the ending of the film "Penn & Teller Get Killed", which features the two magicians playing a succession of increasingly elaborate practical jokes on each other with a fatal conclusion.


title: I Started a Joke

text: "I Started a Joke" was recited in "The Fighter", when Dickie Eklund (Christian Bale) sings it in an attempt to console his mother Alice (Melissa Leo) following an attempt by him to hide his crack addiction.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: Citizens United is a conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization in the United States founded in 1988. In 2010, the organization won a U.S. Supreme Court case known as "Citizens United v. FEC", which struck down as unconstitutional a federal law prohibiting corporations and unions from making expenditures in connection with federal elections. The organization's current president and chairman is David Bossie.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: Citizens United's stated mission is to restore the United States government to "citizens' control, through a combination of education, advocacy, and grass-roots organization" seeking to "reassert the traditional American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security." Citizens United is a conservative political advocacy group organized under Section 501(c)4 of the federal tax code, meaning that donations are not tax deductible. To fulfill this mission, Citizens United produces television commercials, web advertisements, and documentary films. CU films have won film festival awards, including "Perfect Valor" (Best Documentary at the GI Film Festival) and "Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny" (Remi Award at Houston Worldfest International Festival).


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: David Bossie has been its president since 2000. In 2016 he took a leave of absence to be deputy campaign manager of Donald Trump's campaign for President of the United States. Its offices are on Pennsylvania Avenue in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, D.C.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: The political action committee Citizens United was founded in 1988 by Floyd Brown, a longtime Washington political consultant. The group promotes free enterprise, socially conservative causes and candidates who advance their mission.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: Citizens United is known for its support of conservatives in politics. The group produced a television advertisement that reveals several legislative actions taken by John McCain, which aired on Fox News Channel. On October 2, 2006, in reaction to revelations of a cover-up of inappropriate communications between Republican Congressman Mark Foley and House pages, Citizens United president David Bossie called on Dennis Hastert to resign over his role in covering up the scandal.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: The group sued and lost a case against New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman over Schneiderman's demand that it disclose all its donors.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: In 1999, Citizens United wrote and funded a VHS tape produced by The Strategy Group on the Clinton administration's relationship with Chinese businessmen called "The Truth Revealed... Confidential Report: Bill Clinton, Al Gore and the Communist Chinese Connection". It is written and hosted by then company president, Floyd G. Brown.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: Citizens United campaigned against Michael Moore's 2004 film "Fahrenheit 9/11", advocating for government limits on how much advertising the film received. It also made advertisements attacking the film, and when the Federal Election Commission held that Moore's film was not a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act, produced its own rebuttal film called "Celsius 41.11." However, the FEC held that paying to air "Celsius 41.11" would constitute an illegal corporate campaign expenditure.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: In 2008, Citizens United produced a documentary film highly critical of Hillary Clinton called "". Fearing prosecution from the FEC, the organization sought a declaratory judgment in federal court to assure their right to show the movie, leading ultimately to the Supreme Court decision in "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission". It previously produced and screened advertisements attacking other Democrats, including Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and Al Gore. In the 1988 US presidential election, Citizens United ran an ad that used Willie Horton to attack Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: In 2016, the Donald Trump presidential campaign enlisted Citizens United President David Bossie as deputy campaign manager. During the campaign, Bossie made regular television appearances on behalf of the Trump campaign. Bossie is a close friend and longtime acquaintance of Trump administration officials Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, having introduced Bannon to Trump in 2011.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: Citizens United was the plaintiff in a Supreme Court case that began as a challenge to various statutory provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), known as the "McCain-Feingold" law. The case revolved around the documentary "Hillary: The Movie", which was produced by Citizens United. Under the McCain-Feingold law, a federal court in Washington, D.C., ruled that Citizens United would be barred from advertising its film. The case ([ 08-205], 558 U.S. 50 (2010)) was heard in the United States Supreme Court on March 24, 2009. During oral argument, the government argued that under existing precedents, it had the power under the Constitution to prohibit the publication of books and movies if they were made or sold by corporations. After that hearing, the Court requested re-argument specifically to address whether deciding the case required the Court to reconsider those earlier decisions in "Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce" and "McConnell v. FEC". The case was re-argued on September 9. On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court overturned the provision of McCain-Feingold barring corporations and unions from paying for political ads made independently of candidate campaigns. A dissenting opinion by Justice Stevens was joined by Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor.


title: Citizens United (organization)

text: Citizens United has accepted funding from The Presidential Coalition, LLC (which according to their website is "An Affiliate Of Citizens United") and the Koch brothers.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Niagara-on-the-Lake is a town in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the Niagara Peninsula at the point where the Niagara River meets Lake Ontario, across the river from New York, United States. Niagara-on-the-Lake is in the Niagara Region of Ontario and is the only town in Canada that has a lord mayor. It has a population of 17,511 (2016).


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Niagara-on-the-Lake is important in the history of Canada: it served as the first capital of the province of Upper Canada, the predecessor of Ontario, and was called Newark from 1792 to 1797. During the War of 1812, the town, the two former villages of St. David's and Queenston, and Fort George were the sites of numerous battles following the American invasion of Upper Canada, and the town was razed. Niagara-on-the-Lake is home to the oldest Catholic church and the second-oldest Anglican church in Ontario and the oldest surviving golf course in North America.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Today, Niagara-on-the-Lake draws tourists with its colonial-style buildings, the Shaw Festival, Fort George, wineries, an outlet mall on the highway, and its proximity to Niagara Falls. The Niagara Region has the second-highest percentage of seniors in Ontario.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Before the British settlers came, the point where Fort Mississauga is situated was inhabited by at least three Native American tribes: the Neutral (15th century); Seneca (late 17th century); and Mississauga (18th century).


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: The settlement was founded in 1781 as Butlersburg, in honour of Colonel John Butler, the commander of Butler's Rangers. It was later renamed West Niagara to distinguish it from Fort Niagara. It was a British military base and haven for pro-British loyalists fleeing the United States during the volatile aftermath of the American Revolution. Renamed Newark by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe in 1792, it was the first capital of Upper Canada (now the province of Ontario). The Upper Canada legislature first met at Navy Hall on September 17, 1792 and met there another four times until June 1796. In 1797, Simcoe moved the capital to York because Newark was very close to the border with the U.S. Newark was renamed Niagara in 1798.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Fort George, just south of the settlement, was built in 1796-1799. During the War of 1812, Niagara was taken in the Battle of Fort George by American forces in May 1813 after a two-day bombardment by cannon from Fort Niagara and the American fleet, followed by a fierce battle. After capturing Fort George, the Americans built their own fortifications there. The fort was retaken by the British in December 1813 but abandoned in 1815. Only a small portion of the fort remains; it has been fully restored. Fort Mississauga was built starting in 1813 but was not completed until after the war in 1816. During the war, the settlement of Niagara was razed and burnt to the ground by American soldiers as they withdrew to Fort Niagara. (Afterwards, on December 19, 1813, the British captured Fort Niagara.) The citizens rebuilt Niagara after the war, with the residential quarter around Queen Street and toward King Street, where the new court house was rebuilt out of range of Fort Niagara's cannons.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: "It has been a place of considerable trade. On the east side of the town is a large military reserve. About half a mile up the river are the ruins of Fort George, where the remains of General Brock were originally interred; they were removed. A new town-hall and court-house are intended to be erected by the town. There is a fire brigade with two engines and a hook and ladder company. Churches and chapels total five. Two newspapers are published weekly ... Steamboats run daily, as long as the weather will allow of it, from Toronto ... The Niagara Harbour and Dock Company were incorporated in the year 1830 ... the vessels turned out by the Company [include] the steamboat "London," which commenced running in the spring of 1845, the fastest boat on the upper lakes... The Company usually employ about 150 hands; and, when particularly busy, have employed as many as 350. There is also on the premises a marine railway, large enough for hauling up vessels of the first class. Post Office, post every day. Professions and Trades.—Three physicians and surgeons, nine lawyers, twelve stores, taverns, two chemists and druggists, three booksellers and stationers, two saddlers, four wagon makers, two watchmakers, two tallow-chandlers, marble works, two printers, two cabinet makers, one hatter, four bakers, two livery stables, two tinsmiths, three blacksmiths, six tailors, seven shoemakers, one tobacconist, one bank agency, ... large quantities of apples, peaches, and cider are shipped annually."


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: In 1859, the town built its first public school, Niagara Public School. The town's present name of Niagara-on-the-Lake was adopted around 1880 as a postal address to distinguish the town from Niagara Falls. The name was officially adopted in 1970, when the Town of Niagara and the Township of Niagara merged.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Most of the former military sites, such as Fort George, Navy Hall, and Butler's Barracks, have been restored. Fort George's restoration was done as a "Make Work Project," guided by plans from the Royal Engineers during the Great Depression of the 1930s, an early example of historic preservation. Fort George National Historic Site is a focal point in a collection of War of 1812 sites which, collectively, are managed by Parks Canada under the name Niagara National Historic Sites. That administrative name includes several national historic sites: Fort Mississauga, Mississauga Point Lighthouse (1804, the first on the Great Lakes), Navy Hall, Butler's Barracks, and Queenston Heights.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Niagara-on-the-Lake features historical plaques. Critical battles in the defence of Upper Canada took place here, and at nearby at Queenston and St. David's, both now part of Niagara-on-the-Lake. In one of these, Laura Secord gained her fame. The town gave many African-Americans their first taste of freedom, both as a stop on the Underground Railroad for those travelling further into Upper Canada and as a refuge in its own right.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Its stock of regency and classical revival buildings, considered the best in the country from the post-War of 1812 period, led the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to recommend the town's historic district be designated a National Historic Site of Canada, a designation which was approved in 2003. The historic centre had been designated as a provincial Heritage Conservation District under the "Ontario Heritage Act" in 1986. Although it did not make the final list, the historic district was considered for nomination as a World Heritage Site. The town has other National Historic Sites of Canada within its boundaries: the Battlefield of Fort George and nearby Fort George, Butler's Barracks, Fort Drummond, Fort Mississauga, the site of the Mississauga Point Lighthouse, the Niagara Apothecary (the oldest apothecary in Canada), the Niagara District Court House, Queenston Heights, Queenston-Chippawa Hydro-electric Plant, Willowbank and Vrooman's Battery.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: The Gate House built after 1849 was site of former Wilson's Hotel and inaugural meeting of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1797. John "Irish John Wilson (1744-~1798) was a sergeant with the Butler's Rangers and Loyalist from New Jersey. The stone foundation of the Gate House is the remains of the hotel after 1849 fire. His son John Wilson Jr. built the nearby Wilson-Guy House.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Niagara-on-the-Lake is within the federal electoral district of Niagara Falls, currently represented in the House of Commons of Canada by Tony Baldinelli, and the provincial electoral district of provincial electoral district of Niagara Falls, represented in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by Wayne Gates.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: It is the only municipality in Canada whose elected leader is designated as lord mayor, a title most common in the United Kingdom. Popular legend suggests Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn bestowed the title on the mayor of Niagara during a visit to the town in the early 19th century, in recognition of the town's history as the first capital of Upper Canada; however, there is no record of a mayor using it until Jerry Mussen in the early 1920s, and even afterward the title was used only irregularly until the "Regional Municipality of Niagara Act" of 1969 legislated that "The mayor of the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake shall be known as the Lord Mayor." The town's current lord mayor is Gary Zalepa, as of the 2022 municipal election. Previous lord mayors have included Patrick Darte, Dave Eke, Gary Burroughs, Art Viola, Mike Dietsch, Stan Ignatczyk, Jim Marino, Wilbert Dick, Jake Froese and Fred Goring.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Niagara-on-the-Lake experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen "Dfb" bordering on "Dfa") using the isotherm but also borders an oceanic climate (Köppen "Cfb") using the isotherm), having four seasons, with warm summers, cold winters, and cool to mild autumns and springs. Snowfall is moderate, averaging around 3 feet (92 cm) per year, which is one of lowest yearly snowfall totals received in all of Ontario. A long shoreline along Lake Ontario results in more moderate temperatures than neighbouring cities, as well as seasonal lag.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Niagara-on-the-Lake had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: In addition to the primary town site of Niagara-on-the-Lake (the Old Town), the town also includes the settlements of Colemans, Homer, McNab, Mississauga Beach, Queenston, St. Davids, and Virgil.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Glendale is located near the junction of the Queen Elizabeth Way QEW, Highway 405, and Highway 55, and adjacent to the Welland Canal. It is home to the Niagara-on-the-Lake campus of Niagara College, and a large outdoor shopping mall.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Virgil is just south-west of the Old Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, where most of the tourism takes place. The community has a large Mennonite community, who settled the area in the early to mid 20th-century from Russia. Virgil has a large sports park, serving as the centre of Niagara-on-the-Lake's bustling hockey, softball, lacrosse and soccer leagues, two arenas, three baseball diamonds and a skate park. Once a year, on the Victoria Day weekend in May, the community holds its "Virgil Stampede". The festival includes rides, attractions and its annual soccer start-up tournament. Virgil's educational institutions are St. Michael's Elementary School and Crossroads Public School, which opened in September 2011, amalgamating the now-closed Virgil and Colonel John Butler Public Schools. The town's only secondary school, Niagara District, was closed by the District School Board of Niagara in 2010.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: The Old Town also had an elementary school on King Street: Parliament Oak Public School. It was on the site of the signing of the Act Against Slavery of 1793, by the first legislative session of the parliament of Upper Canada. The school was closed on June 25, 2015.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: The town is home to the Shaw Festival, Canada's second largest producing theatre and a repertory company featuring the works of George Bernard Shaw, his contemporaries, or plays about his era (1856–1950), running from April to December. The festival operates four theatres in the centre of town: the Festival, The Jackie Maxwell Studio, The Royal George, and the Court House theatre. The Festival produces over 750 performances annually, featuring its lauded repertory ensemble and employs over 520 artists, artisans and artsworkers locally.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Along the Niagara Parkway is RiverBrink Art Museum in Queenston. It is home to a collection of over 1,400 artworks and artefacts by Canadian and international artists, assembled by Samuel E. Weir. Completed in 1970, the building features Georgian-style architecture, including a mansard roof and gabled windows. It served as Weir's country residence, and was converted into an art museum following his death in 1981.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Niagara-on-the-Lake is home to many shops, restaurants, wineries, and a growing number of breweries. Historic Old Town is a popular shopping and dining destination. In 2014, Niagara-On-The-Lake also opened an open-air outlet mall, The Outlet Collection at Niagara, which is Canada's Largest Outlet Mall (Outlet_Collection_at_Niagara).


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Niagara-on-the-Lake can be reached by Queen Elizabeth Way, a highway that stretches to Fort Erie to the south, Hamilton to the west and curves around Lake Ontario to Toronto. Public transportation is served by Niagara-on-the-Lake Transit.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Niagara-on-the-Lake had a junior men's hockey team in the Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League. The team was first registered in the 2018–19 season and played in the Meridian Credit Union arena located in Virgil. The team was named the nationals and sponsored by the local bar Bricks and Barley. It was announced that the team would fold after their first season, due to poor attendance.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: Niagara-on-the-Lake also has a Men's soccer team named the Lakers, who play in the Peninsula Soccer League (PSL). The team was formed in the 2019 season and sponsored by a local bar, Sand Trap.


title: Niagara-on-the-Lake

text: The Town of Niagara was the site of the 8th World Scout Jamboree in 1955. Over 11,000 Scouts from 71 countries attended the Jamboree. It was the first to be held outside Europe and had the theme "Jamboree of New Horizons". Niagara-on-the-Lake was named the Prettiest Town in Canada in 1996 by Communities in Bloom, a nationwide beautification programme. The town is now a popular tourist destination, located at the northern terminus of the Niagara Parkway, a scenic drive and biking/walking path.


title: Justin Jedlica

text: Justin Jedlica (born August 11, 1980), known as the "Human Ken Doll", is a Slovak-American man who has garnered international attention for undergoing many cosmetic procedures.


title: Justin Jedlica

text: At the age of seventeen, Jedlica began to research his first cosmetic procedure, rhinoplasty. Inspired by watching "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" as a teen, Jedlica saw body contouring and cosmetic surgery as emblematic of the wealthy, glamorous lifestyles he sought to emulate. His parents did not approve of cosmetic enhancements and Jedlica was forced to wait until he could legally make the choice for himself. Four days after his eighteenth birthday, Jedlica underwent his first cosmetic procedure, to reconstruct his nose.


title: Justin Jedlica

text: As of 2012, Jedlica had undergone approximately 190 cosmetic procedures. These have included rhinoplasty, chest implants, shoulder implants, bicep implants, triceps implants, brow shaving and lifts, cheek augmentations, subpectoral implants, gluteoplasty, and lip augmentations.


title: Justin Jedlica

text: Jedlica was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, the oldest of four siblings. He was brought up in Fishkill, New York and Cary, North Carolina, and graduated from Apex High School where he first discovered his passion for visual and performing arts. Jedlica was raised in the Christian faith and says he considers himself spiritual.


title: Justin Jedlica

text: Jedlica is gay and wed his partner, a successful businessman, in a civil ceremony in July 2014 after five years of dating; the couple relocated for business purposes to Chicago and resided in Trump Tower. In 2016 they divorced after two years of marriage.