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Furcas

In demonology, Furcas (also spelled Forcas) is a Knight of Hell (the rank of Knight is unique to him), and rules 20 legions of demons. He teaches Philosophy, Astronomy (Astrology to some authors), Rhetoric, Logic, Chiromancy and Pyromancy. Furcas (also known as Ren Vacca) is depicted as a strong old man with white hair and a long white beard, who rides a horse while holding a sharp weapon (pitch fork).

"Furcas is a knight and commeth foorth in the similitude of a cruell man, with a long beard and a hoarie head, he sitteth on a pale horse, carrieng in his hand a sharpe weapon, he perfectlie teacheth practike philosophie, rhetorike, logike, astronomie, chiromancie, pyromancie, and their parts: there obeie him twentie legions."

Notably, the 1563 edition says Forcas is an alias of the demon Foras, but in the 1583 edition of Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, Forcas is established as a unique demon separate from Foras. According to a translation by Joseph H. Peterson:

"Foras [*Forras], alias Forcas is a great president, and is seene in the forme of a strong man, and in humane shape, he understandeth the vertue of hearbs and pretious stones: he teacheth fullie logicke, ethicke, and their parts: he maketh a man invisible, wittie, eloquent, and to live long; he recovereth things lost, and discovereth [discloses] treasures, and is lord over nine and twentie legions."

The etymology of his name may be derived from the Latin word furca, meaning fork, or from Greco-Roman also meaning a sepulchre (tomb).

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Gaap

Gaap (also Tap, Coap, Taob, Goap) is a demon that is described in demonological grimoires such as the Lesser Key of Solomon, Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, and the Munich Manual of Demonic Magic,  as well as Jacques Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal,

These works describe Gaap as a prince in human form who incites love. The Munich Manual also says that "Taob" also provides medical care for women, transforms them to make it easier to get to a lover, renders them infertile, and rules twenty-five legions of spirits. The other sources instead describe Gaap as a president, giving him the power to teach philosophy and liberal arts, make others invisible, steal familiars from other magicians, make men stupid, and carry men between kingdoms; in addition to ruling sixty-six legions of demons. Johann Weyer also connects Gaap to necromancers, and states that he was first called upon by Noah's son Ham, along with Beleth. He was of the order of potestates.

Gaap (or Goap) is also one of the four cardinal spirits, of the south in the Lesser Key of Solomon, the west in the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum.

In the Livre des Esperitz, Gaap (as Caap) is still a prince, but appears as a knight, brings gold and silver anywhere, and rules twenty legions of spirits.

Accomplished occultist Carroll "Poke" Runyon treats Gaap and Coap as different entities, although they were historically the same figure.

According to Thomas Rudd, Gaap is opposed by the Shem HaMephorash angel Ieuiah.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Gaap


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Trencavel

The Trencavel family was an important French noble family in Languedoc between the 10th and 13th centuries. The name "Trencavel" began as a nickname and later became the family's surname. The name may derive from the Occitan words for "Nutcracker" (trenca avelana). The name was traditionally restricted in actual use only to those family members named Raymond, but the last Trencavel viscount, Raymond II, preferred the surname over his given name and adopted it for his charters.

The first well-known member of the family was Ato I, viscount of Albi in the early 10th century. He was followed by five generations of viscounts of Albi in direct father-to-son descent. During this same period the family came to dominate the episcopacy of Languedoc. Each of the viscounts from Ato II on had a younger brother named Frotarius (or Frothaire) who was a bishop, be it of Albi, Cahors, or Nîmes.

History
In 1069, the three daughters of Peter II of Carcassonne sold the Counties of Carcassonne, Razès, the Béziers and Agde to Raymond Berengar I of Barcelona for 4,000 mancusos. By marriage to Ermengard, daughter of Peter II, Raymond Bernard, son of Bernard Ato III, became viscount of Carcassonne. He had already acquired Nîmes. By 1070, he was viscount of Béziers. His son Bernard Ato IV was viscount of Albi, Béziers, Carcassonne, Nîmes, and Razès. He thus held all the lands of the counts of Carcassonne, but never assumed the comital title. Bernard Ato was formally proclaimed viscount after the death of his mother in 1101.

Division
The sons of Ato IV divided their inheritance. The eldest, Roger I, took Albi, Carcassonne, and Razès, but had no children. The second, Raymond I took Béziers and Agde. The youngest, Bernard Ato V, inherited Nîmes and married Guilhelma, daughter of William VI of Montpellier. In 1132, Roger and Raymond agreed that in the event of Roger's death without heirs, Carcassonne would pass to Raymond. In 1150, Roger died and his three viscounties all passed to Raymond. After a series of disputes, the viscounty of Agde was divided between Raymond and Bernard Ato, with the latter holding the title. The elder branch of Béziers-Albi-Carcassonne-Razès and the younger of Nîmes-Agde were to remain sister separate for the remainder of the family's existence. The practical capital of the elder branch was Béziers.

During this period considerable urban unrest emerged as the growing cities tried to assert their independence. Raymond I was killed during one such revolt in Béziers. There was also revolts in Carcassonne in 1107 and 1120–1124, during which four years the Trencavel were expelled from the city.

The Trencavel's lands in the centre of Languedoc gave them considerable power in the 11th and 12th centuries. The counts of Barcelona and Toulouse both had large territories to the east and west, and valued a potential alliance with a family that stood in the middle. For the most part, the Trencavels allied with Barcelona against Toulouse. But as a result of the Albigensian Crusade, the last Trencavels lost their lands and titles.

Decline
Roger II, son of Raymond I, inherited his father's four viscounties. His sister son, Raymond Roger, also held them, but was captured after the fall of Carcassonne to the Crusaders. He died in prison at the end of 1209. Meanwhile, Bernard Ato VI, son of Bernard Ato V, ceded his rights as viscount of Nîmes and Agde to the Crusading leader Simon de Montfort in 1214. Raymond Roger's son, Raymond II, formally ceded his titles in 1210, though he reclaimed Carcassonne in 1224, only to lose it to Louis VIII of France in 1226. He continued to call himself viscount until 1247, when he once again formally ceded his rights, this time to Louis IX, and symbolically broke his vicecomital seals, after several failed attempts to recover his patrimony. He and his sons are the last known Trencavels, ruling only the castle of Limoux.

Raymond II's granddaughter was living at Cesseras in 1332, but the family disappears thereafter.

title: Trencavel


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Elemental

An elemental is a mythic supernatural being that is described in occult and alchemical works from around the time of the European Renaissance, and particularly elaborated in the 16th century works of Paracelsus. According to Paracelsus and his subsequent followers, there are four categories of elementals, which are gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders. These correspond to the four Empedoclean elements of antiquity: earth, water, air, and fire, respectively. Terms employed for beings associated with alchemical elements vary by source and gloss.

History
The Paracelsian concept of elementals draws from several much older traditions in mythology and religion. Common threads can be found in folklore, animism, and anthropomorphism. Examples of creatures such as the Pygmy were taken from Greek mythology.

The elements of earth, water, air, and fire, were classed as the fundamental building blocks of nature. This system prevailed in the Classical world and was highly influential in medieval natural philosophy. Although Paracelsus uses these foundations and the popular preexisting names of elemental creatures, he is doing so to present new ideas which expand on his own philosophical system. The homunculus is another example of a Paracelsian idea with roots in earlier alchemical, scientific, and folklore traditions.

Paracelsus
In his 16th-century work A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits, Paracelsus identified mythological beings as belonging to one of the four elements. Part of the Philosophia Magna, this book was first printed in 1566 after Paracelsus' death. He wrote the book to "describe the creatures that are outside the cognizance of the light of nature, how they are to be understood, what marvellous works God has created". He states that there is more bliss in describing these "divine objects" than in describing fencing, court etiquette, cavalry, and other worldly pursuits. The following is his archetypal being for each of the four elements:

 * Gnome, being of earth
 * Undine, being of water
 * Sylph, being of air
 * Salamander, being of fire

The concept of elementals seems to have been conceived by Paracelsus in the 16th century, though he did not in fact use the term "elemental" or a German equivalent. He regarded them not so much as spirits but as beings between creatures and spirits, generally being invisible to mankind but having physical and commonly humanoid bodies, as well as eating, sleeping, and wearing clothes like humans. Paracelsus gave common names for the elemental types, as well as correct names, which he seems to have considered somewhat more proper, "recht namen". He also referred to them by purely German terms which are roughly equivalent to "water people," "mountain people," and so on, using all the different forms interchangeably. His fundamental classification scheme on the first page of Tractatus II of the Book on Nymphs is based on where the elementals live, and he gives the following names:

Of the names he used, gnomus, undina, and sylph are all thought to have appeared first in Paracelsus' works, though undina is a fairly obvious Latin derivative from the word unda meaning "wave."

In De Meteoris he referred to the elementals collectively as Sagani.

He noted that undines are similar to humans in size, while sylphs are rougher, coarser, longer, and stronger. Gnomes are short, while salamanders are long, narrow, and lean. The elementals are said to be able to move through their own elements as human beings move through air. Gnomes, for example, can move through rocks, walls, and soil. Sylphs are the closest to humans in his conception because they move through air like we do, while in fire they burn, in water they drown, and in earth, they get stuck. Paracelsus states that each one stays healthy in its particular "chaos," as he terms it, but dies in the others.

Paracelsus conceived human beings to be composed of three parts, an elemental body, a sidereal spirit, and an immortal divine soul. Elementals lacked this last part, the immortal soul. However, by marriage with a human being, the elemental and its offspring could gain a soul.

Other authors and beliefs
In his influential De Occulta Philosophia, published in 1531–33, several decades before the publication of Paracelsus' Philosophia Magna, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa also wrote of four classes of spirits corresponding to the four elements. However, he did not give special names for the classes: "In like manner they distribute these into more orders, so as some are fiery, some watery, some aerial, some terrestrial." Agrippa did however give an extensive list of various mythological beings of this type, although without clarifying which belongs to which elemental class. Like Paracelsus, he did not use the term "elemental spirit" per se.

A 1670 French satire of occult philosophy, Comte de Gabalis, was prominent in popularizing Paracelsus' theory of elementals. It particularly focused on the idea of elemental marriage discussed by Paracelsus. In the book, the titular "Count of Kabbalah" explains that members of his order (to which Paracelsus is said to belong) refrain from marriage to human beings in order to retain their freedom to bestow souls upon elementals. Comte de Gabalis used the terms sylphide and gnomide to refer to female sylphs and gnomes (often "sylphid" and "gnomid" in English translations). Male nymphs (the term used instead of the Paracelsian "undine") are said to be rare, while female salamanders are rarely seen.

The Rosicrucians claimed to be able to see such elemental spirits. To be admitted to their society, it was previously necessary for the eyes to be purged with the Panacea or "Universal Medicine," a legendary alchemical substance with miraculous curative powers. As well, glass globes would be prepared with one of the four elements and for one month exposed to beams of sunlight. With these steps the initiated would see innumerable beings immediately. These beings, known as elementals, were said to be longer lived than man but ceased to exist upon death. However, if the elemental were to wed a mortal, they would become immortal. This exception seemed to work in reverse when it came to immortals, though, for if an elemental were to wed an immortal being, the immortal would gain the mortality of the elemental. One of the conditions of joining the Rosicrucians however, was a vow of chastity in hopes of marrying an elemental.

Comparison with Jainism
In Jainism, there is a superficially similar concept within its general cosmology, the ekendriya jiva, "one-sensed beings" with bodies (kaya) that are composed of a single element, albeit with a 5-element system (earth, water, air, fire, and plant), but these beings are actual physical objects and phenomena such as rocks, rain, fires and so on which are endowed with souls (jiva). In the Paracelsian concept, elementals are conceived more as supernatural humanoid beings which are much like human beings except for lacking souls. This is quite the opposite from the Jain conception which rather than positing soulless elementals is positing that physical objects have some type of soul and that what are commonly considered inanimate objects have this particular type of soul.

Twentieth century
In contemporary times there are those who study and practice rituals to invoke elementals. These include Wiccans, and followers of nature-based religions.

Art and entertainment
Elementals became popular characters in Romantic literature after Paracelsus. Even by the 17th century, elemental spirits after the Paracelsian concept appeared in works by John Dryden and in the Comte de Gabalis. Alexander Pope cited Comte de Gabalis as his source for elemental lore in his 1712 poem The Rape of the Lock. "The Sprites of fiery Termagants in Flame Mount up, and take a Salamander's name. Soft yielding minds to Water glide away, And sip, with Nymphs, their elemental Tea. The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome, In search of mischief still on Earth to roam. The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, And sport and flutter in the fields of Air." Fouqué's wildly popular 1811 novella Undine is one of the most influential literary examples. Another example is the DC Comics superhero team The Elementals, composed of the characters Gnome, Sylph, Salamander, and Undine.

Blackwood introduces an elemental in the novella The Nemesis of Fire. Elementals related to the four classical elements appeared in the fiction of Michael Moorcock, notably his 1972 novel Elric of Melniboné, and a variant appeared in the 1970s Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The concept has since been expanded on in numerous other fantasy, computer and trading card games.

title: Elemental


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Dermot Morgan

Dermot John Morgan (31 March 1952 – 28 February 1998) was an Irish comedian and actor, best known for his role as Father Ted Crilly on the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted.

Early life
Morgan was born in Dublin, the son of Hilda "Holly" (née Stokes) and Donnchadh Morgan, a civil servant and gifted amateur artist and sculptor. His father died young of an aneurysm, leaving Holly with three children: Dermot, Paul, and Denise. A fourth child, Ruth, died in childhood in 1956. Morgan was educated at Oatlands College in Stillorgan and University College Dublin (UCD), where he studied English literature and philosophy. During his time there, he honed his comic skills; he also fronted a country and Irish band named Big Gom and the Imbeciles, a kind of 'tribute' act to Big Tom and The Mainliners, a major Irish band of the era.

Father Trendy and The Live Mike
Morgan made his debut in the media on the Morning Ireland radio show produced by Gene Martin, whose sister Ella was the mother of one of Morgan's friends. It was through this contact that Morgan made the break into radio and eventually television.

Morgan came to prominence as part of the team behind the highly successful RTÉ television show The Live Mike, presented by Mike Murphy. Between 1979 and 1982 Morgan played a range of comic characters who appeared between segments of the show. Morgan lampooned the rampant Modernism within the Post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church in Ireland by creating Father Trendy, a wishy-washy, trying-to-be-cool hippie-priest (modelled after Father Brian D'Arcy). Father Trendy always wore an Elvis Presley-style haircut and sometimes a leather jacket. He was also given to drawing ludicrous parallels between religion and secularism in two-minute 'sermons' to the camera. Morgan also satirised extreme nationalist "Little Irelanders", by playing an irate and bigoted GAA member who waved his hurley around while verbally attacking his pet hates.

At the height of The Troubles, Morgan also lampooned both the Wolfe Tones and the clichés of Irish rebel songs, which he said: "always have lots of blood and guts and fire and thunder in them". He then sang his own parody of Thomas Osborne Davis' iconic song "A Nation Once Again", about the martyrdom of Fido, a dog who saves his IRA master by eating a hand grenade during a search of the house by the Black and Tans during the Irish War of Independence. When Fido farts and the grenade accidentally detonates, the Black and Tans comment that "'Scuse me mate, was that something your dog ate?" The song climaxed with the words: "I hope that I shall live to see Fido an Alsatian once again."

As a singer: Mr Eastwood
Morgan released a comedy single, "Thank You Very Much, Mr. Eastwood", in December 1985. It was a take on the fawning praise that internationally successful Irish boxer Barry McGuigan gave his manager, Barney Eastwood, at the end of successive bouts. The single 'featured' lines by McGuigan, Ronald Reagan, Bob Geldof and Pope John Paul II, and was the Christmas number one in the Irish singles chart in 1985.

Scrap Saturday
Morgan's biggest Irish broadcasting success occurred in the late 1980s on the Saturday morning radio comedy show Scrap Saturday, in which Morgan, co-scriptwriter Gerard Stembridge, Owen Roe and Pauline McLynn mocked Ireland's political, business and media establishment. The show's treatment of the relationship between the ever-controversial Taoiseach Charles Haughey and his press secretary PJ Mara proved particularly popular, with Haughey's dismissive attitude towards Mara and the latter's adoring and grovelling attitude towards his boss winning critical praise.

Morgan pilloried Haughey's propensity for claiming a family connection to almost every part of Ireland he visited by referring to a famous advertisement for Harp lager, which played on the image of someone returning home and seeking friends.

The Haughey/Mara "double act" became the star turn in a series that mocked both sides of the political divide, from Haughey and his advisors to opposition Fine Gael TD Michael Noonan as Limerick disk jockey "Morning Noon'an Night". When RTÉ axed the show in the early 1990s a national outcry ensued. Morgan lashed the decision, calling it "a shameless act of broadcasting cowardice and political subservience". An RTÉ spokesman said: "The show is not being axed. It's just not being continued!"

In 1991, Morgan received a Jacob's Award for his contribution to Scrap Saturday from the Irish national newspaper radio critics.

Father Ted
Already a celebrity in Ireland, Morgan got his big break in Britain with Channel 4's Irish sitcom Father Ted, which ran for three series from 1995 to 1998. Writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews auditioned many actors for the title role, but Morgan's enthusiasm won him the part. Father Ted focuses on the misadventures of three morally dubious Irish Catholic priests, whose transgressions have caused them to be exiled to the fictional Craggy Island, off the west coast of Ireland.

BAFTA Award
In 1996, Father Ted won a BAFTA award for Best Comedy. The same year Morgan also won a British Comedy Award for Top TV Comedy Actor, and McLynn was awarded Top TV Comedy Actress. In 1999, Father Ted won a second BAFTA for Best Comedy, with Morgan being awarded Best Comedy Performance posthumously.

Unreleased works
Morgan said in an interview with Gay Byrne on The Late Late Show in 1996 that he was writing a screenplay titled Miracle of the Magyars, based on a real-life incident in the 1950s when the Archbishop of Dublin forbade Catholics from attending a football match between the Republic of Ireland and Yugoslavia on religious and spiritual grounds. Yugoslavia won the match 4–1. Morgan planned to use Hungary as the opposing side to the Republic of Ireland – hence the title. At the time of his death in 1998, he had completed the screenplay but the film was never made.

Morgan's first project after Father Ted was to be Re-united, a sitcom about two retired footballers sharing a flat in London. According to former manager John Fischer, Morgan was writing the script for the programme and planned to take the part of "an Eamon Dunphy-type who had gone on to work in journalism, but had ended up living with an old football pal". Mel Smith was in talks for the role of the friend.

Morgan had been commissioned to write a drama series for the BBC.

Personal life
Morgan was married to Susanne Garmatz, a German woman, with whom he had two sons. He later began a relationship with Fiona Clarke, with whom he had another son.

Although he had been raised as a Catholic and had briefly considered becoming a priest during childhood, Morgan became an atheist in his later life, and he was critical of the Catholic Church. He supported Irish football clubs Shamrock Rovers FC and UCD and English football club Chelsea.

Death
Before location filming on the third and final series of Father Ted, Morgan underwent a mandatory medical examination in which he was found to have high blood pressure, and was prescribed medication. On 28 February 1998, one day after recording the series' final episode, Morgan suffered a heart attack while hosting a dinner party at his home in London's Hounslow area, at which the Scottish musician Jim Diamond was present. He was rushed to hospital, but died soon afterward. He was 45 years old.

Morgan's sister Denise said "He wasn't feeling great at the end of the meal and I went to the bedroom with him. He had a heart attack, and I didn't recognise it. From my limited training in first aid, I wasn't sure exactly what was happening. The symptoms didn't match what the books said. I said to him 'I think you are okay' and we went back to the table. He apologised for having left the room and the next thing he just collapsed. We tried to resuscitate him but it didn't work." Father Ted co-star Frank Kelly said "Dermot's mind was mercurial. I think he was a kind of comedic meteor. He burned himself out."

Despite Morgan's atheism, a Catholic requiem Mass was offered for him at St Therese's Church in the South Dublin suburb of Mount Merrion. The Mass was attended by Irish President Mary McAleese, her predecessor Mary Robinson, and many of the Irish political and religious leaders who had been the targets of his satire in Scrap Saturday. His body was cremated at Glasnevin Cemetery, and his ashes were buried in the family plot at Deans Grange Cemetery.

Legacy
"The Joker's Chair" a bronze throne by sculptor Catherine Green was unveiled by then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Merrion Square, in Dublin. It bears his name and dates.

In December 2013, the documentary Dermot Morgan – Fearless Funnyman aired on RTÉ One.

A plaque outside McGuire's shop in Mount Merrion was unveiled in 2016.

A wax statue of Morgan stands in the national wax museum in Dublin as part of a "Father Ted's Room" display.

Television

 * The Live Mike (1979–1982)
 * Father Ted (1995–1998)
 * Have I Got News for You (1996–97; episodes 11.02 and 14.03)
 * Shooting Stars (1 episode, 1996)
 * That's Showbusiness (1 episode, 1996)

Radio

 * Scrap Saturday (1989–1991)

Film

 * Taffin (1988)
 * The First Snow of Winter (1998, voice in UK version)

title: Dermot Morgan


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Skeleton (undead)

A skeleton is a type of physically manifested undead often found in fantasy, gothic, and horror fiction, as well as mythology, folklore, and various kinds of art. Most are human skeletons, but they can also be from any creature or race found on Earth or in the fantasy world.

Myth and folklore
Animated human skeletons have been used as a personification of death in Western culture since the Middle Ages, a personification perhaps influenced by the valley of the dry bones in the Book of Ezekiel. The Grim Reaper is often depicted as a hooded skeleton holding a scythe (and occasionally an hourglass), which has been attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger (1538). Death as one of the biblical horsemen of the Apocalypse has been depicted as a skeleton riding a horse. The Triumph of Death is a 1562 painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder depicting an army of skeletons raiding a town and slaughtering its occupants.

"The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was" is a Brothers Grimm fairy tale in which a boy named Hans joins a circle of dancing skeletons.

In Japanese folklore, Mekurabe are rolling skulls with eyeballs who menace Taira no Kiyomori.

Mexico
Figurines and images of skeletons doing routine things are common in Mexico's Day of the Dead celebration, where skulls symbolize life and their familiar circumstances invite levity. Highly-decorated sugar-skull candy has become one of the most recognizable elements of the celebrations. They are known in Mexico as calacas, a Mexican Spanish term simply meaning "skeleton". The modern association between skeleton iconography and the Day of the Dead was inspired by La Calavera Catrina, a zinc etching created by Mexican cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada in the 1910s and published posthumously in 1930. Initially a satire of Mexican women who were ashamed of their indigenous origins and dressed imitating the French style, wearing heavy makeup to make their skin look whiter, it later became a more general symbol of vanity. During the 20th Century, the Catrina entrenched itself in the Mexican consciousness and became a national icon, often depicted in folk art.

Literature

 * The animated skeleton features in some Gothic fiction. One early example is in the short story "Thurnley Abbey" (1908) by Perceval Landon, originally published in his collection Raw Edges. It is reprinted in many modern anthologies, such as The 2nd Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories and The Penguin Book of Horror Stories.
 * An anthropomorphic depiction of Death which looks like a skeleton in a black robe appears in almost all volumes of Terry Pratchett's fantasy series Discworld, including five novels where he is the lead character.
 * In the manga/anime One Piece, Brook, who is one of the main characters, is an animated skeleton after consuming the Revive-Revive Fruit.

Film and TV

 * Undead skeletons have been portrayed in fantasy films such as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The Black Cauldron (1985), Army of Darkness (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), and Corpse Bride (2005).
 * An extended battle scene against an army of skeletal warriors was produced by animator Ray Harryhausen for Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and is remembered as one of the most sophisticated and influential visual effects sequences of its day.
 * Undead skeletons always appear as funny characters in Thai fantasy folk television dramas. They are often referred to as "Na Phi" ("uncle ghost").

Games

 * Animated skeletons have been used and portrayed extensively in fantasy role-playing games. In a tradition that goes back to the pen-and-paper game Dungeons & Dragons, the basic animated skeleton is commonly employed as a low-level undead enemy, typically easy for a player to defeat in combat. Thus, in games which make use of them, such enemies often appear relatively early in the gameplay and are considered a suitable opponent for novice players. In these contexts, they are commonly armed with medieval weapons and sometimes wear armor.
 * In the PlayStation action-adventure series MediEvil, the protagonist is an animated skeleton knight named Sir Daniel Fortesque.
 * In the 1999 cult classic Planescape: Torment, Morte is a character who joins the protagonist on his quest and is essentially a sentient, levitating human skull with intact eyeballs who cracks wise and fights by biting.
 * In the 2011 Minecraft video game, skeletons appear as bow-wielding monsters that shoot players with their bows and burn under the sunlight unless they wear helmets. Sometimes the skeletons spawn with stronger bows or random armor, or without a bow, and they can choose melee weapons. Variants include the wither skeleton, which causes the player's health points to wither away, a frozen variant found in snowy biomes, and a poisonous variant found in swamp and mangrove swamp biomes. In the spinoff game Minecraft Dungeons, they are the guards of The Nameless One, the king of the undead. In this form, they are equipped with glaives, shields, and iron armor, and are referred to as Skeleton Vanguards.
 * In the video game Fable III, there exist a race of antagonal characters called "hollow men" which are featured throughout the game.
 * A duo of animated skeleton brothers plays an important role in the role-playing game Undertale. Named Sans and Papyrus, the brothers' dialogue text is printed in Comic Sans and Papyrus fonts, respectively.
 * Following a poll taken during their Kickstarter campaign, Larian Studios added a playable skeleton race in their 2017 RPG Divinity: Original Sin II, as well as an ancient skeletal character named Fane.
 * The Mario series has some Koopa Troopa-skeleton themed enemies known as Dry Bones, where after they get hit, they return to their form. Bowser also has a skeleton form known as Dry Bowser, first debuted in New Super Mario Bros., and featured in other games such as Mario Party and Mario Kart.
 * The Legend of Zelda series features an enemy called Stalfos, armed skeletons who serve as regular enemies and occasionally as minibosses. Variations such as Stalkids and Stalblins also appear in various games in the series.
 * In Heroes of Might and Magic 3, skeletons are recruitable troops from the Town, Necropolis.

title: Skeleton (undead)


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Ouzo

Ouzo (ούζο, ) is a dry anise-flavored aperitif that is widely consumed in Greece. It is made from rectified spirits that have undergone a process of distillation and flavoring. Its taste is similar to other anise liquors like pastis, sambuca, mastika, rakı, and arak.

History
Ouzo has its roots in tsipouro, which is said to have been the work of a group of 14th-century monks on Mount Athos. One version of it was flavored with anise. This version eventually came to be called ouzo.

Modern ouzo distillation largely took off at the beginning of the 19th century following Greek independence. The first ouzo distillery was founded in Tyrnavos in 1856 by Nikolaos Katsaros, giving birth to the famous ouzo Tyrnavou. When absinthe fell into disfavor in the early 20th century, ouzo was one of the products whose popularity rose to fill the gap; it was once called "a substitute for absinthe without the wormwood". In 1932, ouzo producers developed a method of distillation using copper stills that is now the standard method of production. One of the largest producers of ouzo today is Varvayanis (Βαρβαγιάννης), located in the town of Plomari in the southeast portion of the island of Lesbos, while in the same town Pitsiladi (Πιτσιλαδή), a variety of high-quality ouzo, is also distilled.

Ouzo is usually mixed with water, becoming cloudy white, sometimes with a faint blue tinge, and served with ice cubes in a small glass. Ouzo can also be drunk straight from a shot glass.

Ouzo is often served with a small plate of a variety of appetizers called mezes, usually small fresh fish, fries, olives, and feta cheese. Ouzo can be described to have a similar taste to absinthe which is licorice-like, but smoother.

On October 25, 2006, Greece won the right to label ouzo as an exclusively Greek product. The European Union now recognizes ouzo, as well as the Greek drinks tsipouro and tsikoudia, as products with a Protected Designation of Origin, which prohibits European makers other than Greece and Cyprus from using the name.

There is an ouzo museum in Plomari, Lesvos.

Name
The origin of the name "ouzo" is disputed. A popular derivation is from the Italian "uso Marsiglia"— for use in Marseille—stamped on selected silkworm cocoons exported from Tyrnavos in the 19th century. According to anecdote, this designation came to stand for "superior quality", which the spirit distilled as ouzo was thought to possess.

During a visit to Thessaly in 1896, the late professor Alexander Philadelpheus delivered to us valuable information on the origins of the word "ouzo", which has come to replace the word "tsipouro". According to the professor, tsipouro gradually became ouzo after the following event: Thessaly exported fine cocoons to Marseilles during the 19th century, and in order to distinguish the product, outgoing crates would be stamped with the words "uso Marsiglia"—Italian for "to be used in Marseille". One day, the Ottoman Greek consulate physician, named Anastas (Anastasios) Bey, happened to be visiting the town of Tyrnavos and was asked to sample the local tsipouro. Upon tasting the drink, the physician immediately exclaimed: "This is uso Marsiglia, my friends"—referring to its high quality. The term subsequently spread by word of mouth, until tsipouro gradually became known as ouzo.
 * —The Times of Thessaly, 1959

However, the major Greek dictionaries derive it from the Turkish word üzüm 'grape'.

Preparation
Ouzo production begins with distillation in copper stills of 96% alcohol by volume (ABV) rectified spirit. Anise is added, sometimes with other flavorings such as star anise, fennel, mastic, cardamom, coriander, cloves, and cinnamon. The flavoring ingredients are often closely guarded company "recipes", and distinguish one ouzo from another. The result is a flavored alcoholic solution known as flavored ethyl alcohol, or more commonly as ouzo yeast—μαγιά ούζου in Greek—the term for "yeast" being used by Greeks metaphorically to denote that it serves as the starting point for ouzo production.

The ouzo yeast is then distilled. After several hours of distillation, a flavored distillate of approximately 80% ABV is produced. The spirit at the beginning of the distillation (heads) and end (tails) is usually removed to avoid light and heavy alcohols and aromatics. The heads and tails are usually mixed and distilled again. The product of this second distillation can be used to produce a different quality ouzo.

This technique of double-distillation is used by some distillers to differentiate their products.

Makers of high-quality "100% from distillation" ouzo proceed at this stage with water dilution, bringing the ouzo to its final ABV. But most producers combine the "ouzo yeast" with less expensive ethyl alcohol flavored with 0.05 percent natural anethole, before water dilution. Greek law dictates that in this case the ouzo yeast cannot be less than 20 percent of the final product.

Sugar may be added before water dilution, which is done mostly with ouzo from Southern Greece.

The final ABV is usually between 37.5 and 50 percent; the minimum allowed is 37.5 percent.

Ouzo production itself does not involve fermentation.

Aperitif drink
In modern Greece, ouzeries (the suffix -erie is imported from French, like in Boulangerie or Pâtisserie) are common throughout Greece. These café-like establishments serve ouzo with mezedes. It is traditionally slowly sipped (usually mixed with water or ice) together with mezedes shared with others over a period of several hours in the early evening.

In other countries, it is tradition to have ouzo in authentic Greek restaurants as an aperitif, served in a shot glass and deeply chilled before the meal is started. No water or ice is added but the drink is served very cold, enough to make some crystals form in the drink as it is served.

Cocktails
Ouzo is not used in many mainstream cocktail drinks, although in Cyprus it does form the basis of a cocktail called an Ouzini.

Appearance
Ouzo is a clear liquid. However, when water or ice is added, ouzo turns a milky-white colour. This is because anethole, the essential oil of anise, is completely soluble in alcohol at approximately 38% ABV and above, but not in water. Diluting the spirit causes it to separate, creating an emulsion whose fine droplets scatter the light. This process is called louching and is also seen while preparing absinthe.

Drinks with a similar flavour
Similar aperitifs include sambuca (from Italy), pastis (from France), oghi (from Armenia), rakı (from Turkey), and arak (from the Levant). Its aniseed flavour is also similar to the anise-flavoured liqueur of anís (Spain) and the stronger spirits of absinthe (from France and Switzerland). Aguardiente (from Latin America), made from sugar cane, is also similar. The Italian drink Pallini Mistra, named after the Greek city of Mystras in the Peloponnese is a version of ouzo made in Rome that closely resembles Greek and Cypriot ouzo.

In Bulgaria and North Macedonia, the similar beverage is called mastika (Мастика / Мастика), a name that is shared by the distinct Greek liquor mastika which is flavored with mastic crystals. Most commonly it is consumed as an aperitif, usually poured over ice to release its aroma and flavors, and enjoyed with meze. Containing 43–45% alcohol, it has a hot taste, not unlike that of brandy, and is usually made from grapes. In North Macedonia, mastika has traditionally been made in the Strumica area.

title: Ouzo


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User:Vrable

Currently, a student at Harvey Mudd College (will graduate in 2004). Majors in mathematics and computer science, with an interest in physics and other topics as well.

New to Wikipedia.

title: User:Vrable


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Gremlin

A gremlin is a mischievous folkloric creature invented at the beginning of the 20th century to originally explain malfunctions in aircraft, and later in other machinery, processes, and their operators. Depictions of these creatures vary widely. Stories about them and references to them as the causes of especially inexplicable technical and mental problems of pilots were especially popular during and after World War II.

Use of the term in the sense of a mischievous creature that sabotages aircraft first arose in Royal Air Force (RAF) slang among British pilots stationed in Malta, the Middle East, and India in the 1920s, with the earliest printed record in a poem published in the journal Aeroplane in Malta on 10 April 1929. Later sources have sometimes claimed that the concept goes back to World War I, but there is no print evidence of this.

There is evidence of earlier RAF reference in the 1920s to a lowly menial person, in other words a low-ranking officer or enlisted man saddled with oppressive assignments.

Aviation origins
Although their origin is found in myths among airmen claiming that gremlins were responsible for sabotaging aircraft, the folklorist John W. Hazen states that some people derive the name from the Old English word gremian, "to vex", while Carol Rose, in her book Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopedia, attributes the name to a portmanteau of Grimm's Fairy Tales and Fremlin Beer. According to Paul Quinion, it is plausible that the term is a blend of the word "goblin" with the name of the manufacturer of the most common beer available in the RAF in the 1920s, Fremlin.

An early reference to the gremlin is in aviator Pauline Gower's 1938 novel The ATA: Women with Wings, where Scotland is described as "gremlin country", a mystical and rugged territory where scissor-wielding gremlins cut the wires of biplanes when unsuspecting pilots were about. An article by Hubert Griffith in the servicemen's fortnightly Royal Air Force Journal dated 18 April 1942, also chronicles the appearance of gremlins, although the article states the stories had been in existence for several years, with later recollections of it having been told by Battle of Britain Spitfire pilots as early as 1940.

This concept of gremlins was popularized during World War II among airmen of the Royal Air Force (RAF) units, in particular the men of the high-altitude Photographic Reconnaissance Units (PRU) of RAF Benson, RAF Wick and RAF St Eval. The flight crews blamed gremlins for otherwise inexplicable accidents which sometimes occurred during their flights. Gremlins were also thought at one point to have enemy sympathies, but investigations revealed that enemy aircraft had similar and equally inexplicable mechanical problems. As such, gremlins were portrayed as equal opportunity tricksters, taking no sides in the conflict, but acting out their mischief from their own self-interest. In reality, the gremlins were a form of "buck passing" or deflecting blame. This led John Hazen to note that "the gremlin has been looked on as new phenomenon, a product of the machine age – the age of air". The concept of gremlins as a scapegoat was important to the morale of pilots according to the author and historian Marlin Bressi: "'Gremlins, while imaginary, played a very important role to the airmen of the Royal Air Force. Gremlin tales helped build morale among pilots, which, in turn, helped them repel the Luftwaffe invasion during the Battle of Britain during the summer of 1940. The war may have had a very different outcome if the R.A.F. pilots had lost their morale and allowed Germany's plans for Operation Sea Lion (the planned invasion of the U.K.) to develop. In a way, it could be argued that gremlins, troublesome as they were, ultimately helped the Allies win the war.' Bressi also noted: 'Morale among the R.A.F. pilots would have suffered if they pointed the finger of blame at each other. It was far better to make the scapegoat a fantastic and comical creature than another member of your own squadron.'" Examples of Gremlins can be seen in the IBCC Digital Archive.

Popularization by Roald Dahl
British author Roald Dahl is credited with getting the gremlins known outside the Royal Air Force. He would have been familiar with the myth, having carried out his military service in 80 Squadron of the Royal Air Force in the Middle East. Dahl had his own experience in an accidental crash-landing in the Western Desert when he ran out of fuel. In January 1942, he was transferred to Washington, D.C. as Assistant Air attaché at the British Embassy. It was there that he wrote his first children's novel, The Gremlins, in which "Gremlins" were tiny men who lived on RAF fighters. In the same novel, Dahl called the wives of gremlins "Fifinellas", their male children "Widgets", and their female children "Flibbertigibbets". Dahl showed the finished manuscript to Sidney Bernstein, the head of the British Information Service, who came up with the idea to send it to Walt Disney.

The manuscript arrived in Disney's hands in July 1942, and he considered using it as material for a live action/animated full-length feature film, offering Dahl a contract. The film project was changed to an animated feature and entered pre-production, with characters "roughed out" and storyboards created. Disney managed to have the story published in the December 1942 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. At Dahl's urging, in early 1943, a revised version of the story, again titled The Gremlins, was published as a picture book by Random House. (It was later updated and re-published in 2006 by Dark Horse Comics).

The 1943 publication of The Gremlins by Random House consisted of 50,000 copies, with Dahl ordering 50 copies for himself as promotional material for himself and the upcoming film, handing them out to everyone he knew, including the British ambassador in Washington Lord Halifax, and the US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who read it to her grandchildren. The book was considered an international success with 30,000 more sold in Australia but initial efforts to reprint the book were precluded by a wartime paper shortage. Reviewed in major publications, Dahl was considered a writer-of-note and his appearances in Hollywood to follow up with the film project were met with notices in Hedda Hopper's columns.

The film project was reduced to an animated short and eventually cancelled in August 1943, when copyright and RAF rights could not be resolved. But thanks mainly to Disney, the story had its share of publicity, which helped in introducing the concept to a wider audience. Issues #33–41 of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories published between June 1943 and February 1944 contained a nine-episode series of short silent stories featuring a Gremlin Gus as their star. The first was drawn by Vivie Risto, and the rest of them by Walt Kelly. This served as their introduction to the comic book audience as they are human gremlins who lived in their own village as little flying human people.

While Roald Dahl was famous for making gremlins known worldwide, many returning Air Servicemen swear they saw creatures tinkering with their equipment. One crewman swore he saw one before an engine malfunction that caused his B-25 Mitchell bomber to rapidly lose altitude, forcing the aircraft to return to base. Folklorist Hazen likewise offers his own alleged eyewitness testimony of these creatures, which appeared in an academically praised and peer-reviewed publication, describing an occasion he found "a parted cable which bore obvious tooth marks in spite of the fact that the break occurred in a most inaccessible part of the plane". At this point, Hazen states he heard "a gruff voice" demand, "How many times must you be told to obey orders and not tackle jobs you aren't qualified for? – This is how it should be done." Upon which Hazen heard a "musical twang" and another cable was parted.

Critics of this idea state that the stress of combat and the dizzying heights caused such hallucinations, often believed to be a coping mechanism of the mind to help explain the many problems aircraft faced while in combat.

Film

 * In 1943, Bob Clampett directed Falling Hare, a Merrie Melodies cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny. Inspired by Roald Dahl's book and Walt Disney's proposed film, this short is one of the earliest films to include multiple gremlins, though only one was consequential. It features Bugs Bunny in conflict with a gremlin, first at an airfield and then in an airborne plane. It was followed in 1944 by Russian Rhapsody, another Merrie Melodies short showing Russian gremlins (modeled on Warner Brothers animation staff) sabotaging an aircraft piloted by Adolf Hitler. The gremlin in "Falling Hare" has a color scheme reflecting one used on U.S. Army Air Forces training aircraft of the time, using dark blue (as on such an aircraft's fuselage) and a deep orange-yellow color (as used on the wings and tail surfaces).
 * The 1944 romantic comedy Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore had animated gremlins with an uncredited Mel Blanc providing the voice.
 * The 1981 animated film Heavy Metal contains a segment titled "B-17" had creatures referred to as "Gremlins" in which the sole surviving pilot of a battle weary aircraft is ravaged by the reanimated corpses of his fellow crew.
 * The 1984 film Gremlins, produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Joe Dante, is loosely inspired by Roald Dahl's characters, featuring evil and destructive monsters which mutate from small furry creatures. Murray Futterman, a WWII veteran calls the creatures "Real Gremlins". A sequel followed in 1990, called Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
 * In Cast a Deadly Spell, a 1991 HBO television film, gremlins are said to have been "brought back from the pacific" to the United States in World War II and are seen damaging cars and houses.
 * In Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), Alex sees Mort (mistaking him for a gremlin) messing with the engine and falling off the aircraft.
 * In the movie franchise Hotel Transylvania the gremlins are seen as guests of the monster hotel built by Count Dracula.
 * A batlike gremlin appears in the 2020 film Shadow in the Cloud. The film starts with a depiction of gremlins in WW II circa posters as a creative scapegoat used by airmen to deflect negligence in maintenance and responsibility for their aircraft. Once the protagonist boards the aircraft, she finds an actual gremlin is sabotaging the aircraft. The creature looks like a cross between a large bat with razor-sharp claws and a monkey with a long tail. The gremlin sabotages the aircraft by taking out an engine, attacking the protagonist in the lower turret and another crew member in the upper turret.

Television

 * A 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" directed by Richard Donner and based on the short story of the same name by Richard Matheson, featured a gremlin attacking an airliner. In the original television episode, the gremlin appears as a stocky ape-like creature which inspects the aircraft's wing with the curiosity of an animal before damaging it. William Shatner plays a passenger named Bob Wilson (just recovered from a mental breakdown) who sees the gremlin (played by Nick Cravat) on the aircraft's wing as he tries to warn the stewardess and other airplane staff members about it. Upon realizing that the gremlin's work on the wing would cause the airplane to crash, Bob steals a sleeping sky marshal's revolver and causes a breach in the auxiliary exit to shoot the gremlin. When the airplane lands, Bob is removed from the aircraft on a stretcher in a straitjacket. Rod Serling narrates that Bob Wilson's conviction will not be long as the final scene shows that the gremlin left evidence of Bob's claim in the form of a damaged wing. This episode was remade as a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) with John Lithgow playing a similar character called John Valentine. John Valentine (who is depicted as suffering from aviatophobia) sees the gremlin and tries to warn the people on the airplane as the gremlin intentionally damages the wing. After stealing an airplane security guard's gun and breaking open his window, John opens fire on the gremlin which defends itself by breaking the gun and flies away when the airplane nears the airport. John is taken away in a straitjacket as the maintenance crew discovers unexplained damages and claw marks on the wing to the surprise of the passengers nearby.
 * The 1975 Doctor Who serial "The Ark in Space" is set on a supposedly impervious, yet now decrepit space station. In it, the Doctor's companion Harry Sullivan explains the station's fate, saying, "Gremlins can get into everything, old girl. First law of the sea."
 * A gremlin makes an appearance in a Halloween special of The Simpsons (original airdate: 28 October 1993) paralleling The Twilight Zone's "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", (the segment is even named "Terror at 5½ Feet") in which the gremlin (with its vocal effects provided by Frank Welker) attempts to destroy the wheel of Bart Simpson's school bus. Bart ends up using a flare gun to get it off the bus only for it to land on Ned Flanders' car. Bart is taken away in a straitjacket and later sees the gremlin outside of the ambulance holding Ned's severed but still living head.
 * The Eek! The Cat episode "The Eex Files" (original airdate: 5 November 1994) starts out with Eek on an aircraft beside a man claiming to see someone outside on the wing. Of course when he looks, there is no one there. At the end of the episode, Eek is dropped off by an alien on the wing of the aircraft and meets the gremlin, then promptly offers to help him "find his wallet". The final scene shows the half-crazed man looking out the window and "spazzing out" when he sees them both tearing up the wing.
 * A Tiny Toon Adventures special titled "Night Ghoulery" (original airdate: 25 August 1995) includes a spoof of Night Gallery, with Babs Bunny presenting in Rod Serling's style. It has a segment named "Gremlin on a Wing", which parodies "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", with Plucky Duck in William Shatner's place, accompanied by Hamton J. Pig in an aircraft, and a gremlin similar to that which appeared in the Bugs Bunny short Falling Hare.
 * In the Johnny Bravo episode "The Man Who Cried Clown" (original airdate: 8 December 1997), which is part of "The Zone Where Normal Things Don't Happen Very Often," Johnny sees an evil clown on the wing of the aircraft and is having difficulty convincing the pilots and anyone of its existence which even included a cameo by someone resembling William Shatner who quotes "Oh no you don't! I'm not falling for that again." When he catches and beats up the clown in the airplane's restroom, he is confronted and informed by a pilot that the clown in question and another clown were needed to keep the aircraft in balance during flight. The pilots and some nearby people beat up Johnny and make him take the incapacitated clown's place.
 * At the end of episode 9 of Muppets Tonight, Miss Piggy sees a gremlin outside of her airplane window. William Shatner is seen sitting next to her as he claims that he has been complaining about the gremlin for years, but nobody does anything about it.
 * The Real Ghostbusters episode "Don't Forget the Motor City" (original airdate: 3 December 1987) has the Ghostbusters traveling to Detroit to battle gremlins who are sabotaging a factory run by a fictional analog of General Motors.
 * A gremlin appears in the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode "The Tale of the Curious Camera" (2 March 1994). After getting his portraits back from the basketball team, Matt finds that he didn't show up in the photos. To make it up to him, the photographer gives him an antique camera because it has apparently chosen him. Matt soon learns that anything or anyone he takes a picture of will have something bad happen to it whether he wants it or not. It is discovered that a gremlin inhabits the camera.
 * In the Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends episode "Gordon and the Gremlin" (original airdate: 16 September 1998), gremlins are blamed for Gordon's fire not lighting and problems with the turntable.
 * In the Extreme Ghostbusters episode "Grease" (original airdate: 25 September 1997), the Ghostbusters have to capture a gremlin that was damaging New York's machines, while at the same time the FBI believes them to be the cause of the sabotage.
 * In So Weird (1999), the gang stop at a town called "Simplicity" where gremlins are destroying everything mechanical. In the fiction of the episode, gremlins were the original inventors and were upset with humans for taking their technology for granted. The gremlins are only appeased by the gang re-writing a locally based tech conglomerate's jingle to be about simple living.
 * In the cartoon series American Dragon: Jake Long, the episode "Jake Takes the Cake" (original airdate: 26 August 2005) features gremlins who mess with any type of mechanical devices and cause a lot of trouble until they are put to sleep and captured.
 * The 2013 entry for the Kamen Rider series titled Kamen Rider Wizard features a Phantom known as Gremlin. His human name Sora is Japanese for "sky", possibly an allusion to planes. He wields a pair of swords modeled after scissor blades, reflecting the claims that gremlins use scissors to cut wires in biplanes.
 * The Ben 10 alien, Juryrigg, looks like a gremlin and is known to break down and modify machines.
 * The 2010 Super Sentai series, Tensou Sentai Goseiger featured the antagonistic cryptid-themed monster group Yuumajuu. One of their members is the bratty Waraikozou of the Gremlin, who has the secondary theme of flea. Like stereotypical gremlins, Waraikozou is capable of destroying mechanical objects.
 * Mr. Bogus are a gremlin like and based on the French / Belgian clay animation series of shorts simply titled, Bogus.
 * An animated television series based on the 1984 film, Gremlins, is being produced for HBO Max, entitled Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai. It is set for a 2023 release date following delays, and will also air on Cartoon Network under their ACME Night programming block. It serves as a sort of prequel to the original films, expanding on the lore of the small furry creatures known as Mogwai, who painfully multiply when wet and become evil Gremlins when fed after midnight, as well as how the Wing family, namely 10 year old Sam, came into possession of Gizmo.

Radio

 * On 21 December 1942, CBS aired "Gremlins", a whimsical story written by Lucille Fletcher, on an episode of Orson Welles's patriotic radio series Ceiling Unlimited. U.S. Army Air Forces officers discuss their experiences with the irritating creatures, and conclude that feeding them transforms them into an asset rather than a hindrance to aviation.
 * On 3 Dec 2021, Tasgeel Podcast produced a Gremlin influenced short audio film "The Trip".

Music

 * On Robert Calvert's 1974 concept album Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters, the Song of the Gremlin and the Song of the Gremlin Part 2, describing how gremlins sabotage all man's attempts to fly.
 * Used in Kodak Black's 2022 song "Super Gremlin".

Literature

 * The 1947 novel by Roald Dahl, Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen, had the Gremlin leader as the protagonist of the second half of the book. He is described as leading an ancient nature-loving race away from the wars between humans and trying to let his race survive the destruction of humanity.
 * The first issue of the Monster in My Pocket comic book series has Gremlin prominently among the good monsters. He is able to create fire from his fingertips.  In the second through fourth issues, this power is given to Hobgoblin, and Gremlin is never seen again.
 * In the micro-series of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic comic book series, there is a species called Cloud Gremlins, which cast a spell in Ponyville. In the end, they are defeated by Rainbow Dash.
 * In The Paladin Prophecy, the main character is attacked while on a plane, by creatures he calls "gremlins"
 * Gremlin Americanus: A Scrap Book Collection of Gremlins by artist and pilot Eric Sloane may predate the Roald Dahl publication. Published in 1942 by B.F. Jay & Co, the central characters are characterized as "pixies of the air" and are friends of both RAF and USAAF pilots. The gremlins are mischievous and give pilots a great deal of trouble, but they have never been known to cause fatal accidents but can be blamed for any untoward incident or "bonehead play", qualities that endear them to all flyers.
 * Ssh! Gremlins by H.W., illustrated by Ronald Neighbour ("Neb" of the Daily Maily), published in 1942 by H. W. John Crowther Publication, England, features numerous humorous illustrations describing the gremlins as whimsical but essentially friendly folk. According to "H.W.", contrary to some reports, gremlins are a universal phenomenon and by no means only the friends of flying men.

Card games

 * In the 2016 released set of Magic: The Gathering, Kaladesh, Gremlins (portrayed as four-armed, human-sized mammals with anteater-like snouts) appear on the technologically progressive plane and destroy the artifacts and inventions of many people on the plane, and are considered a public safety hazard. This was the first gremlin card in Magic since Gremlin Mine printed in the 2011 set New Phyrexia. Prior to that, the earliest gremlin card was Phyrexian Gremlins printed in the 1994 Antiquities set.
 * In the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, the cards "Feral Imp", "Des Feral Imp" and "King of the Feral Imps" are based on gremlins.

Video games

 * In 1984, the video game Gremlins was released as a tie-in to the film of the same name.
 * In 1990, Gremlins 2: The New Batch was released, also a tie-in to the film of the same name.
 * Gremlin is the boss of stage four, "Towering Catastrophe" in the 1992 Monster in My Pocket video game. He rides a crane hook onto the screen, throws three round objects, then rides off the screen, and can come and go from the top or either sioe of the screen.  Apart from always initially appearing from the top, his direction is randomised.  He himself must be dodged, although the hook itself passes behind the player.  If the final blow is struck while the crane is in motion, Gremlin is flung farther off the crane.  As with the other bosses, he seeks a rematch near the end of the game.   Othar than the playable characters, Vampire and the Monster (of Frankenstein), the 14 monsters explicitly established as on the "good" side led by Vampire (which was said to outnumber the "evil" side led by Warlock) are all omitted from the game except for Gremlin and Hobgoblin, who both appear as enemies to the good monsters in stage four.
 * In the Epic Mickey games (2010, 2012), Gremlins assist Mickey Mouse after he releases them.
 * In Spiral Knights (2011), Gremlins serve as an enemy faction and multiple different enemies.
 * In the 2016 video game XCOM 2, the Specialist soldier class utilises drones called GREMLINs for a range of actions in combat.
 * In Pokémon Sword and Shield, Impidimp and Morgrem are Dark/Fairy type Pokémon based on the gremlin.
 * In Dwarf Fortress, the gremlins are small intelligent underground creatures that can cause great disorder by playing with levers.
 * In Heroes of Might and Magic 3, gremlins are first-level recruitable creatures from the town, Tower.
 * In Slay the Spire, gremlins are a recurring enemy throughout the game.

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Tsipouro

Tsipouro (τσίπουρο) is an un-aged brandy from Greece and in particular Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia. Tsipouro is a strong distilled spirit containing 40–45% alcohol by volume and is produced from either the pomace (the residue of the winepress) or from the wine after the grapes and juice have been separated. Tsipouro is typically produced in two varieties: anise-flavored, which is the default, and pure, which contains no anise and is specifically labeled as 'without anise.' While tsipouro is usually not aged in barrels, barrel-aged versions are also available. It is similar to tsikoudia produced on the island of Crete, but unlike tsikoudia, which is single-distilled and contains no additional flavorings, tsipouro is typically double-distilled and frequently includes spices, primarily anise.

History
According to tradition, the first production of tsipouro was the work of Greek Orthodox monks in the 14th century on Mount Athos in Macedonia, Greece.

Method of production
Ripe dark grapes are passed through crusher/destemmers. The mass is left to settle for a few days, just enough to get fermentation started. Formerly, wine would be collected, and only the solid residue would be used for tsipouro in an attempt to get the most out of the plant. Today some producers use the whole of the pulp, without taking out the must for wine production. This results to a superior product, called "apostagma", sold at approximately twice the price of tsipouro.

In the next stage, the mass is fed into distillation units, where temperature and pressure are closely monitored. The first and last distinct batches (the "head" and the "tail") are discarded. Only the intermediate batch (known as the "heart") is kept to make tsipouro. This process is repeated to obtain doubly distilled tsipouro, which might be superior.

Finally, the distillate is left to settle and mature in stainless steel tanks. It can also be aged in wooden barrels to give "aged tsipouro", a relatively new beverage that can be compared to whiskey.

Serving
Depending on the time of year, tsipouro is used either as refreshment or as a hot beverage, and depending on the time of day, it replaces the drinking of coffee or wine. Tsipouro and tsikoudia, like all alcoholic beverages in Greece, are generally consumed at social gatherings.

According to Greek manufacturers, the best way to enjoy tsipouro is straight from the fridge. Some people prefer to either dilute with water or add ice.

Tsipouro is usually served in shot glasses with meze (a small side dish) such as nuts, dried fruit, raisins, cheese, olives, seafood, meat, halva, or paximadi (rusk).

In 2006, Greece filed a request for tsipouro to be recognized as a PDO (protected designation of origin) product, which was granted later that year.

Relation to ouzo
Anise-flavoured tsipouro is also available, produced especially in Macedonia and Thessaly. Anise-flavoured tsipouro and ouzo have almost identical taste, but vary enormously in their method of production. The alcohol used to produce ouzo is 96% ABV rectified spirit (ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin) and therefore does not retain the flavours of the primary distilled products, whereas the lower degree of distillation of tsipouro allows it to retain the aroma of the pomace.

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Fiat 128

The Fiat 128 is a transverse front-engine, front wheel drive small family car manufactured and marketed by Fiat from 1969 to 1985 as a two- or four-door sedan, three- or five-door station wagon as well as two- or three-door coupé. The 128 running gear and engine, reconfigured for a mid-engined layout, were used in the Fiat X1/9 sports car.

With engineering by Dante Giacosa and engine design by Aurelio Lampredi, the 128 was noted for its relatively roomy passenger and cargo volume — enabled by a breakthrough innovation to the front-engine, front-drive layout which became the layout "adopted by virtually every other manufacturer in the world" for front-wheel drive. Fiat promoted in its advertising that mechanical features consumed only 20% of the vehicle's volume.

Named European Car of the Year in 1970, over three million were ultimately manufactured.

In 2012 automotive journalist Jamie Kitman called the 128 a "pioneer of the small cars we drive today."

Development
With engineering by Dante Giacosa and engine design by Aurelio Lampredi, the 128 was noted for its relatively roomy passenger and cargo volume — enabled by a breakthrough innovation to the front-engine, front-drive layout which became the layout "adopted by virtually every other manufacturer in the world" for front-wheel drive. Giorgetto Giugiaro noted that in 1970, Volkswagen completely dismantled a Fiat 128, recognizing it as the reference for their forthcoming Golf.

Fiat promoted in its advertising that Enzo Ferrari drove a 128 as his personal vehicle."

Fiat built an entirely new plant in Rivalta, north-west of Turin, specifically to manufacture the new 128. In all, 2,776,000 sedans and wagons were built in Italy, plus 330,800 coupés and 3Ps.

Front drive innovation
Front-wheel drive had previously been introduced to small, inexpensive cars by BMC, firstly with the Mini in 1959 and then with the larger 1100/1300 series in 1962. During the mid-1960s, Fiat set about designing a new car to compete with the latter. The BMC design of Alec Issigonis had the transmission and engine sharing a single oil sump — despite disparate lubricating requirements — and located the engine's radiator at the side of the engine, away from the flow of fresh air and drawing heated rather than cool air over the engine. The layout often required the engine to be removed to service the clutch.

The Fiat 128's arrangement had numerous differences. As engineered by Dante Giacosa, it featured a transverse-mounted engine with unequal-length drive shafts and an innovative clutch release mechanism — an arrangement which Fiat had strategically tested on a previous production model for a full five years, the Primula from its less market-critical subsidiary, Autobianchi. The layout enabled the engine and gearbox to be located side by side without sharing lubricating fluid while orienting an electrically controlled cooling fan toward fresh air flow. By using the Primula as a test-bed, Fiat was able to sufficiently resolve the layout's disadvantages, including uneven side-to-side power transmission, uneven tire wear and potential torque steer, the tendency for the power of the engine alone to steer the car under heavy acceleration.

The compact and efficient layout — a transversely-mounted engine with transmission mounted beside the engine driving the front wheels through an offset final-drive and unequal-length driveshafts — subsequently became common with competitors and arguably an industry standard.

The layout was sufficiently flexible that Fiat reconfigured the 128 drive-train as a mid-engined layout for the Fiat X1/9.

Design
The all new 1.1 litre Fiat SOHC engine, engineered by noted engine designer Aurelio Lampredi, featured an iron block mated to an aluminum head along with a belt-driven single overhead camshaft producing 49 hp.

The 128 was styled similarly to the 124 and 125 and featured rack-and-pinion steering, Pirelli 145R13 Cinturato or 145R13 Michelin ZX radial tyres, front disc brakes, independent rear suspension with a transverse leaf spring, and a strut-type front suspension with integral anti-roll bar.

Initially, the 128 was available as a two-door or four-door sedan. At the 1970 Turin Motor Show a three-door station wagon model called "Familiare" was added to the line-up. The car was only available with a 1116 cc engine on launch, though the two-door-only 128 Rally edition launched in 1971 used a 1,290 cc unit. Also in 1971, the Sport Coupé, an all-new coupé body on a shortened 128 platform, was unveiled at the Turin Show. On launch it was available with both existing 128 engines.

The 128 range underwent a facelift in 1972, featuring a revised grille. 1974 saw the launch of the 128 Special, which used the Rally engine in a four-door sedan body. In 1975 the 128 3P (3-door) Berlinetta replaced the Sport Coupé. In 1976, the range received new bumpers, rectangular headlights, tail lights and dashboard as well as modifications to the engines. At this time, the wagon was also renamed the "Panorama".

Production of all 128s except that of the base 1,100 cc powered model ended in 1979 after the introduction of the Fiat Ritmo/Strada in 1978. In 1980 production of the small three-door station wagon Panorama was dropped from the range and 128 production finally ended in 1985.

Road test
The British "Motor" magazine tested a Fiat 128 in April 1970, shortly after its UK launch. The car had a top speed of 85.4 mph and accelerated from 0-60 mph in 15.5 seconds. An "overall" fuel consumption of 27.5 mpgimp was recorded. This put it fractionally behind the contemporary Morris 1300 on maximum speed but usefully ahead on acceleration. The two were closely matched on fuel economy, where both were outrun by the Ford Escort 1300 Super also included in the comparison, here in its four-door version. The Fiat's £876 manufacturer's recommended price was not too far above the Morris 1300's £830 and the Escort's £838. The testers commended the Fiat's interior space and excellent performance. Wind and road noise were low, but engine noise was not. The 128 went on sale on the UK market around the same time as the Rootes Group's Hillman Avenger, and shortly before the Vauxhall Viva was transformed from its second generation to its third generation. The market leader in this sector at the time was British Leyland's 1100 and 1300 range. Sales of imported cars in the UK were in the first stages of a sharp rise in their market share at the beginning of the 1970s, with Fiat and likes of Datsun, Renault and Volkswagen being particularly successful.

128 Rally
The Fiat 128 Rally was a sporty, 1.3-litre-engined version of the 128 two-door saloon, introduced at the 41st Geneva Motor Show in March 1971 and produced up to 1974.

Compared to the regular 128's 1,116 cc four-cylinder engine, the Rally's type 128 AR engine had been bored out 6 mm to 86 mm—while keeping the 55.5 mm stroke—for a total displacement of 1290 cc. There was also a twin-choke Weber 32 DMTR carburettor, revised valve timing and a slightly higher 8.9:1 compression ratio. Engine output was now 67 PS at 6,200 rpm and 9 kgm Nm of torque at 4,000 rpm. Other mechanical improvements were the addition of a vacuum servo, an engine protection plate, better tyres, new gear ratios for the 4-speed transmission, a higher capacity battery and an alternator in place of the dynamo).

A number of exterior features set the Rally apart from other 128s. At the front there was a black radiator grille, carrying the round Fiat emblem typical of the marque's sports cars; split bumpers joined by a tubular steel bar; and halogen headlamps and bumper-mounted auxiliary lamps. At the rear dual round tail lamps replaced the square ones found on the regular two-door 128. "Rally" badging on the bonnet and boot lid and stripes along the side sills completed the sporty look. The interior was upholstered in black leatherette, and the dashboard housed upgraded instrumentation: a tachometer was standard equipment, and water temperature and oil pressure gauges took the place of the ashtray, relocated to the centre console. Front sports seats with headrests and a two-spoke sports steering wheel replaced the standard items.

In October 1972 Fiat introduced several updates to the whole 128 saloon and Familiare range, including the 128 Rally. In particular the Rally received new upholstery (leatherette with cloth seat centres) and a black plastic protection to the front bumper tube.

128 Coupé and 3P
At the 53rd Turin Motor Show of November 1971 Fiat introduced the 128 Coupé, also called 128 Sport, a 2-door, 4-seat coupé designed in-house and based on a shortened 128 chassis. It was produced until 1975, but in latter years sales were dropping off considerably in favor of the mid-engined X1/9. Since Fiat had to pay a commission to Bertone for every X1/9, it was decided to provide some internal competition in the form of the updated hatchback coupé 128 3P. "3P" stands for Tre Porte, or "Three Doors" in Italian. Designed by Paolo Boano of Fiat Centro Stile, the 128 3P used the existing design back to the B-pillar, with some detail modifications to the grille and headlights.

The Coupé version was available with two different engines (1100 and 1300) and in two different trim levels (S and SL) for a total of four variants. In its base "S" trim, the coupé had single rectangular front headlamps, and wheels and hubcaps from the saloon. The pricier "SL" (for Sport Lusso) was distinguished by quadruple round headlamps, a specific grille, steel sport wheels without hubcaps, chromed window surround trim, door handles and fuel cap, and black decorative striping along the sills and across the tail panel. Inside it gained a leatherette-wrapped steering wheels, perforated leatherette upholstery, extended four-gauge instrumentation, loop pile carpeting and black headlining.

The two engines were developed from the units found in the 128 saloon and 128 Rally respectively, and both were fitted with twin-choke carburettors and a two-piece exhaust manifold. The 1100 (1,116 cc) produced 64 PS at 6,000 rpm and 8.3 kgm Nm at 3,800 rpm, while the 1300 (1,290 cc) produced 75 PS at 6,600 rpm and 9.4 kgm Nm at 3,800 rpm. Top speed was over 150 km/h and 160 km/h respectively. The 128 3P was also assembled by SEAT in Spain as the SEAT 128, Spanish cars were fitted with engines from the 124.

Compared with the 128 saloon, the coupé had a undefined cm shorter wheelbase (at 2223 mm), and tracks 20 mm wider at the front and 45 mm narrower at the rear. Suspension was the familiar all-independent 128 layout—save for the front anti-roll bar, which had been replaced by radius rods. The braking system consisted of discs at the front and drums at the rear; it was made more efficient by fitting smaller diameter front discs and the front and the vacuum servo first used on the 128 Rally.

Argentina
In Argentina, the 128 was produced from 1971 to 1990 by Sevel Argentina as a four-door sedan or five-door wagon, the Fiat 128 Rural, the latter unique to Argentina. Several trims and versions were available, including the IAVA sport series. In 1983 the car received a facelift with new headlamps, tail lamps and front grille, which was marketed as the Fiat Super Europa.

Colombia
In Colombia, the Fiat 128 was produced by "Compañía Colombiana Automotriz" in Bogota between 1973 and 1980. It was only built as a 4-door sedan. Between 1973 and 1978, it was marketed as Fiat 128 L, with a 1.3-liter, 4-cylinder engine. Starting in 1978, a version with a 1.1-liter engine called the Fiat 128 San Remo was also offered.

Egypt
Until 2009, CKD kits from Zastava were manufactured by Egypt's Nasr car company as the Nasr 128.

Poland
The Yugoslavian exclusive hatchback variant (known as the Zastava 101) of the 128 was manufactured with CKD kits from Zastava in Poland and marketed as the Zastava 1100p by FSO between 1971 and 1976.

Serbia
The 128 formed the basis of the Zastava 128 (four-door sedan) and Zastava 101 (three-door and five-door hatchbacks) ranges of cars manufactured by the "Zastava Automobili" company in Serbia. The 128-based Zastavas were available throughout Europe in the '70s. In Britain, three variants were offered: a three-door hatchback (Zastava Yugo 311/313), four-door saloon (Zastava Yugo 411/413) and a five-door hatchback (Zastava Yugo 511/513). The car was until the end of its production still very popular and was the Serbian automaker's most affordable model.

Production ended in November 2008 after Fiat purchased the Zastava factory in Kragujevac, however production of the pick up variant Zastava Poly continued in very limited numbers at the Zastava Special Automobiles factory (156 cars built in the last year) until December 2010.

South Africa
For South Africa only, a pickup version was also developed by Fiat in Italy to contest that country's popular "bakkie" category. It entered production in 1978. It could handle a payload of 500 kg and was based on the station wagon model. As per dealer demands, the fuel tank was enlarged to 52 L.

Spain
In Spain, SEAT manufactured the 3P coupé as the SEAT 128 3P. It was available with two engine options from the 124 engine family, the 1.2-litre and the more powerful and well-known 1430 engine from the SEAT 1430. Was marketed as "Three Times SEAT" in order to underline its triple combination of sportiness, versatility, and design. The SEAT 128 never enjoyed great commercial success, however. 31,893 128s were made between 1976 and 1980.

Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, the Fiat 128 was manufactured by the Upali Motor Company until 1978. This car was commonly known as the Upali Fiat in Sri Lanka.

Fiat X1/9
The Fiat X1/9 is a two-seater mid-engined sports car designed by Bertone and manufactured by Fiat from 1972 to 1982 and subsequently by Bertone from 1982 to 1989.

Designed around the Fiat SOHC engine and transmission from the front wheel drive Fiat 128, the X1/9 relocated the transverse drive train and suspension assembly from the front of the 128 to the rear of the passenger cabin, directly in front of the rear axle, giving a mid-engined layout. With a transverse engine and gearbox in a mid-mounted, rear-wheel drive configuration, the X1/9 was noted for its balanced handling.

Moretti 128
The Moretti Motor Company of Turin, Italy produced the Fiat 128-based Moretti 128 in coupé and cabriolet versions.

Built in the plants of via Monginevro in a semi-handmade way (these custom-built cars were not assembled in a chain) and in a very limited number (less than a hundred), it cost about 1,500,000 lire in 1969. The interior was very neat and could be customized with many accessories (sports steering wheel, electric windows, leather upholstery ...). In 1975, the two models underwent a slight restyling (new black bumpers, wider) and equipped with the 1290 cm3 - 60 HP engine of the contemporary Special sedan.

Sears XDH-1
Sears XDH-1 is an experimental electric car built for Sears, Roebuck and Company by their DieHard battery supplier Johnson Controls (Globe Union) in 1977 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its DieHard brand of car batteries. The car was a Fiat 128 Coupé equipped with 20 DieHard (12-inch deep cycle marine) batteries, and an electric motor.

Fiat ESV 2000
The ESV 2000 is an Experimental Safety Vehicle that Fiat developed in 1972 based on its 128 model. It had a totally new 5-door hatchback design, with an extra strong passenger cell, but used the mechanicals of the standard 128 with 1290 cm3 engine. The ESV 2000's weight was 360 kg (794 lbs) higher than that of the original 128.

title: Fiat 128


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Counts and dukes of Anjou

The count of Anjou was the ruler of the County of Anjou, first granted by Charles the Bald in the 9th century to Robert the Strong. Ingelger and his son, Fulk the Red, were viscounts until Fulk assumed the title of count. The Robertians and the Capetian kings were distracted by wars with the Vikings and other concerns and were unable to recover the county until the reign of Philip II Augustus, more than 270 years later.

Ingelger's male line ended with Geoffrey II. Subsequent counts of Anjou were descended from Geoffrey's sister Ermengarde and Count Geoffrey II of Gâtinais. Their agnatic descendants, who included the Angevin kings of England, continued to hold these titles and property until the French monarchy gained control of the area.

In 1360, the count was raised to a dukedom becoming known as duke of Anjou, subsequently leading the Duchy of Anjou. The title was held by Philip V of Spain before his accession in 1700. Since then, some Spanish Legitimist claimants to the French throne have borne the title even to the present day, as does a nephew of the Orléanist pretender.

Robertian dynasty
The Robertians, or Robertian dynasty, comprised:

House of Plantagenet
In 1204, Anjou was lost to king Philip II of France. It was re-granted as an appanage for Louis VIII's son John, who died in 1232 at the age of thirteen, and then to Louis's youngest son, Charles, later the first Angevin king of Sicily.

House of Anjou
In 1290, Margaret married Charles of Valois, the younger brother of king Philip IV of France. He became Count of Anjou in her right.

House of Valois
In 1328, Philip of Valois ascended the French throne and became King Philip VI. At this time, the counties of Anjou, Maine, and Valois returned to the royal domain. On 26 April 1332, Philip granted the county to his eldest son, John:

Following John's ascension to the throne as John II in 1350, the title again returned to the royal domain.

Dukes of Anjou
The dukes contributed greatly to social reform in the 1300s and 1400s.

First creation: 1360–1481 – House of Valois-Anjou
On the death of Charles IV, Anjou returned to the royal domain.

1883–present – House of Bourbon
After the death of Henri, Count of Chambord, only the descendants of Philip V of Spain remained of the male line of Louis XIV. The most senior of these, the Carlist claimant to the Spanish throne, became the eldest of the Capetians. Some of them used the courtesy title of Duke of Anjou, as shown below:

At the death of Alfonso Carlos in 1936, the Capetian seniority passed to the exiled King of Spain, Alfonso XIII. In 1941, Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia, succeeded his father Alfonso XIII (Alphonse I of France according to the Legitimists) as the heir male of Louis XIV and therefore as the Legitimist claimant to the French throne. He then adopted the title of Duke of Anjou.

2004–present – House of Bourbon-Orléans
On 8 December 2004, Henry, Count of Paris, Duke of France, Orléanist Pretender to the French throne, granted the title Duke of Anjou to his nephew, Charles-Philippe d'Orléans. Since he did not recognize his cousin's courtesy title, in his view, the title was available since 1795.

title: Counts and dukes of Anjou


text:
People's Daily

The People's Daily is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP in multiple languages.

History
The paper was established on 15 June 1948 and was published in Pingshan County, Hebei, until its offices were moved to Beijing in March 1949. Ever since its founding, the People's Daily has been under direct control of the CCP's top leadership. Deng Tuo and Wu Lengxi served as editor-in-chief from 1948 to 1958 and 1958–1966, respectively, but the paper was in fact controlled by Mao Zedong's personal secretary Hu Qiaomu. The newspaper is the official "mouthpiece" (喉舌) of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

A large number of articles devoted to a political figure, idea, or geographic focus is often taken as a sign that the mentioned official or subject is rising. Editorials in the People's Daily are regarded both by foreign observers and Chinese readers as authoritative statements of official government policy. Distinction is made between editorials, commentaries, and opinions. Although all must be government approved, they differ sharply on the amount of official authoritativeness they contain by design – from the top. For example, although an opinion piece is unlikely to contain views opposed to those of the government, it may express a viewpoint, or it may contain a debate that is under consideration and reflect only the opinions of the writer: an editorial trial balloon to assess internal public opinion. By contrast, an official editorial, which is rather infrequent, means that the government has reached a final decision on an issue.

During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the People's Daily editorial of 26 April, which condemned "unlawful parades and demonstrations," marked a significant moment in the newspaper's history. The editorial increased tension between the government and protesters, and top CCP leaders argued about whether to revise it. An article that compiles the most important editorials was released by the People's Daily during the student movement.

An analysis of the wording of all the issues of the People's Daily from 1995 to 2000 was used in the writing of The First Series of Standardized Forms of Words with Non-standardized Variant Forms.

The People's Daily is responsible for the publication of the nationalist tabloid Global Times.

The People's Daily maintains a unit called People's Data that conducts overseas social media data collection and analysis for police, judicial authorities, CCP organizations. People's Data also has data sharing agreements in place with various companies such as DiDi and Temu's parent company Pinduoduo. In 2022, the People's Daily launched a commercial software service called Renmin Shenjiao (People's Proofreader) that provides outsourced content censorship. The People's Daily also provides artificial intelligence companies in China with training data that CCP leaders consider permissible.

Overseas editions
The People's Daily also maintains a multilingual internet presence; and established the People's Daily Online (人民网) in 1997. The website of People's Daily includes content in Arabic, French, Russian, Spanish, Japanese and English. In comparison to the original Chinese version, the foreign-language version offers less in-depth discussion of domestic policies and affairs and more editorials about China's foreign policies and motives.

The People's Daily in recent years has been expanding on overseas social media platforms. It has millions of followers on its Facebook page and its accounts on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. An unusually high proportion of its followers are virtually inactive and are likely to be fake users, according to a study by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The People's Daily also maintains agreements with foreign newspaper to republish its content.

Writing practices
The People's Daily employs "writing task groups" of various staff to compose editorial pieces to signal the significance of certain pieces or their relationship to the official views of the CCP. These groups are published under "signatures" (i.e., pen names: 署名 shǔmíng) that may correspond with the topic and weight of a piece, and what specific government or CCP body is backing it, often with homophonous references to their purpose.

List of presidents

 * Zhang Panshi (张磐石)
 * Hu Qiaomu (胡乔木)
 * Fan Changjiang (范长江)
 * Deng Tuo (邓拓)
 * Wu Lengxi (吴冷西)
 * Chen Boda (陈伯达)
 * Hu Jiwei (胡绩伟)
 * Qin Chuan (秦川)
 * Qian Liren (钱李仁)
 * Gao Di (高狄)
 * Shao Huaze (邵华泽)
 * Bai Keming (白克明)
 * Xu Zhongtian (许中田)
 * Wang Chen (王晨)
 * Zhang Yannong (张研农)
 * Yang Zhengwu (杨振武)
 * Li Baoshan (李宝善)
 * Tuo Zhen (庹震)

Reactions
During the AIDS epidemic, the People's Daily downplayed the epidemic domestically while "presenting AIDS as a relatively innocuous social problem for the country."

A 2013 study of the People's Daily coverage of the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak reported that it "regurgitated triumph and optimism" and framed the outbreak as an "opportunity to showcase China's scientific achievements, and the strength of national spirits, as well as the wise leadership of the party and effective measures to protect the lives of ordinary citizens."

In February 2020, the People's Daily published an article stating that the novel coronavirus "did not necessarily originate in China." In March 2020, the online insert of the People's Daily, distributed by The Daily Telegraph, published an article stating that Traditional Chinese medicine "helps fight coronavirus." In May 2020, the People's Daily stated that the novel coronavirus had "multiple origins." In November 2020, the People's Daily published a claim that COVID-19 was "imported" into China. In January 2021, the People's Daily inaccurately attributed deaths in Norway to the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

In 2020, the United States Department of State designated the People's Daily a foreign mission, thereby requiring it to disclose more information about its operations in the U.S.

In 2021, ProPublica and The New York Times reported that the People's Daily was part of a coordinated state propaganda campaign to deny human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

In 2023, the People's Daily sparked a backlash on Chinese social media for exhorting citizens to not complain about their own poverty or boredom.

The Onion parody
In November 2012, American satire news site The Onion published an article where it declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as the 'Sexiest Man Alive for 2012'. In response, People's Daily republished the article with 55-page photo spread of Kim and tongue-in-cheek quotes from The Onion. They later took down the article from its site after realizing that it was a parody. The Onion later updated their article about Kim stating; "For more coverage on The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive 2012, Kim Jong-Un, please visit our friends at the People's Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion, Inc."

title: People's Daily