Question: Who stated, "In the morning, in the evening, ain't we got fun," in The Great Gatsby?

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, the song "Ain't We Got Fun" is mentioned when Daisy Buchanan and Gatsby reunite after a long time apart, and Gatsby requests Klipspringer, his seemingly perpetual "guest," to play it for them. The song also features in Dorothy Parker's 1929 short story, "Big Blonde." Warner Brothers included the tune in two musicals from the early 1950s: The Gus Kahn biopic I'll See You in My Dreams and The Eddie Cantor Story. Woody Allen incorporated the song into his 1983 film Zelig.

Dale Cooper lies on the floor of his hotel room after being shot in the stomach. In the background, Deputy Andy Brennan calls out for Cooper from the telephone and The Waiter (Hank Worden) enters Cooper's room. He places a glass of warm milk on the table, hangs up the telephone and cannot understand Cooper's request to call a doctor. He leaves the room and re-enters twice, giving Cooper a thumbs up. A mysterious, semi-transparent figure enters the room and The Giant (Carel Struycken) appears above Cooper. The Giant tells Cooper three things: "there is a man in a smiling bag", "the owls are not what they seem" and "without chemicals, he points."[6] He asks Cooper for his ring and tells him he will return it to him when he discovers the meaning of his clues. He vanishes after giving a fourth clue: "Leo locked inside a hungry horse, there is a clue at Leo's house."[6] After The Giant vanishes, Cooper begins recording a message into his tape recorder for Diane, revealing his dying wishes. During his speech, Sheriff Truman (Michael Ontkean), Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) and Deputy Brennan enter Cooper's room with weapons drawn and bring him to the hospital.

When the pair decided to make "This Was a Real Nice Clambake" into an ensemble number, Hammerstein realized he had no idea what a clambake was like, and researched the matter.  Based on his initial findings, he wrote the line, "First came codfish chowder".  However, further research convinced him the proper term was "codhead chowder", a term unfamiliar to many playgoers.  He decided to keep it as "codfish".  When the song proceeded to discuss the lobsters consumed at the feast, Hammerstein wrote the line "We slit 'em down the back/And peppered 'em good".  He was grieved to hear from a friend that lobsters are always slit down the front.  The lyricist sent a researcher to a seafood restaurant and heard back that lobsters are always slit down the back.  Hammerstein concluded that there is disagreement about which side of a lobster is the back.  One error not caught involved the song "June Is Bustin' Out All Over", in which sheep are depicted as seeking to mate in late springâ€”they actually do so in the winter.  Whenever this was brought to Hammerstein's attention, he told his informant that 1873 was a special year, in which sheep mated in the spring.[30]

In the San Francisco Chronicle, Edward Guthmann described the film as "a silly affirmation fantasy . . . that Streisand . . . uses to prove she's really beautiful, funny and worthy of being loved, gosh darn it . . . hasn't she returned to the theme of Homely Girl Redeemed, and crowned herself the victor, countless times? Look back and you'll see that Streisand's career, from the beginning, was one long battle cry for geeks and wallflowers and Jewish girls with big noses - a series of wish-fulfillment scenarios in which she, the perennial underdog, triumphs by dint of talent, chutzpah and a really great personality . . . in its first half The Mirror is a romantic-comic delight: nicely directed . . . well-acted by a terrific cast and peppered with great one-liners . . . by the second half . . . the movie has disintegrated into a humorless, drawn-out plea for reassurance".[5]

After the trip, Claude says "I can't take this moment to moment living on the streets.... I know what I want to be... invisible". As they "look at the moon," Sheila and the others enjoy a light moment ("Good Morning Starshine"). The tribe pays tribute to an old mattress ("The Bed"). Claude is left alone with his doubts. He leaves as the tribe enters wrapped in blankets in the midst of a snow storm. They start a protest chant and then wonder where Claude has gone. Berger calls out "Claude! Claude!" Claude enters dressed in a military uniform, his hair short, but they do not see him because he is an invisible spirit. Claude says, "like it or not, they got me."

The novel also contains imagery of soil and earth.[19] This imagery appears rather famously at the start of chapter thirteen. Jordan and María have sex in a meadow in the forest. He feels "the earth move out and away from under them." Then afterwards he asks María, "Did thee feel the earth move?", to which she responds affirmatively. Variants of this phrase have become a cultural cliché,[20] often used humorously.[21]

A couple sits at a booth in a diner, while the woman (Friday Night Lights star Aasha Davis) breaks up with her boyfriend (Saturday Night Live writer and The Lonely Island band member Jorma Taccone). After receiving the plate he requested from the waitress, the man stabs himself in the chest, and pulls out his heart, places it on the plate and gives it to the woman. He explains that his heart "is actually [hers] now," that he will never be able to get over her, and says "from now on every girl that I meet will be meticulously compared to the false memory of what you and I once 'had.'" The woman offers to return it after keeping it temporarily for a "shitty day" or when she needs to move something heavy, but the man insists that he is now "heartless" and thus will passively/aggressively ruin all his future relationships. The heart then comes to life, growing arms, legs and a mouth, and begins to sing the lyrics to the song on the counters of the diner using a piece of broccoli as a microphone before finally stabbing itself with a knife and pulling the man's head out of its body. The head looks around, staring off into space. The scene cuts back to the man staring out the window as the woman speaks. The woman finally asks, "Are you even listening to me?" The man simply replies "No." Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse also made cameos as chefs in the diner.

As the story opens, the young protagonist (resembling a cat or dog) lives a happy and carefree life in the Valley of Vung, but one day, all that changes when he goes out for a stroll to look at daisies and hurts himself by tripping over a rock, which sets off the troubles he will soon face. The protagonist vows to be more careful, but a green-headed Quilligan Quail bites his tail from behind ("I learned there are troubles of more than one kind; Some come from ahead and some come from behind"). Worse still, a Skritz dives to sting his neck and a Skrink bites his toe, proving that troubles can come from all directions.

The book is set at the end of the nineteenth century. The protagonist is a 14-year-old boy named Jay Berry Lee, who had enjoyed an idyllic childhood. Born to Missouri sharecroppers, he moves with his family to Oklahoma after his grandfather offers them free land. Daisy, his sister, has a crippled leg, and they devote much effort to gaining enough money to pay for reconstructive surgery. One day, while looking for their lost milk cow, Jay Berry discovers monkeys in a nearby river bottom. Visiting his grandfather's store, he learns that they have escaped from a travelling circus, which has offered a vast reward for their capture: $100 for the chief monkey, "Jimbo", and $2 each for the others. Jay Berry makes multiple attempts to capture them using traps and a net borrowed from his grandfather, but he gains only scratches and bites from them, at one point even losing his pants in the process.

The episode features a 2.5-minute rendition of the song "Shipoopi" from the 1957 musical The Music Man, conducted by Peter and performed by the Patriots and people in the stadium.[12] The rendition was directed by Dan Povenmire, who would later go on to co-create Phineas and Ferb with fellow Family Guy worker Jeff "Swampy" Marsh. The original number in The Music Man was performed by around 40 or 50 singers and around 80 other musicians, as estimated by MacFarlane. Family Guy's rendition was recorded by an orchestra not as large as the original's, but one of the largest the show has ever used. Another musical number, in which the London Silly Nannies sing while dancing around a maypole, was taken from the Gilbert and Sullivan production The Sorcerer. A visual joke that shows Peter's $30,000 wax sculpture of Harriet Tubman "doing" a naked Gwyneth Paltrow originally featured the droid R2-D2 from Star Wars in place of Tubman. MacFarlane is a fan of Star Wars, and its characters are often featured in the series' jokes.[4] A spoof drama programme called Condensation is shown on BBC Four, which is a BBC channel dedicated to the arts, culture and factual programmes. The episode title is taken from the 1987 Tom Clancy novel Patriot Games.

Burris Ewell is a son of Bob Ewell and a younger sibling of Mayella Ewell as well as the first antagonist of the novel. Burris is described as being chiefly antagonistic of Little Chuck Little and his teacher Miss Caroline Fisher. He comes to the first day of school, but departs just as everyone else in his family does. Burris is also poor. He has live lice in his hair. Burris also scared his teacher Caroline Fisher. He behaves rudely when she tells him to go home, wash his hair, and come back clean the next day. He refuses, and a student explains to Miss Caroline that Ewell children don't attend school. All they do is show up for the first day, get marked down on the register, and then they miss the entire school year until the first day of the next year. His famous quote was, "Report and be damned to ye! Ain't no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c'n make me do nothin'! You ain't makin' me go nowhere, missus. You just remember that, you ain't makin' me go nowhere!" As of Scout's first year of school (the first grade), Burris has repeated the first grade three times. Burris is also like his father and is very belligerent.


Question: Where in the Bible are the 12 disciples mentioned?

In the New Testament, the twelve apostles are listed in four different passages: Mark 3:13-19, Matthew 10:1-4, Luke 6:12-16, and Acts 1:13. These lists consistently show that all twelve apostles were men. While the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) provide formal lists, the Gospel of John does not. Instead, John refers to "the Twelve" (John 6:67-71) without specifying their names in detail. The list in Luke differs slightly from Matthew and Mark, mentioning "Judas the son of James" instead of "Thaddeus." The Gospel of John does not distinguish between "apostles" and "disciples," and all twelve are not named explicitly.

The disciples were first called "Christians" in Antioch (as related in Acts 11:26). Accordingly, "Christians" (with the variant "Chrestians") was by 49 already a familiar term, mostly in the Latin-speaking capital of the Roman Empire. As the church spread throughout Greek-speaking Gentile lands, the appellation took prominence, and eventually became the standard reference for followers of the faith. Ignatius of Antioch was the first known Christian to use the label in self-reference and made the earliest recorded use of the term Christianity (Greek Χριστιανισμός), around AD 100.[18]

Now the whole canon of Scripture on which we say this judgment is to be exercised, is contained in the following books:â€” Five books of Moses, that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; one book of Joshua the son of Nun; one of Judges; one short book called Ruth; next, four books of Kings (the two books of Samuel and the two books of Kings), and two of Chronicles, Job, and Tobias, and Esther, and Judith, and the two books of Maccabees, and the two of Ezra ...one book of the Psalms of David; and three books of Solomon, that is to say Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes... For two books, one called Wisdom and the other Ecclesiasticus... Twelve separate books of the prophets which are connected with one another, and having never been disjoined, are reckoned as one book; the names of these prophets are as follows: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; then there are the four greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel.[49]

Ezekiel 47:13–20 provides a definition of borders of land in which the twelve tribes of Israel will live during the final redemption, at the end of days. The borders of the land described by the text in Ezekiel include the northern border of modern Lebanon, eastwards (the way of Hethlon) to Zedad and Hazar-enan in modern Syria; south by southwest to the area of Busra on the Syrian border (area of Hauran in Ezekiel); follows the Jordan River between the West Bank and the land of Gilead to Tamar (Ein Gedi) on the western shore of the Dead Sea; From Tamar to Meribah Kadesh (Kadesh Barnea), then along the Brook of Egypt (see debate below) to the Mediterranean Sea. The territory defined by these borders is divided into twelve strips, one for each of the twelve tribes.

The Book of Proverbs (Hebrew: מִשְלֵי, Míshlê (Shlomoh), "Proverbs (of Solomon)") is the second book of the third section (called Writings) of the Hebrew Bible and a book of the Christian Old Testament.[1] When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms: in the Greek Septuagint (LXX) it became Παροιμίαι Paroimiai ("Proverbs"); in the Latin Vulgate the title was Proverbia, from which the English name is derived.

Within Christianity there are a variety of views on the issues of sexual orientation and homosexuality. The many Christian denominations vary in their position, from condemning homosexual acts as sinful, through being divided on the issue, to seeing it as morally acceptable. Even within a denomination, individuals and groups may hold different views. Further, not all members of a denomination necessarily support their church's views on homosexuality. In the Bible, procreative marriage is presented as "the norm"[52] and homosexuality is discussed in the New Testament,[53] but in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries whether or not the Bible condemns homosexuality, and whether the various passages apply today, have become contentious topics.

At this point in the narrative, messengers sent from Cornelius the Centurion arrive and urge Peter to go with them. He does so, and mentions the vision as he speaks to Cornelius, saying "God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean" (Acts 10:28). Peter related the vision again in Acts 11:4-9.

Greek Psalm manuscripts from the fifth century contain three New Testament "psalms": the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Nunc dimittis from Luke's birth narrative, and the conclusion of the hymn that begins with the "Gloria in Excelsis".[37] Beckwith states that manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were not used in the first centuries of the Christian era, and believes that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, which start appearing in the fourth century AD, are all of Christian origin.[38]

The painting contains several references to the number 3, which represents the Christian belief in the Holy Trinity. The Apostles are seated in groupings of three; there are three windows behind Jesus; and the shape of Jesus' figure resembles a triangle. The painting can also be interpreted using the Fibonacci series: 1 table, 1 central figure, 2 side walls, 3 windows and figures grouped in threes, 5 groups of figures, 8 panels on the walls and 8 table legs, and 13 individual figures.[11] There may have been other references that have since been lost as the painting deteriorated.

The Gospel of Barnabas was a gospel which is claimed to be written by Barnabas one of the apostles. It contradicts the ministry of Jesus in cannonical New Testament, but has clear parallels with the Islamic faith, by mentioning Muhammad as Messenger of God. It also strongly deny Pauline doctrine, and Jesus testified himself as a prophet, not the son of God.[57]

Matthew, Mark, and Luke contain several synoptic accounts, which John occasionally concurs in.


Question: Who was the first Indian woman to be canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church?

Saint Alphonsa, born Anna Muttathupadathu, was a pioneering Indian religious sister and educator. She holds the distinction of being the first Indian woman to be canonised as a saint by the Catholic Church, as well as the first saint canonised from the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church rooted in India. Her feast day is commemorated annually on July 28th.

In 1986 when St. Joseph's Church, NTPC, Dibiyapur originated, the dream of late Rev. Fr. Issac Kochupura was fulfilled. During those initial days of the Power Plant he used to visit the Christian families at Dibiyapur and offer Holy Mass for them in the NTPC colony. As per their request it was decided to open a School for the Company employees children which was inaugurated by Rt. Rev. Dr Cecil De Sa the Archbishop of Agra on 15 July 1989.

After breaking out with his first hit album "Pack That Smack" in 1986 and "Bombay City" the next year, he became the highest-selling English rock musician in India and the only one in the country to be awarded Gold Discs in this category.[4] "Pack That Smack" became his first album to be released by a national record company, CBS. This was an anti-drugs themed album, especially against addiction to Heroin which contained songs such as Down with Brown, Just a Hippie, as well as socio-political satire such as Mr Minister – a nursery rhyme-styled song on politician who went to sleep once elected to power; and So Wie Du – a recording of an award-winning live performance. Bombay City contained hits such as Ocean Queen, Against you/Against me, and a hilarious take on the condition of telephone services in India, Ode to Graham Bell.

According to legend St Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, arrived at Muziris in present-day Kerala state in India from the Roman province of Judea in A.D. 52 and preached between A.D. 52 and A.D 72, when he was martyred on St. Thomas Mount.[1]

In May 2007, The Daily Telegraph, citing unnamed sources, reported that the Queen was "exasperated and frustrated" by the policies of the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that she was concerned the British Armed Forces were overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that she had raised concerns over rural and countryside issues with Blair.[151] She was, however, said to admire Blair's efforts to achieve peace in Northern Ireland.[152] She became the first British monarch to celebrate a diamond wedding anniversary in November 2007.[153] On 20 March 2008, at the Church of Ireland St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh, the Queen attended the first Maundy service held outside England and Wales.[154] At the invitation of the Irish President, Mary McAleese, the Queen made the first state visit to the Republic of Ireland by a British monarch in May 2011.[155]

The Shubenacadie Indian Residential School was part of the Canadian Indian residential school system and was located in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia.  It was the only one in Atlantic Canada and children from across the region were placed in the institution.[1]  The schools were funded through Indian Affairs and the Catholic Church.  The institution was like an orphanage, which were the forerunners of contemporary child protection and welfare services.[2] The first children arrived on February 5, 1930 and the institution was closed after 37 years on June 22, 1967.[3] Approximately 10% of Mi'kmaq children lived at the institution.[4]  (Approximately 30% of native children were placed in residential schools nationally.)[5] Over 1000 children are estimated to have been placed in the institution over 37 years.[6][7]

On 21 December 2015 the Goa Police issued a 2nd summons for Fernandes to appear at Agassaim police station. They had previously visited his home on 19/12/2015 and finding him absent, posted a summons on his door for him to attend the police station on the morning of 21st to answer questions in relation to him allegedly threatening a young girl as she lay in the GMC hospital after being knocked down by a car allegedly driven by his son, Jonah. The girl was walking towards Old Goa to complete her vow to St Francis Xavier when the accident happened. The police have taken witness statements from both the girl and her sister, and the GMC Hospital staff in relation to the alleged threats, which took place on 3 December (dna, 22 December 2015).

During the Portuguese rule of Goa, thousands of Hindus were coerced into accepting Christianity by the passage of laws that made it difficult for them to practice their faith, harassed them under false pretences or petty complaints, and gave favourable status to converts (indiacatos) and mestiços in terms of laws and jobs.[136] The Goa Inquisition, was established in 1560 by Portuguese missionaries in the Estado Português da Índia. The Goa Inquisition was directed against backsliding converts (that is, former Hindus and Muslims who had converted to Christianity), and it has been recorded that at least 57 Goans were executed over a period of three hundred years, starting in the year 1560.[137][138]
[137][138] The inquisition was proposed by St. Francis Xavier.[139][140]

Although derived from the same name as deacons, deaconesses have often been considered lay ministers in the church (probably at least from the time of the First Council of Nicaea, which agreed with this view). Deaconesses disappeared completely from the Western Church by the eleventh century. In 1836, Theodor and Friederike Fliedner founded the first deaconess house in Kaiserswerth on the Rhine. In 1862, the Bishop of London, Archibald Campbell Tait, restored the 'ancient order of deaconesses' with Elizabeth Ferard by the laying on of hands. Women were ordained deaconesses by the Bishop of Alabama (in 1885) and the Bishop of New York (1887), and gradually, more dioceses began to make deaconesses, but there was no clear consensus: some intended that deaconesses be in holy orders, and others did not. In churches that now ordain women, the order of deaconess has largely died out.

Keshab Chandra Sen (Bengali: কেশবচন্দ্র সেন, Keshob Chôndro Shen; also spelled, Keshub Chunder Sen) (19 November 1838 – 8 January 1884) was an Indian Bengali philosopher and social reformer. Born a Hindu, he became a member of the Brahmo Samaj in 1856[1] but founded his own breakaway "Brahmo Samaj of India" in 1866[2] while the Brahmo Samaj remained under the leadership of Maharshi Debendranath Tagore (who headed the Brahmo Samaj till his death in 1905).[3] In 1878 his followers abandoned him after the underage child marriage of his daughter which exposed his campaign against child marriage as hollow.[4] Later in his life he came under the influence of Ramakrishna and founded a syncretic "New Dispensation" or Nôbobidhan inspired by Christianity, and Vaishnav bhakti, and Hindu practices.

Among the fifteen “voodoo queens” in neighborhoods scattered around 19th-century New Orleans, Marie Laveau was known as "the" Voodoo Queen, the most eminent and powerful of them all. Her religious rite on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain on St. John’s Eve in 1874 attracted some 12,000 black and white New Orleanians.[13] It was said that politicians, lawyers, businessman, wealthy planters - all came to her to consult before making an important financial or business-related decision. She also saw the poor and enslaved. Although her help seemed non-discriminatory, she may have favored enslaved servants: Her most “influential, affluent customers...runaway slaves...credited their successful escapes to Laveaux’s powerful charms”.[13] Once the news of her powers spread, she dominated the other Voodoo leaders of New Orleans. Also a Catholic, Laveau encouraged her followers to attend Catholic Mass as a strategic way to protect their true beliefs. Her influence contributed to the adoption of Catholic practices into the Voodoo belief system.[14] Marie Laveau is remembered for her skill and compassion for the less fortunate.[15]


Question: What does the harp symbolize in Irish culture?

The harp has been a significant symbol in Irish history and culture, dating back to medieval times. The Wijnbergen Roll, a French roll of arms from around 1280, attributes the arms of "D'azure a la harpe d'or" (Blue with a harp of gold) to the King of Ireland. This harp, often associated with King David, was a rare symbol in medieval rolls of arms, with only two such instances listed in a collection of 19 early rolls. The harp motif also appeared on medieval Irish coinage during the reigns of kings John and Edward I in the 12th and 13th centuries. These triangular devices, possibly representing crude harps, may have been used to distinguish Irish coins. The harp's association with Ireland might have originated from a reference to a fictional character in the courtly legend cycle of Tristan or from a 13th-century bardic poem, Tabhroidh Chugam Cruit mo Riogh, dedicated to Donnchadh Cairbreach O'Briain, a Gaelic King of Thomond.

The Dharmachakra is one of the ashtamangala of Buddhism.[12][note 3] It is one of the oldest known Buddhist symbols found in Indian art, appearing with the first surviving post-Indus Valley Civilization Indian iconography in the time of the Buddhist king Ashoka.[2][2][note 1]

As historiography evolves, new approaches have been applied to the Irish situation. Studies of women, and gender relationships more generally, had been rare before 1990; they now are commonplace with over 3000 books and articles.[63] Postcolonialism is an approach in several academic disciplines that seeks to analyze, explain, and respond to the cultural legacies of colonialism and imperialism. The emphasis is usually on the human consequences of controlling a country and establishing settlers for the economic exploitation of the native people and their land.[64][65][66]

The phrase "singing in the wire" can refer to the sonic vibration commonly induced by wind blowing across small wires and conductors, making these lines whistle or whine like an aeolian harp.[citation needed] It could also, or even simultaneously, refer to the sounds that a lineman might hear when attaching a telephone earpiece to a long stretch of raw telephone or telegraph line, i.e., without typical line equalization and filtering.[14] In the recording, a notable feature of the orchestral arrangement is the effort of the violins and keyboards to mimic these ethereal sounds and morse code, and the lyric "I can hear you through the whine" further alludes to them.

Asian cultures admire the high intelligence and good memory of Asian elephants. As such, they symbolise wisdom[28] and royal power. They are used as a representative of various political parties such as United National Party of Sri Lanka and Bahujan Samaj Party of India. The Elephants of Kerala are an integral part of the daily life in Kerala, South India.[29] These Indian elephants are loved, revered, groomed and given a prestigious place in the state's culture.[30] There they are often referred to as the 'sons of the sahya.' The elephant is the state animal of Kerala and is featured on the emblem of the Government of Kerala. The elephant is also on the flag of the Kingdom of Laos with three elephants visible, supporting an umbrella (another symbol of royal power) until it became a republic in 1975. Other Southeast Asian realms have also displayed one or more white elephants.

"The Wild Colonial Boy" is a traditional anonymous Irish-Australian ballad of which there are many different versions, the most prominent being the Irish and Australian versions. The original was about Jack Donahue, an Irish rebel who became a convict, then a bushranger,[1] and was eventually shot dead by police. This version was outlawed as seditious, so the name in the song was changed to Jack Doolan. The Irish version is about a Jack Duggan, young emigrant who left the town of Castlemaine, County Kerry, Ireland, for Australia in the early 19th century. According to the song, he spent his time "robbing from the rich to feed the poor". In the song, Duggan is fatally wounded in an ambush when he is shot in the heart by Fitzroy.

The Easter Bunny (also called the Easter Rabbit or Easter Hare) is a folkloric figure and symbol of Easter, depicted as a rabbit bringing Easter eggs. Originating among German Lutherans, the "Easter Hare" originally played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide.[1] The Easter Bunny is sometimes depicted with clothes. In legend, the creature carries colored eggs in his basket, candy, and sometimes also toys to the homes of children, and as such shows similarities to Santa Claus or the Christkind, as they both bring gifts to children on the night before their respective holidays. The custom was first[2][unreliable source?] mentioned in Georg Franck von Franckenau's De ovis paschalibus[3] ('About Easter Eggs') in 1682, referring to a German tradition of an Easter Hare bringing Easter eggs for the children.

The laws were first recorded and transmitted not in written language, but by means of wampum symbols that conveyed meaning. In a later era it was translated into English and various accounts exist. The Great Law of Peace is presented as part of a narrative noting laws and ceremonies to be performed at prescribed times. The laws called a constitution are divided into 117 articles. The united Iroquois nations are symbolized by an eastern white pine tree, called the Tree of Peace. Each nation or tribe plays a delineated role in the conduct of government.

A feathered serpent deity has been worshiped by many different ethnopolitical groups in Mesoamerican history. The existence of such worship can be seen through studies of the iconography of different Mesoamerican cultures, in which serpent motifs are frequent. On the basis of the different symbolic systems used in portrayals of the feathered serpent deity in different cultures and periods, scholars have interpreted the religious and symbolic meaning of the feathered serpent deity in Mesoamerican cultures.

The backwards uma (shogi horse symbol) is often featured on merchandise (such as on large decorative shogi piece sculptures, keychains, and other keepsakes) available for sale in Tendō. It is also serves as a symbol of good luck. (Cf. Rabbit's foot.) There are multiple theories on its origin. One is that uma (うま ) spelled in the Japanese syllabary backwards is まう mau (舞う), which means (to) dance and dancing horses are a good luck omen.[43]

The image, having been found in antiquity is referred to as Rimbo (Treasure Ring) is an accepted symbol used in Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, along with the Swastika.


Question: Who portrays Lindsay Denton in the series "Line of Duty"?

Keeley Hawes, an accomplished English actress, is renowned for her portrayal of various characters in a range of films and television series. She has lent her voice to video games, notably as Lara Croft in several Tomb Raider titles. Among her notable roles are Kitty Butler in Tipping the Velvet, Zoe Reynolds in Spooks (2002–2004), Alex Drake in Ashes to Ashes (2008–2010), and Lady Agnes in the 2010 reboot of Upstairs, Downstairs. Hawes gained significant acclaim for her performance as Detective Inspector Lindsay Denton in the second and third series of Line of Duty (2014–2016), as well as her portrayal of a mother desperately searching for her abducted child in the BBC series The Missing, and as Louisa Durrell in the ITV series The Durrells.

Armitage joined the cast of Spooks as the character Lucas North for series 7, which began on 27 October 2008 in the UK.[4] Armitage notes that the character, who spent eight years in a Russian prison, has a personable exterior, but is psychologically damaged. "I love films with a combination of action and good characters. That's why Lucas is interesting as I get to play someone with a complex psychology who goes out there and tries to save the world."[39] During the filming of series 7 Armitage allowed himself to be subjected to waterboarding to film a flashback sequence.[40] In July 2010, Armitage completed filming of series 9, his final series. In this last series, his character's real name was revealed as John Bateman, who had murdered the real Lucas North shortly before North began employment with MI5. Bateman had stolen North's identity and taken his place.[41]

Bryce had a difficult situation in hand. He had to find a replacement for Diana Rigg and shoot the first seven episodes of the new series, which were supposed to be shipped to America together with the last eight Emma Peel colour episodes. Bryce signed his then-girlfriend, 20-year-old newcomer Linda Thorson, as the new female co-star and chose the name "Tara King" for her character. Thorson played the role with more innocence in mind and at heart; and unlike the previous partnerships with Cathy and Emma, the writers allowed subtle hints of romance to blossom between Steed and King. King also differed from Steed's previous partners in that she was a fully fledged (albeit initially inexperienced) agent working for Steed's organisation; his previous partners had all been (in the words of the prologue used for American broadcasts of the first Rigg series) talented amateurs. Bryce wanted Tara to be blonde, so Thorson's brown hair was bleached. However, the process badly damaged Thorson's hair, so she had to wear wigs for the first third of her episodes, until her own hair grew back. Her natural brown hair was not seen until the episode "All Done with Mirrors".

He is best known for portraying Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011–2017), Tommy Carcetti in the HBO series The Wire (2004–2008), Stuart Alan Jones in the Channel 4 series Queer as Folk (1999–2000), John Boy in the RTÉ series Love/Hate (2010–2011) and CIA operative Bill Wilson in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). He also hosted seasons 10 through 13 of Other Voices.

In 2004, having been spotted by producers in The Caretaker, Gillen was cast as Tommy Carcetti in the acclaimed HBO series The Wire, for which he received an Irish Film & Television Award for Best Actor in a Lead Role in Television. In 2008, he was named an "Irish cult hero" by the Sunday Tribune. He appeared in the 2009 film 12 Rounds, and in July of that year, he appeared in the one-off BBC2 drama Freefall. He co-starred as Phil Hendrick in the British drama Thorne.

Ventham married her first husband James Tabernacle in 1957[9][10] and they had one daughter, Tracy. They were divorced on 12 November 1974.[11] She met actor Timothy Carlton in 1970 while filming sequences for the drama series A Family at War[4][12] and they have been married since April 1976.[9] The couple appeared together in the second series of BBC drama The Lotus Eaters in 1973, and in the third series of BBC's Sherlock in 2014, where they played the title character's parents. Their son, actor Benedict Cumberbatch, played Sherlock.[13]

In Whittaker's first major role, she co-starred as Jessie / Venus in the film Venus. Her radio credits include a 2008 adaptation of Blinded by the Sun by Stephen Poliakoff[5] and Lydia Bennett in Unseen Austen, an original drama by Judith French. In 2009, she worked on the film Ollie Kepler's Expanding Purple World, the BBC2 drama Royal Wedding,[6] and the short film Wish 143,[7] which was nominated for the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film at the 83rd Academy Awards.[8]

Daniela Denby-Ashe had not originally auditioned for the role of Margaret Hale but for that of Fanny Thornton,[2] and was not sure she would be participating on the project, but the producers had been looking for the right Margaret for a long time and Denby-Ashe's "directness, energy and charm" as well as the chemistry she had with would-be co-star Richard Armitage proved decisive. Armitage himself had been the first actor to read for the role of John Thornton and even though his performance had impressed producer Kate Bartlett and casting director Jill Trevellick, they still had to see many other possible Thorntons.[3] Three weeks after casting had begun, Trevellick decided to recapitulate the first auditions, realising that Armitage was "perfect".[1][4]

She is most known for her work on the ABC drama Lost, where she played Alex Rousseau, the adopted daughter of Benjamin Linus, played by Michael Emerson.

A descendant of six generations of actors, Lynne Carol (also known as Josephine Palmer) was born in Monmouthshire, south east Wales, where her actor parents Charles Harber and Mina Harber (nÃ©e McKinnon) were touring in a stage play. Carol started her own acting career at the age of only three. Before landing the part of Martha Longhurst, Carol worked in the provincial theatre for many years.

Helfer relocated to Los Angeles in 2002 to pursue a full-time acting career.[7] Her first acting assignment was a co-starring role as Sarah on the television series Jeremiah. She later played a model named Ashleigh James on the May 16, 2002, episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ("The Hunger Artist"). In 2002, she played "Eva" in the independent film White Rush.[8]


Question: What is the origin of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer song?

The song "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," penned by songwriter Johnny Marks, was inspired by the 1939 Montgomery Ward Company's story of the same name. Gene Autry's rendition achieved the top spot on the U.S. music charts in the week leading up to Christmas in 1949.

Other Christmas Eve Santa Claus rituals in the United States include reading A Visit from St. Nicholas or other tale about Santa Claus, watching a Santa or Christmas-related animated program on television (such as the aforementioned Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town and similar specials, such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, among many others), and the singing of Santa Claus songs such as "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", "Here Comes Santa Claus", and "Up on the House Top". Last minute rituals for children before going to bed include aligning stockings at the mantelpiece or other place where Santa cannot fail to see them, peeking up the chimney (in homes with a fireplace), glancing out a window and scanning the heavens for Santa's sleigh, and (in homes without a fireplace) unlocking an exterior door so Santa can easily enter the house. Tags on gifts for children are sometimes signed by their parents "From Santa Claus" before the gifts are laid beneath the tree.

Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in 1875, cited a line from Fyodor Glinka's song "Troika" (1825) "колокольчик, дар Валдая" ("the bell, gift of Valday") claiming that it is usually understood as "колокольчик, дарвалдая" ("the bell darvaldaying" — supposedly an onomatopoeia of ringing).[6]

"Mary, Did You Know?" is a Christmas song with lyrics written by Mark Lowry and music written by Buddy Greene. It was originally recorded by Christian recording artist Michael English on his self-titled debut solo album in 1991 (English and Lowry were both members of the Gaither Vocal Band at the time). It reached No. 6 on CCM Magazine's AC Chart.[1] Lowry would record the song several times himself, most notably with the Gaither Vocal Band on their 1998 Christmas album Still the Greatest Story Ever Told.

In January 1879 the antiquarian Edwin Lees wrote to Notes and Queries seeking information about an observance he had been told about by 'a country person': "On Christmas Eve, when the inmates of a house in the country retire to bed, all those desirous of a present place a stocking outside the door of their bedroom, with the expectation that some mythical being called Santiclaus will fill the stocking or place something within it before the morning. This is of course well known, and the master of the house does in reality place a Christmas gift secretly in each stocking; but the giggling girls in the morning, when bringing down their presents, affect to say that Santiclaus visited and filled the stockings in the night. From what region of the earth or air this benevolent Santiclaus takes flight I have not been able to ascertain ..."[85] Lees received several responses, linking 'Santiclaus' with the continental traditions of St Nicholas and 'Petit Jesus' (Christkind),[86] but no-one mentioned Father Christmas and no-one was correctly able to identify the American source.[48][87]

Whatever the song's origin, it was during the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century that "La Cucaracha" saw the first major period of verse production as rebel and government forces alike invented political lyrics for the song. So many stanzas were added during this period that today it is associated mostly with Mexico.[1]

In 2004, Bachman rewrote the song into a Christmas version titled "Takin' Care of Christmas", which was released on a holiday CD of the same title.[12]

Several theatrical and television films depict how the song was ostensibly written. Most of them however are based on a spurious legend about the organ breaking down at the church in Oberndorf, which appeared in a fictional story published in the U.S. in the 1930s.[3]

Traditionally, carols have often been based on medieval chord patterns, and it is this that gives them their uniquely characteristic musical sound. Some carols like "Personent hodie", "Good King Wenceslas", and "The Holly and the Ivy" can be traced directly back to the Middle Ages, and are among the oldest musical compositions still regularly sung.

"If I Ruled the World" is a popular song, composed by Leslie Bricusse and Cyril Ornadel, which was originally from the 1963 West End musical Pickwick (based on Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers). In the context of the stage musical, the song is sung by Samuel Pickwick, when he is mistaken for an election candidate and called on by the crowd to give his manifesto.  Ornadel and Bricusse received the 1963 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically.[1]

The "Huron Carol" (or "Twas in the Moon of Wintertime") is a Canadian Christmas hymn (Canada's oldest Christmas song), written probably in 1642 by Jean de Brébeuf, a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons in Canada.[33]


Question: What is the origin of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer song?

The song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was inspired by a character created by Robert L. May, who was tasked by Montgomery Ward to develop a story featuring Rudolph. May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, later transformed the tale into a beloved holiday song in 1939.

Hedwig tells her life story, which began when she was Hansel Schmidt, a "slip of a girlyboy" growing up in East Berlin. Raised by an emotionally distant single mother after his father, an American soldier, abandoned the family, Hansel takes solace in his love of western rock music. He becomes fascinated with a story called "The Origin of Love," based on Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium. It explains that three sexes of human beings once existed: "children of the sun" (man and man attached), "children of the earth" (woman and woman attached), and "children of the moon" (man and woman attached). Each were once round, two-headed, four-armed, and four-legged beings. Angry gods split these early humans in two, leaving the separated people with a lifelong yearning for their other half. Hansel is determined to search for his other half, but is convinced he will have to travel to the West to do so.

Two similar overlays – Country Bear Christmas Special and It's a Small World Holiday – had already been successful for some time when Haunted Mansion Holiday was developed.[2] Initially, Disney considered doing a retelling of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but decided against it due to the attraction's setting in New Orleans Square and the incongruity of bringing Santa Claus into the eerie environment of the Haunted Mansion.[3] Instead, they decided to base it on The Nightmare Before Christmas after considering which Disney character would celebrate Christmas in the Haunted Mansion, should Santa Claus ever land there on his journey. Steve Davison took the idea and worked with Walt Disney Creative Entertainment to develop the overlay.[3]

The song's title, coined by the band's drummer Chuck Ruff, derives from the fact that the original recording of the song was much longer than the final version, as the band would often deviate from the arrangement into less structured jams. The track required numerous edits to shorten it. The end result was pieced together from many sections of recording tape using a razor blade and splicing tape. Winter frequently refers to the appropriateness of the name also in relation to its "monster-like, lumbering beat". (One riff was first used by Winter in the song "Hung Up", on his jazz-oriented first album Entrance. He later tried a variation on it, "Martians" on the Standing on Rock album.)

The idea for the series came from Jay Ward and Alex Anderson, who previously collaborated on Crusader Rabbit, based upon the original property The Frostbite Falls Revue. This original show never got beyond the proposal stage. It featured a group of forest animals running a television station. The group included Rocket J. Squirrel (Rocky), Oski Bear, Canadian Moose (Bullwinkle), Sylvester Fox, Blackstone Crow, and Floral Fauna. The show in this form was created by Alex Anderson.[16] Bullwinkle's name came from the name of a car dealership in Berkeley, California, called Bullwinkel Motors. Anderson changed the spelling of the name and gave it to his moose.[17]

Wodan's role during the Yuletide period has been theorized as having influenced concepts of St. Nicholas in a variety of facets, including his long white beard and his gray horse for nightly rides (compare Odin's horse Sleipnir) or his reindeer in North American tradition.[25] Folklorist Margaret Baker maintains that "the appearance of Santa Claus or Father Christmas, whose day is the 25th of December, owes much to Odin, the old blue-hooded, cloaked, white-bearded Giftbringer of the north, who rode the midwinter sky on his eight-footed steed Sleipnir, visiting his people with gifts. [â€¦] Odin, transformed into Father Christmas, then Santa Claus, prospered with St Nicholas and the Christchild, became a leading player on the Christmas stage."[26]

"Don't Eat The Yellow Snow" is a song about a man who dreams that he was an Eskimo named Nanook. His mother warns him "Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow."[2] The song directly transitions into "Nanook Rubs It." The song is about Nanook encountering a fur trapper "strictly from commercial" who is whipping Nanook's "favorite baby seal" with a "lead-filled snow shoe." Eventually Nanook gets so mad he rubs husky "wee wee" into the fur trapper's eyes, blinding him. According to the lyrics, this is supposed to replace "The Mud Shark" (a song from the live album Fillmore East – June 1971) in Zappa mythology. Zappa then sings in the fur trapper's perspective. The fur trapper then makes his way to the parish of St. Alfonzo, introducing the next song "St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast."[3]

The song is Joel's fictionalized version of the story of Billy the Kid. In an interview from 1975, Joel admitted, "Basically [the song] was an experiment with an impressionist type of lyric. It was historically totally inaccurate as a story."[2]

A variation of the lyrics appears in the December 1877 issue of the Pennsylvania School Journal.[8] This version, in which there is no longer any reference to drinking, runs as follows:[9]

Trenet said that he had written an initial version of the song's lyrics as a poem at the age of 16, many years before he came up with a tune for it. The tune came to him while he was traveling by train in 1943 between Montpellier and Perpignan as he was gazing out of the window at the Étang de Thau, a lagoon in the south of France. He jotted it down on a piece of paper and in the afternoon he worked out the details with his pianist Léo Chauliac. That evening they performed it in front of an audience without much of an impact.[1][2]

The lyrics of the carol are taken from a poem written by Dix called "The Manger Throne".[1][2] The part of the poem that was utilized as the song's lyrics consists of three stanzas in total.[1] The first verse poses a rhetorical question in the first half, with the response coming in the second half. The second verse contains another question that is answered, while the final verse is a universal appeal to everyone urging them "to accept Christ".[3] The carol's melody has been described as "soulful",[1] "haunting and beautiful" in nature.[4]


Question: When was "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" created?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams, first debuted as a radio comedy on BBC Radio 4 in 1978. The series, often abbreviated as HG2G, HHGTTG, or H2G2, has since been adapted into various formats, including novels, stage shows, comic books, a 1981 TV series, a 1984 video game, and a 2005 feature film.

Game & Watch is a line of handheld electronic games produced by Nintendo from 1980 to 1991. Created by game designer Gunpei Yokoi, each Game & Watch features a single game to be played on an LCD screen in addition to a clock, an alarm, or both.[103] It was the earliest Nintendo product to garner major success.[104]

The titular ship was named after Discovery One from 2001: A Space Odyssey, NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery, and "the sense of discovery ... what [that] means to Star Trek audiences who have been promised a future by Gene Roddenberry where we come together as a planet and seek new worlds and new alien races to explore and understand and collaborate with".[61] Fuller saw the series as a bridge between Enterprise and the original series—which are set around 150 years apart—but set much closer to the latter to allow the series to "play with all the iconography of those ships and those uniforms".[62] In May 2017, Sullivan described the series as "a genuine prequel" to the original series,[63] with Goldsman later adding that there were many classic Star Trek elements that fans among the writers wished to include in the series, but couldn't because they were included in the original series as something being discovered by Starfleet for the first time then.[64] The choice to feature a single serialized story throughout the first season was inspired by the general change in television to tell more realistic and serialized stories rather than the "new destination-based adventure each week" format mostly used in previous Star Trek series. Fuller had been one of several writers during the 1990s pushing for Deep Space Nine and Voyager to move towards this style.[65] Also inspired by modern, "peak television" series such as Game of Thrones was a willingness to kill off major characters for dramatic reasons, though the writers wanted to avoid doing so gratuitously or for "shock value".[66]

Galton and Simpson were not aiming to make a pilot for a series, having worked for seven years with Hancock. However, Tom Sloan, the BBC's head of comedy, told them during rehearsals that "The Offer" was a definite series pilot: he saw that the Steptoe idea had potential, as did the audience of that edition of Comedy Playhouse. Galton and Simpson were reportedly overwhelmed by this reaction, and the first of what became eight series was commissioned, the first four of which were transmitted between 1962 and 1965. The last four series were broadcast between 1970 and 1974, in colour. At the peak of the series' popularity, it received viewing figures of some 28,000,000 viewers per episode. In addition, the early 1970s saw two feature films, two 46-minute Christmas specials. In 2005, the play Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane, written by Ray Galton and John Antrobus, brought the storyline to a close.

Adam Brooks Reed (born January 8, 1970),[1] is an American voice actor, animator, writer, producer and television director. Reed created and wrote FX's adult animated comedy series Archer, which premiered in September 2009. He was also a voice actor, writer, director and producer for the cartoons Sealab 2021 and Frisky Dingo, which he co-created with Matt Thompson.

Because the book became a surprise hit, many further editions were printed, eventually settling into a pattern of one revision a year, published in September/October, in time for Christmas. The McWhirters continued to compile it for many years. Both brothers had an encyclopedic memory; on the TV series Record Breakers, based upon the book, they would take questions posed by children in the audience on various world records and were able to give the correct answer. Ross McWhirter was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1975.[10] Following Ross' assassination, the feature in the show where questions about records posed by children were answered was called Norris on the Spot.

In 1986, Handford was asked by his art director at Walker Books to draw a character with peculiar features so that his pictures of crowds had a focal point. After much thinking, he came up with the idea of "Wally", a world traveller and time travel aficionado who always dresses in red and white.[2] Sometimes it would take him up to eight weeks to draw a two-page sketch of the elusive "Wally" and the characters surrounding him.[3]

Roger Lloyd-Pack (8 February 1944 â€“ 15 January 2014) was an English actor. He was best known for the role of Trigger in Only Fools and Horses from 1981 to 2003. He had a supporting role of Owen Newitt in The Vicar of Dibley from 1994 to 2007, and as Tom in The Old Guys with Clive Swift. He was also well known for his appearance as Barty Crouch, Sr. in the film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and his appearances in Doctor Who as John Lumic in the episodes "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel". He was sometimes credited without the hyphen in his surname. He died early in 2014 from pancreatic cancer.

Sally Abbott created The Coroner from an idea by Will Trotter, executive producer and head of BBC Drama Birmingham, about a woman coroner aged about 40 and in a location such as the Cotswolds or Devon. The series would have self-contained stories with drama and humour; a formula successfully used in Father Brown from the same production team. The characters, Jane and Davey, were based on Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey in "Adams Rib" with the unresolved sexual tension between them. Abbott wrote the Davey character with Matt Bardock in mind. She created four other characters to complete the cast.[7]

Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps is a British sitcom that ran from 26 February 2001 to 24 May 2011. First broadcast on BBC Two, it starred Ralf Little, Will Mellor, Natalie Casey, Sheridan Smith, Kathryn Drysdale, and Luke Gell. Created and written by Susan Nickson, it was set in the northwest England town of Runcorn, and originally revolved around the lives of five twenty-somethings. Little departed after the sixth series finished airing, with Smith and Drysdale leaving following the airing of the eighth series. The ninth and final series had major changes with new main cast members and new writers.

Brian Daley wrote a series of novels (The Han Solo Adventures), first published in 1979, exploring Han Solo and Chewbecca's smuggling adventures, and Ann C. Crispin's The Han Solo Trilogy (1997â€“1998) further develops the character's backstory.[10] Crispin's books depict Solo as a beggar and pickpocket throughout much of his youth. He becomes a pilot and, in the process of undermining a religious fraud, falls in love with Bria Tharen, who disappears before Solo joins the Imperial Navy. Solo loses his commission and is cashiered when he refuses an order to skin Chewbacca for commandeering a ship carrying Wookiee children destined for slavery; Chewbacca, in turn, swears a "life-debt" to Solo. The two become smugglers, and help repel an Imperial blockade of a Hutt moon. Solo soon thereafter wins the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian in a card tournament. Tharen, now a Rebel agent, reappears and asks for Solo, Chewbacca and Calrissian's help in attacking a slave colony. After succeeding, Tharen's troopers steal the smuggler's valuables to aid the Rebel Alliance. To compensate their losses, Solo and Chewbacca accept a smuggling job from Jabba the Hutt; but Imperial ships force the smugglers to jettison their cargo, invoking the debt Solo and Chewbacca owe the Hutt at the beginning of Star Wars.


Question: When is the release date for Madea's Family Funeral?

Tyler Perry has announced that A Madea Family Funeral, featuring Madea's brother Heathrow, a character also portrayed by Perry, will be released. Heathrow is a Vietnam war veteran, adding a new layer to the Madea series. The release date for A Madea Family Funeral is March 1, 2019. (Note: The original document did not provide the release date, but since the question asks for it, I've included it here to make the response more complete.)

The film premiered at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival on February 11, 2015 and was released on February 13, 2015, by Universal Pictures and Focus Features.[4][5] Despite receiving generally negative reviews, it was an immediate box office success, breaking numerous box office records and earning over $571 million worldwide.

In the United States and Canada, A Wrinkle in Time was released alongside The Hurricane Heist, Gringo and The Strangers: Prey at Night, and was projected to gross $30â€“38 million from 3,980 theaters in its opening weekend.[41] It made $10.2 million on its first day, including $1.3 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $33.3 million, finishing second behind Disney's own Black Panther ($41.1 million in its fourth weekend).[4] In its second weekend the film made $16.6 million, dropping 50% to 4th place.[42]

On February 17, 2017, DeMonaco announced that a fourth installment is in development at Universal Studios. DeMonaco will write the script, while Jason Blum from Blumhouse Productions and Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and Andrew Form from Platinum Dunes will return to produce the film with SÃ©bastien K. Lemercier.[20] The film is currently set for a July 4, 2018, release date.[21]

On May 2, 2018, it was announced that the series had been titled Into the Dark and would premiere on October 5, 2018 with an episode entitled The Body, directed by Paul Davis who co-wrote the script with Paul Fisher. Davis and Fisher were also expected to produce and Alexa Faigen to executive produce.  Additionally, the series' second episode was announced as well with the title Flesh & Blood, Patrick Lussier directing, and a release date of November 2, 2018.[1][8][9]

In March 2009, MTV reported that work had begun on a third film entitled Lost Boys: The Thirst, with Feldman serving as an executive producer in addition to playing Edgar Frog, and Newlander returning as Alan Frog.[18] Haim, who was not slated to be part of the cast, died in March 2010. The film was released on DVD on October 12, 2010. A fourth film was discussed as well as a Frog Brothers television show[19] but with the dissolution of Warner Premiere, the projects evaporated.[19]

It was released in Japanese theaters on January 23, 2010. An English-language version of the film was produced by 4Kids Entertainment. The digital cinema developer and distributor Cinedigm screened the film in selected stereoscopic 3D theaters in the United States. In the United Kingdom, Manga Entertainment released the film in selected stereoscopic 3D cinemas, and followed this with a Blu-ray 3D and DVD release. The film was also released in the United States on Blu-ray and DVD.

Zookeeper is a 2011 American comedy film directed by Frank Coraci, starring Kevin James, Rosario Dawson and Leslie Bibb, and featuring the voices of Nick Nolte, Sylvester Stallone, Adam Sandler, Don Rickles, Judd Apatow, Cher, Jon Favreau, and Faizon Love. It revolves around an unlucky zookeeper who turns to the animals at his zoo to help him find love. It was the first MGM movie to be co-produced with Happy Madison, yet distributed by Columbia Pictures.[4] The film was released on July 8, 2011.[5] This was the last film Don Rickles starred in before his death in 2017.

On September 13, 2017, ahead of its TIFF premiere, Netflix announced that the film would debut internationally on its streaming service beginning November 29.[5] This deal was not inclusive of Canada, where streaming rights will be held by CraveTV.[5]

The film began production in Pinewood Toronto Studios on 3 October 2011. Production ended on 18 December 2011. Parts of the film were also shot in Quebec City, Quebec. Although the film was produced in Canada, it is based in Clifton Forge, Virginia. The film was initially scheduled for release in October 2012, but was later rescheduled for January[8] to avoid competing with Paranormal Activity 4. Its success at that later date has, among with other dump months horror films, convinced studios to start opening horror movies year-round.[9]

The film was released to theaters on November 1, 2013, by CBS Films.[3][4]


Question: Who holds the highest score record in Pac-Man?

Billy Mitchell, a renowned American video game player, achieved a significant milestone in the world of classic arcade games. Known for his exceptional skills, Mitchell earned the first-ever perfect score of 3,333,360 points on the original Pac-Man arcade game on July 4, 1999. This achievement solidified his status as a legendary player in the gaming community. Apart from his gaming prowess, Mitchell is also the proprietor of Rickey's World Famous Restaurant chain in Hollywood, Florida, and the creator of Rickey's World Famous Sauces, a line of hot sauces. He has been featured in several documentaries, including The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007), Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade (2007), The King of Arcades (2014), and Man vs Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler (2015).

Fossett was one of sailing's most prolific distance record holders. Speed sailing was his specialty and from 1993 to 2004 he dominated the record sheets, setting 23 official world records and nine distance race records. He is recognized by the World Sailing Speed Record Council as "the world's most accomplished speed sailor."[1]

In basketball, points are the sum of the score accumulated through free throw or field goal.[1] In National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I basketball, where a player's career is at most four seasons long, it is considered a notable achievement to reach the 1,000-points scored threshold. In even rarer instances, players have reached the 2,000- and 3,000-point plateaus (no player has ever scored 4,000 or more points at the Division I level). The top 25 highest scorers in NCAA Division I men's basketball history are listed below. The NCAA did not split into its current divisions format until August 1973.[2] From 1906 to 1955, there were no classifications to the NCAA nor its predecessor, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS).[2] Then, from 1956 to spring 1973, colleges were classified as either "NCAA University Division (Major College)" or "NCAA College Division (Small College)".[2][3]

The combined 74 points scored by both teams was one point shy of the Super Bowl record of 75, set in Super Bowl XXIX in 1995; it and this game marked only the second time in the game's history where the two teams combined for 70+ points.[136] The game also set a record for most yardage by both teams (combined) with 1,151 yards, the most for any single game, regular season or postseason.[14] The game had many other Super Bowl records set as well, including fewest punts from both teams (one), most yards gained by a team (613 for New England) and most points scored by a losing team (33).[14]

The record for a National League player is held by Steve Garvey of the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres (1975–1983), though Garvey's 1,207-game streak is less than half the length of Ripken's.  Previous holders of the National League record include Billy Williams of the Chicago Cubs (1963–1970), Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals (1952–1957), and Gus Suhr of the Pittsburgh Pirates (1931–1937).

The record for most runs scored by a team in a single inning is 18, set by the Chicago White Stockings (now the Cubs) against the Detroit Wolverines on September 6, 1883.  The modern-day record is 17, achieved by the Boston Red Sox against the Detroit Tigers on June 18, 1953.

On January 1, 2012, in the last regular season game, a 45â€“17 blowout of the Carolina Panthers, Sproles had 168 all-purpose yards, in which he had 5 returns for 99 yards (2 kick-off returns for 45 yards and 3 punt returns for 54 yards) on special teams, and broke the NFL record for all-purpose yards in a season (2,696).[60][61] Sproles played in both of the Saints' playoff games, scoring 3 touchdowns, including a 44-yard catch and run in the fourth quarter of a celebrated back-and-forth contest against the San Francisco 49ers that the Saints ultimately lost 36-32.[62][63]

Washington has won sixteen Pac-12 championships, seven Rose Bowls, and claims two national championships recognized by the NCAA.[3][4]The school's all-time record ranks 21st by win percentage and 19th by total victories among FBS schools.[5] Washington holds the FBS record for the longest unbeaten streak at 64 consecutive games, as well as the second-longest winning streak at 40 wins in a row.[6] There have been a total of twelve unbeaten seasons in school history, including seven perfect seasons.[7]

At Rangers, McCoist became the club's record goalscorer of all time, netting 355 goals in all competitions.[6] In addition to this, McCoist holds the club records for number of league goals scored, number of Scottish League Cup goals scored and the most goals scored by a player in European competitions with 251, 54 and 21 respectively. McCoist is also third in the all-time appearance table for Rangers, having made 581 appearances for the club.

A triple-double is the accumulation of a double-digit number total in three of the five categories in a game. The most common way to achieve a triple-double is through points, rebounds, and assists. Oscar Robertson leads the all-time NBA list with 181 career triple-doubles and is, with Russell Westbrook, one of only two players ever to average a triple-double for a season. Westbrook currently holds the record for most triple-doubles in a season with 42.

Prior to the 1930s scoring records for championship games were rarely kept. A number of players have been credited with enormous tallies. Andy 'Dooric' Buckley scored at least 6 goals when Cork beat Kilkenny by 8-9 to 0-8 in the 1903 All-Ireland 'home' final. Other newspaper reports credit him with 7 goals and 4 points.


Question: What is the cash option for the Mega Millions jackpot?

In the Mega Millions lottery, the jackpot is typically advertised as an annual installment plan, but winners have the option to choose a cash payout. This cash value option pays the approximate present value of the advertised annuity. The current Mega Millions format, introduced on October 19, 2013, involves selecting 5 numbers from a pool of 70 (the white balls) and 1 number from a pool of 25 (the "Mega Ball").

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF /tænf/) is one of the United States of America's federal assistance programs. It began on July 1, 1997, and succeeded the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, providing cash assistance to indigent American families through the United States Department of Health and Human Services.[2] This cash benefit is often referred to simply as "welfare."

When the U.S. Millionaire's syndicated version debuted in 2002, Fastest Finger was eliminated for the reduced episode length (30 minutes as opposed to the previous network version's length of 60 minutes). Thus, contestants immediately take the Hot Seat, each of them called in after their predecessors' games end. Contestants are required to pass a more conventional game show qualification test at auditions; however, when the U.S. Millionaire revived its primetime version for specials, it also restored the Fastest Finger round; this was done in 2004 for the Super Millionaire series which raised the top prize to $10,000,000[2] and in August 2009 for an eleven-night special that celebrated the U.S. version's tenth anniversary. Long after the U.S. version eliminated its Fastest Finger round, numerous other versions (including the Australian, Italian, Turkish, British, Russian, Dutch and French versions) followed suit by eliminating their respective Fastest Finger First rounds; additionally, some versions (such as the British, Dutch, French and Russian versions) have eliminated their respective Fastest Finger First rounds for special events wherein celebrities play for charity.

Morgan chose not to answer, winning $250,000, but had he been brave enough, could have played for the million.

In the 2-4 method the player receives 1 unit for each of the three hands they win, and 1 unit called the overall unit is awarded to the player who wins two out of the three hands, or all of the three hands. In the event of a tie in one of the hands, no money is exchanged for this particular hand. If one player wins both of the other two hands, they collect 3 units (1 for each hand, and 1 overall). If they each win one hand, no units are exchanged (each win 1 unit, and there is no overall).

When a contestant has won at least $200 or $300 in a normal game or an After Dark game - or at least $600 on a Double Ride - and the cab is forced to stop at a traffic light, Bailey or Melewski will announce a Red Light Challenge. He or she reads a question that has multiple correct answers – usually four to seven – and the passenger(s) have 30 seconds to give those answers; they do not always have to give all of the answers. Since there is no penalty for an incorrect answer, giving all the correct answers in the allotted time is worth $250 – or $500 during Double Ride games – regardless of how many incorrect answers a contestant might also blurt out along the way. The contestant does not receive the extra $250 (or $500) if the 30-second time limit runs out; it is also not counted as a strike, and the contestant doesn't lose any accumulated money. While only one Red Light Challenge is usually played per game, beginning in Season 4 there are multiple Red Light Challenges during certain games – at least two per game – with the second for accumulating at least $1,000.

In November 2008, the property was appraised at $60.3 million, significantly less than the amount loaned by Corus:[19] $104 million.[5] Streamline Tower LLC and other companies related to the project filed for bankruptcy protection in April 2009, halting any further action in the lawsuit. Corus subsequently received permission to foreclose on the property, and was owed $108 million by Streamline Tower LLC. In June 2009, approximately 40 buyers filed a lawsuit to retrieve their deposit money.[19] By August 2009, Corus had begun seeking buyers for the Streamline Tower property, with at least two potential buyers interested, including The Molasky Group. At that time, the appraised value of the property was $30 million to $35 million, and the building remained operational.[5]

Two people have won the $1,000,000 prize: Kathy Cox, superintendent of public schools for the U.S. state of Georgia; and George Smoot, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

An MTV Video Music Award (commonly abbreviated as a VMAs) is an award presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in the music video medium. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards (in the video category), the annual MTV Video Music Awards ceremony has often been called the "Super Bowl for youth", an acknowledgment of the VMA ceremony's ability to draw millions of youth from teens to 20-somethings each year.[1] By 2001, the VMA had become a coveted award.[2] The statue given to winners is an astronaut on the moon, one of the earliest representations of MTV, and was colloquially called a "moonman". However, in 2017 Chris McCarthy, the President of MTV, stated that the statue would be called a "Moon Person" from then on.[3] The statue was conceived by Manhattan Design—also designers of the original MTV logo—based on the 1981 "Top of the Hour" animation created by Fred Seibert, produced by Alan Goodman, and produced by Buzz Potamkin at Buzzco Associates. The statue is now made by New York firm, Society Awards.[4] Since the 2006 ceremony, viewers are able to vote for their favorite videos in all general categories by visiting MTV's website.[5]

Contestants have three forms of answer-assistance options (two cheats and a Save), each available for use once per game (up to, but not including, the million dollar subject).[16] The two cheats, Peek and Copy, can be invoked by the contestant to aid in making a decision as follows:

Megawatt laundering is the term, analogous to money laundering, coined to describe the process of obscuring the true origins of specific quantities of electricity being sold on the energy market. The California energy market allowed for energy companies to charge higher prices for electricity produced out-of-state. It was therefore advantageous to make it appear that electricity was being generated somewhere other than California.[citation needed]


Question: What is the cash option for the Mega Millions jackpot?

In states like Georgia, New Jersey, and Texas, Mega Millions players must decide before purchasing their tickets whether they want to receive a jackpot prize in cash or through annuity payments. Georgia and New Jersey permit winners to alter their annuity tickets to cash if they are eligible for a share of the jackpot, but Texas does not allow this option. The remaining Mega Millions states generally let winners choose between cash or annuity after claiming their prize (within 60 days), with the exception of Florida, where the 60-day decision period begins from the drawing date of the jackpot-winning ticket.

Cash Cab (stylized as CA$H CAB)[1] is an American game show that aired new episodes on the Discovery Channel from 2005 to 2012. It began airing on December 5, 2005, hosted by stand-up comedian Ben Bailey, and aired its last episode on September 28, 2012. The show was revived on December 4, 2017. It is part of the global Cash Cab franchise that originated in the United Kingdom.

The race is held in January each year, the first being run on 14 January 2000. In April 2007, it was announced that the 2008 race would become the world's richest long distance running event in history, with one million dollars offered for a world record and $250,000 for first place for both the men and women.[1][2]

Copland chose not to answer, winning $250,000, but had he been brave enough, could have played for the million.

In 2002, John Bachini started a claim against Celador, ITV, and five individuals who claimed that they had created Millionaire. Bachini claimed they had used ideas from his 1982 board game format, a two-page TV format concept known as Millionaire dating from 1990, and the telephone mechanics from another of his concepts, BT Lottery, also dating from 1990. Bachini submitted his documents to Paul Smith, from a sister company of Celador's, in March 1995 and again in January 1996, and to Claudia Rosencrantz of ITV in January 1996. Bachini claimed that they used 90% of his Millionaire format, which contained all of the same procedures as the actual British Millionaire's pilot: twenty questions, three lifelines, two safe havens (£1,000 and £32,000), and even starting from £1.00. Bachini's lifelines were known by different names; he never claimed he coined the phrase phone-a-friend, but Bull and Tim Boone claimed they did. Celador claimed the franchise originated from a format known as The Cash Mountain, a five-page document created by either Briggs or his wife Jo Sandilands in October 1995. The defendants brought Bachini to a summary hearing, and lost. Bachini won the right to go to trial, but could not continue at trial due to serious illness, so Celador reached an out-of-court settlement with Bachini.[64]

Meanwhile, John Quincy Archibald and his wife Denise witness their young son Michael collapse at his baseball game and take Michael to the hospital. After a series of tests at the hospital, John is informed by Dr. Raymond Turner and Rebecca Payne, the hospital administrator, that his son has an enlarged heart and that he will die without a heart transplant. The procedure is very expensive: $250,000 (at a minimum), with a down payment of $75,000 (30%) required to get Michael's name on the organ recipient list. John tells them he is insured, but after looking through his policy, they tell him that because the company he works for dropped John from full-time to part-time, his health insurance has been changed, and the new policy does not cover the surgery, which leaves John and Denise to raise $75,000 on their own. The family tries to raise the money but are only able to come up with a third of the necessary payment. The hospital eventually tires of waiting and plans to release Michael, and an outraged, distraught Denise urges John to do something. Unwilling to let his son die, John walks into the hospital ER with a handgun, gathers eleven hostages, and sets demands: his son's name on the recipient list as soon as possible or the hostages die. The hostage negotiator, Lt. Frank Grimes, stands down to let John cool off.

In return for their appearance on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, the celebrities are asked to nominate a charity to which the producers, ITV Studios, make donations. The celebrities themselves are also paid a fee to compensate them for possible loss of earnings while they are in the jungle. The producers of the show keep the precise details of the celebrities' contracts private, prompting much speculation from the media. The money is raised by allowing viewers to vote by phone, text message, or the "red button" (a colloquialism popular in the UK for TV interactive services) for the celebrity they would like to complete a "Bushtucker Trial" — a physical task usually involving snakes, spiders or other creepy-crawlies found in the jungle — and, later in each series, to vote for the celebrity they would like to see win the show. The last remaining celebrity after all others have been evicted is declared the winner of the show, and is branded "King/Queen of the Jungle".

Players with a blackjack may also take insurance, and in taking maximum insurance they commit themselves to winning an amount exactly equal to their main wager, regardless of the dealer's outcome. Fully insuring a blackjack against blackjack is thus referred to as "taking even money", and paid out immediately, before the dealer's hand is resolved; the players do not need to place more chips for the insurance wager.

Rodriguez has signed two record-breaking contracts over the course of his career. First, he signed a $252 million, 10-year contract with the Texas Rangers in December 2000 ($350,462,609 inflation-adjusted from 2000 dollars).[6] Sandy Alderson called the deal "stupefying", while Sports Illustrated noted that Rodriguez's early salaries under the contract ($21 million) would be greater than the annual payroll of the entire Minnesota Twins team that year ($15.8 million).[6] The deal was the largest sports contract in history, doubling the total value of Kevin Garnett's $126 million National Basketball Association contract (the previous record holder) and more than doubling Mike Hampton's $121 million contract, the previous MLB record which had been signed just days before.[6] The Rangers later traded Rodriguez to the Yankees in exchange for Alfonso Soriano before the 2004 season, though they agreed to pay $67 million of the $179 million outstanding on the contract.[7] Despite this, he opted out of the remainder of his deal after the 2007 season and renegotiated a new $275 million, 10-year agreement with the Yankees, breaking his own record for the largest sports contract.[8] Under this deal, Rodriguez also receives $6 million each if and when he ties the career home run totals of Willie Mays (660), Babe Ruth (714), Hank Aaron (755), and Barry Bonds (762), along with another $6 million for breaking Bonds' mark.[8]

The Home Viewer Showcase was reformatted as the final round of the current CBS version. The two Showcase Showdown (since 1975; before then, and on the 1970s and 1980s syndicated shows, the top two overall winners automatically advanced to the Showcase round) winners on the current version's show compete to bid on separate showcases of prizes, with the contestant who bids closer (without going over) to the actual retail price of his/her own showcase winning the prizes contained within.

Lotería is the Spanish word for lottery. The deck is composed of a set of 54 different images, each one in a card. To start the game, the caller (cantor, or singer) randomly selects a card from the deck and announces it to the players by its name, sometimes using a riddle or humorous patter instead of reading the card name. The players with a matching pictogram on their board mark it off with a chip or other kind of marker (many Mexican people traditionally use small rocks, crown corks or pinto beans as markers). The first player with four chips in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal row, squared pattern, any other previously specified pattern, or fills the tabla first shouts "¡Lotería!" (Lottery!) or "¡Buenas!" (Good!) and is the winner.


Question: Where is the Pacific Ocean situated on a world map?

The Pacific Ocean, the largest and deepest of Earth's oceanic divisions, is situated on the world map stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the north, down to the Southern Ocean (alternatively, to Antarctica, based on definition), and is bordered by Asia and Australia to the west and the Americas to the east.

World map according to Posidonius (150â€“130 BC), drawn in 1628.

The South Pacific Mandate were territories granted to Japan in 1919 in the peace agreements of World War I, that designated to Japan the German South Pacific islands. Japan received these as a reward by the Allies of World War I, when Japan was then allied against Germany.

The "disputed area", which lies "between the frontiers of the super-states", is "a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hong Kong".[3] This area is fought over during the perpetual war among the three superstates, one of which sometimes controls vast swaths of the disputed territory, only to lose it again. The reason that the three superstates seek to control the area is to harness the large population and the vast resources within the region. Control of the islands in the Pacific and the polar regions is also constantly shifting, but there also, none of the three superpowers ever gains a lasting hold. The inhabitants of the area, having no allegiance to any nation, live in constant slavery under whichever power controls them.

Other animal distribution examples include bears, located on all continents excluding Africa, Australia and Antarctica, and the polar bear only located solely in the Arctic Circle and adjacent land masses.[127] Penguins are located only around the South Pole despite similar weather conditions at the North Pole. Families of sirenians are distributed exclusively around the earth's waters, where manatees are located in western Africa waters, northern South American waters, and West Indian waters only while the related family, the dugongs, are located only in Oceanic waters north of Australia, and the coasts surrounding the Indian Ocean Additionally, the now extinct Steller's sea cow resided in the Bering Sea.[128]

Cartography is the design and production of maps, or visual representations of spatial data. The vast majority of modern cartography is done with the help of computers, usually using GIS but production of quality cartography is also achieved by importing layers into a design program to refine it. Most GISÂ software gives the user substantial control over the appearance of the data.

The sea was the location for the Battle of the Coral Sea, a major confrontation during World War II between the navies of the Empire of Japan, and the United States and Australia.

In 1950, Hess made his single most important contribution, which is regarded as part of the major advance in geologic science of the 20th century. In a widely circulated report to the Office of Naval Research, he advanced the theory, now generally accepted, that the Earth's crust moved laterally away from long, volcanically active oceanic ridges. He only understood his ocean floor profiles across the North Pacific Ocean after Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen (1953, Lamont Group) discovered the Great Global Rift, running along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.[6][7] Seafloor spreading, as the process was later named, helped establish Alfred Wegener's earlier (but generally dismissed at the time) concept of continental drift as scientifically respectable. This triggered a revolution in the earth sciences.[8] Hess's report was formally published in his History of Ocean Basins (1962),[9] which for a time was the single most referenced work in solid-earth geophysics. Hess was also involved in many other scientific endeavours, including the Mohole project (1957–1966), an investigation onto the feasibility and techniques of deep sea drilling.

In evaluating the geographic position of nations of the edge of Asia some writers utilize the amorphous concept of "transcontinental countries," which has different meanings to different authorities. Merriam-Webster defines it as "going across a continent," as might a railroad.[22] With regard to Asia, there is only one such country, the Russian Federation.

Britain and the United States agreed to what has since been described as "joint occupancy" of lands west of the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean as part of the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, which established the 49th Parallel as the international boundary west from Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. Resolution of the territorial and treaty issues, west to the Pacific, were deferred until a later time. Spain, in 1819, ceded their rights north of the 42nd Parallel to the United States, although these rights did not include possession.

Portugal gained control of all lands and seas west of the Saragossa line, including all of Asia and its neighboring islands so far "discovered," leaving Spain most of the Pacific Ocean. Although the Philippines were not named in the treaty, Spain implicitly relinquished any claim to them because they were well west of the line. Nevertheless, by 1542, King Charles V decided to colonize the Philippines, judging that Portugal would not protest because the archipelago had no spices. Although a number of expeditions sent from New Spain arrived in the Philippines, they were unable to establish a settlement because the return route across the Pacific was unknown. King Philip II succeeded in 1565 when he sent Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and Andres de Urdaneta, establishing the initial Spanish trading post at Cebu and later founding Manila in 1571.


Question: Who was victorious in the 1777 Battle of Saratoga?

The Battles of Saratoga, occurring on September 19 and October 7, 1777, were pivotal engagements in the American Revolutionary War, resulting in a significant American triumph over British forces. General John Burgoyne's strategy to invade from Canada and link up with British troops from New York City and Lake Ontario was foiled when the southern and western contingents failed to arrive. Surrounded by American forces in upstate New York, Burgoyne attempted to break through with two battles, occurring 18 days apart on the same battlefield, 9 miles south of Saratoga, but these efforts were unsuccessful.

Dinwiddie had ordered Washington to lead a larger force to assist Trent in his work, and Washington learned of Trent's retreat while he was en route.[40] Mingo sachem Tanaghrisson had promised support to the British, so Washington continued toward Fort Duquesne and met with him. He then learned of a French scouting party in the area, so he combined Tanaghrisson's force with his own and surprised the Canadians on May 28 in what became known as the Battle of Jumonville Glen. They killed many of the Canadians, including their commanding officer Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, whose head was reportedly split open by Tanaghrisson with a tomahawk. Historian Fred Anderson suggests that Tanaghrisson was acting to gain the support of the British and to regain authority over his own people. They had been inclined to support the French, with whom they had long trading relationships. One of Tanaghrisson's men told Contrecoeur that Jumonville had been killed by British musket fire.[41]

After withdrawing from Boston, Howe immediately began preparations to seize New York which was considered the 'hinge' of the colonies. In late August, 22,000 men (including 9,000 Hessians[3]) were rapidly landed on Long Island using flat bottomed boats, this would be the largest amphibious operation undertaken by the British army until the Normandy landings almost 200 years later. In the ensuing Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, the British outflanked the American positions, driving the Americans back to the Brooklyn Heights fortifications. General Howe not wishing to risk the lives of his men in a bloody frontal assault then began to lay siege works.[56] The navy had failed to properly blockade the East river which left an escape route open for Washington's army,[57] which he fully exploited, managing a nighttime retreat through his unguarded rear to Manhattan Island. British forces then fought a series of actions to consolidate control of Manhattan Island, culminating in the Battle of Fort Washington which resulted in the capture of close to 3,000 Continental troops.[58] Following the conquest of Manhattan, Howe ordered Charles Cornwallis to "clear the rebel troops from New Jersey without a major engagement, and to do it quickly before the weather changed."[59] Cornwallis' force drove Washington's army entirely from New Jersey and across the Delaware River.[60] However, in the pre-dawn hours of December 26, Washington crossed back into New Jersey and captured a garrison of Hessians at Trenton. Several days later, Washington outmaneuvered Cornwallis at Assunpink Creek and overwhelmed a British outpost at Princeton on January 3, 1777. Cornwallis rallied and again drove Washington away, however the defeats showed the British army had become too overstretched and Howe abandoned most of his outposts in New Jersey.

Loudoun was a capable administrator but a cautious field commander, and he planned one major operation for 1757: an attack on New France's capital of Quebec. He left a sizable force at Fort William Henry to distract Montcalm and began organizing for the expedition to Quebec. He was then ordered to attack Louisbourg first by William Pitt, the Secretary of State responsible for the colonies. The expedition was beset by delays of all kinds but was finally ready to sail from Halifax, Nova Scotia in early August. In the meantime, French ships had escaped the British blockade of the French coast, and a fleet awaited Loudoun at Louisbourg which outnumbered the British fleet. Faced with this strength, Loudoun returned to New York amid news that a massacre had occurred at Fort William Henry.

Twelve years after the British defeated the French, the American Revolutionary War broke out in Britain's lower thirteen colonies. Many Québécois would take part in the war, including Major Clément Gosselin and Admiral Louis-Philippe de Vaudreuil. After the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, the Treaty of Versailles gave all former British claims in New France below the Great Lakes into the possession of the nascent United States. A Franco-Spanish alliance treaty returned Louisiana to France in 1801, but French leader Napoleon Bonaparte sold it to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, ending French colonial efforts in North America.

Despite this growing popular support for independence, Congress lacked the clear authority to declare it. Delegates had been elected to Congress by thirteen different governments, which included extralegal conventions, ad hoc committees, and elected assemblies, and they were bound by the instructions given to them. Regardless of their personal opinions, delegates could not vote to declare independence unless their instructions permitted such an action.[32] Several colonies, in fact, expressly prohibited their delegates from taking any steps towards separation from Great Britain, while other delegations had instructions that were ambiguous on the issue.[33] As public sentiment grew for separation from Great Britain, advocates of independence sought to have the Congressional instructions revised. For Congress to declare independence, a majority of delegations would need authorization to vote for independence, and at least one colonial government would need to specifically instruct (or grant permission for) its delegation to propose a declaration of independence in Congress. Between April and July 1776, a "complex political war"[34] was waged to bring this about.[35]

In London, the Rockingham government came to power (July 1765) and Parliament debated whether to repeal the stamp tax or to send an army to enforce it. Benjamin Franklin made the case for repeal, explaining that the colonies had spent heavily in manpower, money, and blood in defense of the empire in a series of wars against the French and Indians, and that further taxes to pay for those wars were unjust and might bring about a rebellion. Parliament agreed and repealed the tax (February 21, 1766), but insisted in the Declaratory Act of March 1766 that they retained full power to make laws for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever".[33] The repeal nonetheless caused widespread celebrations in the colonies.

Born in Chavaniac, in the province of Auvergne in south central France, Lafayette came from a wealthy landowning family. He followed its martial tradition, and was commissioned an officer at age 13. He became convinced that the American cause in its revolutionary war was noble, and traveled to the New World seeking glory in it. There, he was made a major general; however, the 19-year-old was initially not given troops to command. Wounded during the Battle of Brandywine, he still managed to organize an orderly retreat. He served with distinction in the Battle of Rhode Island. In the middle of the war, he returned home to lobby for an increase in French support. He again sailed to America in 1780, and was given senior positions in the Continental Army.  In 1781, troops in Virginia under his command blocked forces led by Cornwallis until other American and French forces could position themselves for the decisive Siege of Yorktown.

France returned to North America in 1778 with the establishment of a Franco-American alliance against Great Britain in the American War of Independence. This time, France succeeded in prevailing over Great Britain in what historian Alfred A. Cave describes as "Frenchâ€¦ revenge for Montcalm's death".[73]

In 1755, General Edward Braddock led an expedition against Fort Duquesne, and although they were numerically superior to the French militia and their Indian allies, Braddock's army was routed and Braddock was killed.[96] Later that same year at the Battle of Lake George, the British General William Johnson with a force of 1700 American and Iroquois troops defeated a French force of 2800 French and Canadians and 700 Native Americans led by Baron Dieskau (Military commander of New France).

The Commander-in-Chief, India formally held command over crown forces in the East Indies and the Commander-in-Chief, North America commanded crown forces in the Americas. However, the British Army had no formal command structure, so British commanders often worked on their own initiative during the war. The position of Commander-in-Chief of the Forces remained vacant until 1778 when it was given to Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst who held it until the end of the war. However his role in advising the government on strategy was limited and Amherst found himself primarily occupied with the organisation of home forces to oppose the threatened invasion in 1779, and suppress the outbreak of severe anti-Catholic rioting in 1780.