text:
Jak and Daxter

Jak and Daxter is an action-adventure video game franchise created by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The series was originally developed by Naughty Dog with a number of installments being outsourced to Ready at Dawn and High Impact Games. The first game, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, released on December 3, 2001, was one of the earliest titles for the PlayStation 2, and is regarded as a defining franchise for the console.

The games are story-based platformers that feature a mixture of action, racing and puzzle solving. The series is set in a fictional universe that incorporates science fantasy, steampunk, cyberpunk, and mystical elements, while centering on the eponymous characters as they try to uncover the secrets of their world, and unravel the mysteries left behind by an ancient race called the Precursors. The games are inspired by a combination of Eastern and Western culture, a decision made among the team members at Naughty Dog and related stakeholders while developing the first title.

The first three games in the series were re-released on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita as part of the remastered Jak and Daxter Collection that includes support for the PlayStation Network and the PlayStation Suite. The original three Jak and Daxter games, along with Jak X: Combat Racing, were released for the PlayStation 4 as Jak and Daxter Bundle in August 2017, alongside the release of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. In December that year, Jak II, Jak 3 and Jak X: Combat Racing were released. The series has also produced various forms of extended media and merchandise, and has sold over 12 million copies worldwide.

Main installments
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was first released in North America on December 3, 2001, for the PlayStation 2. After Daxter falls into a Dark Eco silo at the forbidden Misty Island, he is transformed from a human into an ottsel, a fictional hybrid of an otter and weasel. In a quest to return Daxter to human form, he and Jak set out to find the Dark Eco sage Gol Acheron. However, the duo find Acheron corrupted by Dark Eco, choosing to use the elusive Light Eco to defeat him and save the world at the cost of Daxter remaining in his ottsel form. A Flash game was published online in 2001 to promote The Precursor Legacy.

Jak II was first released in North America on October 14, 2003, for the PlayStation 2. Its narrative takes place directly after the events of The Precursor Legacy. Jak, Daxter, Samos, and Keira are thrust into the industrious Haven City after using the rift gate, with Jak being imprisoned by the Krimzon Guard upon his arrival in the city. Jak is subjected to experiments with Dark Eco and is subsequently capable of using Dark Eco powers. With the help of Daxter, Jak escapes the prison and is now in search of vengeance against the Krimzon Guard.

Jak 3 was first released in North America on November 9, 2004, for the PlayStation 2. After being blamed by the residents of Haven City for its destruction, Jak and Daxter are exiled to the Wasteland by Count Veger. Ashelin gives Jak a beacon in hopes that he'll be tracked down, with Damas, the king of nearby Spargus, rescuing him. In exchange, Jak and Daxter must now prove their worth to Damas and the city or risk being banished and thrown back into the desert.

Other games
Jak X: Combat Racing was first released in North America on October 18, 2005, for the PlayStation 2. Its narrative takes place following the events of Jak 3, with Jak and his allies inadvertently being poisoned while attending the reading of Krew's last will. Jak and his allies must partake and win the Kras City Grand Championship, a championship of the fictional sport of "combat racing", in Krew's name in order to obtain an antidote for the poison.

Daxter was first released in North America on March 14, 2006, for the PlayStation Portable. The game primarily focuses on Daxter, taking place during the two-year gap introduced in the opening of Jak II. Daxter is now employed as a pest exterminator by the Kridder Ridder company, in which he works to mitigate the incoming metal bug invasion. Alongside this work, Daxter is on a quest to find and free Jak from his imprisonment by the Krimzon Guard.

Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier was first released in North America on November 3, 2009, for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. Its narrative takes place an undisclosed amount of time after the events of the original trilogy. When their world begins to run low on Eco, Jak, Daxter, and Keira travel to the Brink, the edge of the world, in search of ancient Precursor machinery that can reverse this decline of Eco.

Collections and remasters
Jak and Daxter Collection was first released in North America on February 7, 2012, for the PlayStation 3—the franchise's first appearance on the platform. It is a remastered port of the original trilogy—Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, and Jak 3. The games were ported by Mass Media Games and feature 720p graphics at 60 frames per second and trophies. Mass Media Games later ported the collection to the PlayStation Vita and it was released in June 2013—the franchise's only appearance on this platform.

Jak and Daxter Bundle was first released in North America on December 7, 2017, for the PlayStation 4—the franchise's first appearance on the platform. The bundle features emulations of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, Jak 3, and Jak X: Combat Racing, in addition to retaining trophy support. Prior to the release of the bundle, The Precursor Legacy was released on the PlayStation 4 as a pre-order bonus for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Between 2019 and 2020, Limited Run Games released a limited amount of physical copies of both standard and collector's editions of the games.

Gameplay
The series consists of four single-player-only games, and two that include multiplayer. The series is primarily a story-based platformer presented in the third-person perspective. The player can explore a multitude of different areas in an open world environment and can perform several melee attacks. A substance called Eco can also be manipulated to enhance the player's abilities, with differently-colored Eco having different effects. Red Eco enhances the damage dealt and yields one impervious to damage from Dark Eco crates. Blue Eco allows the player to move faster, jump slightly higher, move slightly farther using attacks, attract Green Eco and Precursor orbs, and operate certain color coded machines. Green Eco is used to restore health, while Yellow Eco allows the player to shoot fire from the character's hands, which can be done “from the hip,” or using a scope. A hover bike called a "Zoomer" and a large bird known as a "Flut-Flut" are also available for transportation and to gain access to hard-to-reach places. “Flut-Flut” also has the ability to attack. Power Cells and Precursor Orbs are required to advance the story in The Precursor Legacy, while completing story-related missions and collecting Precursor Orbs unlocks new locations and allows the player to unlock certain “Secrets” in all subsequent entries.

Shooting elements are briefly introduced in The Precursor Legacy, becoming fully implemented in Jak II. Jak II features customizable weapons and other varied forms of combat, expanding upon features present in The Precursor Legacy. For example, Jak has many different gun mods. Each one is a certain color, either Red, Blue, Yellow, or Dark. Red gun mods make the gun similar to a shotgun. Blue lets it fire as a machine gun. Yellow mods are for long-range shooting, and Dark mods are for utmost power. Daxter is also a playable character and features in several Crash Bandicoot-esque missions. Dark Eco powers also become available, which is countered by the introduction of Light Eco powers in Jak 3. Guns can be upgraded twice through accomplishing certain story missions, and several abilities to use in both Light and Dark Jak forms are unlocked as well. Driving becomes a core ingredient and is further expanded upon in Jak 3. In The Lost Frontier aerial combat is integrated into the series. Precursor orbs can be collected in each game to unlock cheats.

Jak X deviates from the series' more traditional style of gameplay, adapting into the racing genre, and is based on the driving mechanics developed for Jak 3. Several extras can be unlocked for Jak X and Daxter by linking up the save files from the two respective games, and several player skins can be unlocked if the player has save files from The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, Jak 3 and Insomniac Games' Ratchet: Deadlocked.

With the exception of The Precursor Legacy, each installment offers "Hero Mode", which allows a player to replay the game at a higher level of difficulty with all or most of their previous acquisitions. This mode, in addition to other bonus content, can be unlocked by finishing the game and purchasing said content in the secrets menu with Precursor Orbs.

Main series
Naughty Dog began work on a new game shortly after the release of the sixth generation of consoles. Only two programmers were originally allocated to the project, as the rest of the department was still developing Crash Team Racing. They began by building a new graphics engine that would be capable of rendering a seamlessly connected, open world environment. They then developed a fully articulated character to examine the engine's efficiency, before presenting the idea to Sony Computer Entertainment following the completion of Crash Team Racing. The aim of their new title was to break away from the linear approach taken in the Crash Bandicoot series, with minimal story and character development, and individually loaded levels. In a behind-the-scenes special by Naughty Dog it was revealed that a new blend animation had been utilised for the game, allowing for a smoother frame rate and animation process. The engine for Jak and Daxter was created from the ground up specifically for the game. Unusually for most games, Naughty Dog invented a new programming language, GOAL, which was only ever used for the Jak and Daxter series.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was revealed at E3 in June 2001. The game had a budget of $14 million and a development cycle that lasted nearly three years. At that time, they managed to create a fully interactive world and conceived a narrative that would allow for more meaningful character development. The two central characters also went through a rigid design process that took inspiration from both manga and Disney animation. They had initially planned on introducing a third character who would evolve as the game progressed in a Tamogotchi-style fashion. However, this idea was scrapped as it led to several unnecessary complications. The game's soundtrack was recorded at Mutato Muzika Studios, and was produced by Mark Mothersbaugh with Josh Mancell composing the score.

PlayStation Portable
Following the release of the PlayStation Portable, Naughty Dog took interest in developing a new Jak and Daxter title for the system. Producer Sam Thompson helmed the production of the game, while Neil Druckmann was responsible for much of the design. The team ultimately produced a tech demo, and had plans to allow players the ability to "create your own airships and cobble together all these things with these different stat bonuses and actually have meaningful engagements in the air". However, Evan Wells revealed that they were unable to sustain the game's development alongside Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and made the decision to pass the project onto High Impact Games, ultimately being fleshed out as Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier. Following the lackluster success of the game, Thompson expressed the company's disappointment with the execution of The Lost Frontier, commenting "I'm not happy with that being Jak's swan song. I think we could have done a lot better".

Setting
Jak and Daxter is set in a fictional universe. The first game takes place in a world brimming with various natural environments that are encompassed by village settlements, and ancient Precursor ruins and elements can be found riddled throughout the landscape. An elemental substance called Eco is prominent throughout the game and is considered the world's life source. Eco comes in several forms, Red Eco, Blue Eco, Yellow Eco, Green Eco, Light Eco and Dark Eco, each with different prospective effects. Subsequent entries/games are set in a future setting that has witnessed large advancements in both society and technology, mainly taking place in cities and other larger settlements and affecting both hand-to-hand combat and available weaponry. Beyond cities in subsequent games lies natural environments with many platforming segments, akin to the first game. Overall, there are many distinct and differing environments available to discover and explore. All three main titles take place in an open world with little to no load times - a goal emphasized heavily since the first game.

Characters
The Jak and Daxter universe is populated primarily by a humanoid elfish species. Jak is the main protagonist of the series, and is playable in every game with the exception of Daxter. In The Precursor Legacy, he accidentally turned Daxter from a human into an ottsel (a fictional hybrid of an otter and weasel) after accidentally bumping him into a reservoir of Dark Eco and sets out on a quest in attempts to undo the transformation. In Jak II, he is infused with Dark Eco due to experimentations performed by Baron Praxis, and in Jak 3 he is blessed with Light Eco by the Precursors. Both Light and Dark Eco abilities are expanded upon during the course of the story in “Jak 3.” In Jak X, he is forced to race in the Kras City Grand Championship in order to save his life. He later travels to The Brink to investigate the Eco shortage that is ravaging his world in The Lost Frontier.

Daxter is Jak's sidekick, and is often found getting into trouble. Daxter was once a human but fell into a pit of Dark Eco in the opening cutscene of the first game in the series, which mutated him into an ottsel. He rescues Jak at the beginning of Jak II, and becomes playable intermittently for the first time in the series. In Jak 3 his role is expanded, and he gets a pair of pants as a reward for his efforts as an ongoing gag in the game. In Daxter, he details his adventures in the two-year time span before he managed to break Jak out of prison. In Jak X, he accompanies Jak and his friends to Kras City, and assists them as they compete in the Kras City Grand Championship. He later travels with Jak and Keira to The Brink in The Lost Frontier.

Music
Five Jak and Daxter soundtracks have been commercially released and have featured several composers, including Mark Mothersbaugh, Josh Mancell, Larry Hopkins, Billy Howerdel, and James Dooley. The compositions were inspired by world music, with Mancell commenting that he intended "to create something other than an expected orchestral flavoured fantasy soundtrack. I ended up using a lot of non-Western instruments and traditional, Western orchestral instruments such as the French Horn and Cello. Additionally, I feel the Jak games have both an ancient and futuristic vibe about them — I wanted the music to evoke both qualities." The soundtracks for Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, Jak 3, and Jak X: Combat Racing were all commercially released in 2019 by Limited Run Games as part of the Collector's Edition of each respective game.

On November 2, 2009, Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier Original Soundtrack was released on the iTunes Store by SIE.

Critical reception
With physical and digital copies combined, the Jak and Daxter franchise has sold over 15 million games worldwide (as of April 2017). Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy received critical acclaim from several reviewers as compiled by review aggregator Metacritic, with the game having the highest score in the franchise at 90/100. Jak II, Jak 3, Daxter, and Jak and Daxter Collection (PS3) all received generally favorable reception, while Jak X: Combat Racing only received mixed reception. The Lost Frontier also only had mixed reception and, not including the PlayStation Vita port of Jak and Daxter Collection, it has the lowest score in the series from Metacritic (71/100).

The series has received critical acclaim for its innovation in the platform genre. The series holds seven records in the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, 2008, with The Precursor Legacy holding a record for including the First Seamless 3D World in a Console Game. Jack DeVries of IGN referred to the series as "the best action platformers of [that] generation," praising the "huge worlds, memorable characters, action packed stories, and great gameplay". Jeffrey Matulef of Eurogamer stated that "the Jak and Daxter series may not be as solid a platformer as Sly Cooper and its gunplay isn't as refined as Ratchet & Clank's – but in terms of ambition, invention and grandiosity, it remains leagues above its last-gen platforming brethren".

The series has also received praise for its diverse gameplay styles. Matt Helgeson of Game Informer noted that the "series was driven by a restless sense of innovation," praising "Naughty Dog's work in this franchise [for creating] great characters, finely tuned gameplay, and a unceasing inventiveness". Helgeson also declared that the Jak games "stand up as epic adventures". Matulef further stated that "the Jak and Daxter series remains a fascinating document of the evolution of the action adventure; its heroes are unstuck in time, without a genre to call home. No series has been so willing to switch gameplay styles with such reckless abandon, and The Jak and Daxter Trilogy represents a shining example of what happens when a capable developer takes a huge risk." GameSpot stated that the franchise's "tight execution and heavy action elements ensure that things never become dull," adding that the franchise "manages to provide a rewarding gameplay experience that shouldn't be missed".

Merchandise
Naughty Dog have released various forms of merchandise since the series' inception. These include strategy guides for each game, several forms of clothing and collectible figures. A limited edition Precursor orb was also released to celebrate the series' 10th anniversary.

Miscellaneous media
The Jak and Daxter series has been featured in a variety of other media.
 * In LittleBigPlanet, LittleBigPlanet 2 and LittleBigPlanet Karting, a Jak costume and a Daxter costume are available for Sackboy through bonus add-ons.
 * In the 2011 PlayStation Move game PlayStation Move Heroes, Jak and Daxter appear as playable characters, along with an environment based on Haven City.
 * Jak and Daxter appeared as playable characters in the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita title PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.
 * In Ratchet: Deadlocked, Jak appears as an alternate skin for Ratchet.
 * In Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, Daxter appears wearing a leopard loincloth as a museum treasure. Its description reads "The Lutrela Nivadensis is a rare hybrid species of the Carnivora family. It is known for its orange fur and loud mouth."
 * A "Strange Relic" can be discovered in multiple games in the Uncharted series, another game series developed by Naughty Dog. It is a copy of the Precursor Orbs found in the Jak and Daxter universe, and when translated reads "NaughtyDog, Madman."
 * Jak appears alongside Ratchet as a playable character in Hot Shots Golf Fore! and Daxter acts as a golf caddy.
 * Jak and Daxter appear on posters in various games in the Ratchet & Clank universe.
 * Jak and Daxter appear in several background cameos in Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando.
 * Daxter is referenced in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, with "Ottsel" written across Nathan Drake's swimsuit, and a picture of Daxter's face on the sleeve.
 * Daxter is featured as a free downloadable character in the PlayStation 3 game Pain.
 * In Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, a pair of Jak Goggles can be purchased from the PlayStation Store for use in multiplayer.
 * In The Last of Us, Jak and Daxter make several cameos in the form of easter eggs and unlockable outfits.
 * In The Order: 1886, Daxter appears in the form of an easter egg. The game is developed by Ready at Dawn.
 * In The Last of Us Part II, Jak and Daxter make several cameos in the form of easter eggs.
 * In Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Jak and Daxter as well as Precursor Orb can be brought into Ratchet and Clank's dimension by using the new RYNO 8 weapon. The dimension from which Jak and Daxter originate is named Dimension 31x7 according to a character named Mags.

Future
Evan Wells revealed that they had explored the idea of making a new game extensively before the development began on The Last of Us (2013). Creative director Neil Druckmann later unveiled several illustrations for the abandoned game at a conference for The Last of Us. He explained that they had planned on making a reboot of the series and had spent a long time exploring various concepts.

In response to an alleged concept art leak in 2016, Naughty Dog's Director of Communication Arne Meyer stated that nothing was currently being worked on. Also, due to circumstances at Naughty Dog, Jak and Daxter has not yet been reconsidered, but is never off the table.

In 2019, Limited Run Games announced a commemorative mock case for the unreleased Jak and Daxter reboot, which was released in June 2020. The mock case uses the title Jak IV and features concept art from the scrapped reboot that was revealed in Naughty Dog's coffee table book, The Art of Naughty Dog. The case, in addition to a digital theme code, was given to consumers who purchased all four Jak and Daxter titles directly from the Limited Run Games website.

In February 2022, a Jak and Daxter film adaptation was rumored to be in development with Ruben Fleischer and Naughty Dog, although as of March 2024, nothing has been confirmed.

title: Jak and Daxter


text:
Templeton Prize

The Templeton Prize is an annual award granted to a living person, in the estimation of the judges, "whose exemplary achievements advance Sir John Templeton's philanthropic vision: harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind's place and purpose within it." It was established, funded and administered by John Templeton starting in 1972. It is now co-funded by the John Templeton Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, and Templeton World Charity Foundation, and administered by the John Templeton Foundation.

The prize was originally awarded to people working in the field of religion (Mother Teresa was the first winner), but in the 1980s the scope broadened to include people working at the intersection of science and religion. Until 2001, the name of the prize was "Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion", and from 2002 to 2008 it was called the "Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities". Hindus, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims have been on the panel of judges and have been recipients of the prize.

The monetary value of the prize is adjusted so that it exceeds that of the Nobel Prizes; Templeton felt, according to The Economist, that "spirituality was ignored" in the Nobel Prizes. , it is £1.1 million. It was typically been presented by Prince Philip in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

The prize has been referred to as prestigious and coveted, with The Washington Post calling it the most prestigious award in religion. Atheist scientists Richard Dawkins, Harry Kroto and Jerry Coyne have criticized the prize as "blurring [religion's] well-demarcated border with science" and being awarded "to scientists who are either religious themselves or say nice things about religion", a criticism rejected by 2011 laureate Martin Rees, who pointed to his own and other laureates' atheism and that their research in fields such as psychology, evolutionary biology, and economy can hardly be classified as the "promotion of religion".

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

title: Templeton Prize


text:
Bofu

Bofu (779 BCE – 771 BCE), sometimes referred to as Bopan (伯盘), was the son of Chinese Zhou dynasty monarch King You of Zhou and his concubine Bao Si. After Baosi entered the royal palace, King You deposed Queen Shen (申后) and her son Crown Prince Yijiu, replacing them with Baosi and Bofu. King You and Bofu were both killed in 771 BCE by Quanrong nomads at Mount Li near Xi'an in present-day Shaanxi. Another source says that Bofu lived and contended for the throne with Queen Shen's son, King Ping of Zhou.

title: Bofu


text:
Alwar

Alwar (Rajasthani Pronunciation: [əlʋəɾ]) is a city located in India's National Capital Region and the administrative headquarters of Alwar District in the state of Rajasthan. It is located 150 km south of Delhi and 150 km north of Jaipur.

Etymology
There are several theories about the derivation of the name Alwar. Alexander Cunningham, the British Indian archeologist, believed that the city derived its name from the Salva tribe and was originally Salwapur, then Salwar, Halawar and eventually Alwar, According to another school it was known as Aravalpur or the city of Aravali.

Some others hold that city is named after Khanzada Alawal Khan Mewati (the Muslim Khanzada prince who wrested Alwar from Nikumbh Rajputs). A research conducted during the reign of Maharaja Jai Singh of Alwar revealed that Maharaja Alaghraj, second son of Maharaja Kakil of Amber. ruled the area in the eleventh century and his territory extended up to the present city of Alwar. He founded the city of Alpur in 1106 Vikrami Samvat (1049 A.D.) after his own name which eventually became Alwar. It was formerly spelt as Ulwar but in the reign of Jai Singh the spelling was changed to Alwar. Some sources say that the name Alwar comes from the Persian word timber.

Ancient history
The ancient name of Alwar is Salva or Salwa. Alwar was a part of the Matsya Kingdom Ruled by Meenas, one of the 16 ancient Mahājanapadas. In late Vedic texts (such as the Jaiminiya Brahmana), the Salva or Salvi tribe is described as a non-Vedic tribe that occupied Kurukshetra and conquered the Kuru Kingdom

The Salvas
The Salvas settled along the Yamuna river and the Alwar province of Rajasthan after attacking the Kuru kingdom, and they later accepted Vedic culture by the end of the Vedic era as they converged with the remaining Kurus and the Surasena mahajanapada, near Matsya kingdom.

Medieval history
Alwar was ruled by multiple dynasties. Notable dynasties included the Jadauns of Braj, Nikumbh Rajputs, the Khanzada Rajputs, the Badgujar Rajputs, and the Naruka Rajputs who took the control over this area. The Maratha Empire also ruled this region for a short period. Rao Raja Pratap Singh Naruka, captured the Alwar Fort from the Jat kingdom of Bharatpur State, and laid down the foundation for modern day Alwar. After the Battle of Mandan, much of the city was annexed by Rao Mitrasen.

Hemchandra Vikramaditya (Hemu), born in Machari, Rajgarh, a village in Alwar, was a Hindu emperor of North India during the 16th century. This was a period when the Mughals and Afghans were vying for power in the region. Hemu captured Delhi on 7 October 1556 after defeating the Mughal forces in the Battle of Delhi in the Tughlaqabad area in Delhi, and became the de facto emperor. He won twenty-two battles in succession and became the last Hindu emperor of Delhi. In 1556, after his defeat in the Second Battle of Panipat, he was executed and Mughal regime was restored in North India.

Colonial era

Alwar State, a princely state established in 1770, was established by a Kachwaha Rajput named Pratap Singh Naruka who was earlier a jagirdar of "Dhai Gaon" (two-and-a-half villages) near Machari. His successor, Bakhtawar Singh Naruka, was defeated after launching an armed incursion into neighbouring Jaipur State (ruled by their Kachwaha seniors, erstwhile overlords of his predecessor) and being forced to accept the consequent treaty mediated by East India Company prohibiting him from political relations with other states without the consent of the colonial British. According to the "Gazetteer of Ulwar" published by the British raj, Alwar State was subdivided into four regions:
 * Rath region: current Behror and Neemrana, was ruled by Lah Chauhan Rajput zamindar who had descended from Prithviraj Chauhan. Sahesh Mal was a son of Raja Sangat Singh Chauhan. Sangat was the great-grandson of Chahir Deo Chauhan, brother of famous king Prithviraj Chauhan. In accordance with the pledge by the Raja Sangat Singh Chauhan to his younger queen for marrying her in his old age, her two sons from him were bestowed the Rath area and its headquarter of Mandhan near Neemrana. King Sangat Singh Chauhan's 19 sons from the older queen set out to seek their fortunes. Of the 19 brothers, Harsh Dev Chauhan and Sahesh Mal Chauhan arrived in the Gurgaon district. Lah Chauhan, the ruler of Rath, was a son of raja Sangat Singh Chauhan by the younger Rani whose two sons became inheritors of Raja Sangat Singh's territory of Rath with its headquarter at Mandhan when other 19 sons from the other wives were required to quit the kingdom as per the promise of Raja Sangat.
 * Wai region: current Bansur and Thana Ghazi, was ruled by Shekhawat rajput zamindars.
 * Narukhand region: current Rajgarh and Laxmangarh, was ruled by Naruka clan of Rajputs same as that of the ruling kings of the Alwar State
 * Mewat region: current Palwal and Nuh districts, had the highest population of the Meo Muslims.

Post-independence
Alwar acceded to the dominion of India following the independence of India in 1947. On 18 March 1948, the state merged with three neighbouring princely states (Bharatpur, Dholpur and Karauli) to form the Matsya Union. On 15 May 1949, it was united with neighbouring princely states and the territory of Ajmer to form the present-day Indian state of Rajasthan. Alwar was designated as part of the National Capital Region, resulting in additional development projects including rapid-rail to Delhi and drinking water improvements. The military cantonment of Itarana lies on the outskirts of Alwar.

Fairy Queen
The Fairy Queen, a national treasure (cultural artifact) of India and the world's oldest working locomotive engine (c. 1855 CE), operates as a tourist luxury train between Delhi and Alwar. In 1998 it was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest steam locomotive in regular service. The Fairy Queen runs on the same route as the Palace on Wheels, the tourist train launched in 1982, and was awarded the National Tourism Award in 1999.

Bala Qila
Bala Qila (lit. "High Fort"), also known as Alwar Fort, is a fort approximately 300 meters above the city, founded by the 15th-century Khanzada Rajput ruler Hasan Khan Mewati and built on the foundations of a 10th-century mud fort. Situated on the Aravalli Range, the fort is 5 kilometres long and about 1.5 kilometres wide with turrets, a large gate, a temple, and a residential area.

City Palace
The City Palace, also known as Vinay Vilas Mahal, built in 1793 CE by Raja Bakhtawar Singh, blends the Rajputana and Islamic architectural styles and has marble pavilions on lotus-shaped bases in its courtyard. The palace houses Government Museum, Alwar with a collection of manuscripts, including one depicting Emperor Babur’s life, Ragamala paintings and miniatures, and historic swords that once belonged to Muhammad Ghori, Emperor Akbar and Aurangzeb; and a golden Durbar hall. This palace that once belonged to the Maharaja (lit. Great Ruler) has now been converted into a District Administrative office also housing the District Court.

Sariska Tiger Reserve
The Sariska Tiger Reserve, a National Park and Tiger Reserve, is located in the Aravali hills only a few kilometres away from Alwar. Declared a Wildlife reserve in 1955 and a National Park in 1982, it is the first reserve in the world to have successfully relocated tigers. The sanctuary, which became a part of India's Project Tiger in 1978, also preserves other species including rare birds and plants.

Bhangarh Fort
Bhangarh Fort, branded as the fourth most haunted palace in the world, and the most haunted palace in Asia, is a 17th-century fort built by Bhagwant Das for his younger son Madho Singh I. The fort, a monument protected by the Archaeological Survey of India and is known for its association to legends and paranormal activities, is a tourist attraction for visitors across the world.

Siliserh Lake
Siliserh Lake is 19th century lake created by Maharaja Vijay Singh of Alwar, situated 8 miles southwest of Alwar.

Hill Fort Kesroli
Hill Fort Kesroli, a 14th-century fort, has now been converted into and is conserved as a heritage hotel.

Transport
As of 2019, the most common modes of medium-distance transport in Alwar are government-owned services such as flights, as well as privately operated lok pariwahan buses, taxis and auto rickshaws. Bus services operate from the Alwar old Bus Station which is 5 km away from the Alwar railway junction. In addition to this it is also planned that a metro rail system from Delhi to Alwar via Behror route will be started. The nearest airports to Alwar are Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi (143 km away), Jaipur International Airport (150 km away), and an airport currently under development in Bhiwadi airport (90 km away). Alwar Junction railway station, on the Delhi–Jaipur line, is connected with Delhi, Jaipur, and Mumbai. Alwar is connected by roads from major cities of Rajasthan and nearby states.

Geography
Alwar is located at 27.57°N, 76.6°W. It has an average elevation of 271 m. The Ruparail River is a major river near the city. Alwar is fairly rich in mineral wealth; it produces marble, granite, feldspar, dolomite, quartz, limestone, soap stone, barites, copper clay, copper ore and pyrophylite.

Climate
Alwar has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh) with long, extremely hot summers and short, mild to warm winters.The climate here is considered to be a local steppe climate. The average maximum temperature in the summers ranges between 41 C to average minimum of 28 C. The winter temperature falls in the range average high of 21 C of to average low 8 C. Alwar experiences a short monsoon. The average annual rainfall is about 67 cm which mostly falls in July & August due to monsoon. The highest temperature ever recorded in Alwar is 50.6 C on 10 May 1956 & lowest is -0.8 C recorded on 12 January 1967. It had record of highest temperature ever recorded of India till 2016, when a town Phalodi in Jodhpur district of Rajasthan recorded 51.0 C on 19 May 2016.

Demographics
At the time of the 2011 census, the population of Alwar city and Alwar district were 341,422 and 3,674,179 respectively, with Hindus representing 90.7% of the population, Muslims representing 4.3%, Sikhs representing 2.6%, Jains representing 2.1%, and the remaining 1.3% belonging to other religions.

Education
Raj Rishi Bhartrihari Matsya University was established in 2012–13. Alwar has several schools such as Alwar Public School, Shri Oswal Jain Senior Secondary School, St. Anselm's Senior Secondary School, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Adinath Public School, Knowledge City School, Chinar Public School, Lords International School, Sri Guru Harkrishan Public School, Step By Step Senior Secondary School, Raath International School, National Academy and Silver Oak, and colleges (Raj Rishi college, Siddhi Vinayak College, Presidency College, Government Law College, KCRI College, IET College). The Employee's State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Medical College is constructed with a whooping INR 800 crore budget and started operating from 2017.

Notable people

 * Saurabh Singh Shekhawat
 * Sakshi Tanwar
 * Jitendra Kumar
 * Imran Khan
 * Aastha Chaudhary
 * Bhuvneshwari Kumari
 * Mahesh Sharma
 * Jitendra Singh
 * Alok Bhargava

title: Alwar


text:
Infoganda

Infoganda is a term describing dramatic or literary work that contains both elements of an infomercial and propaganda. The term has been sporadically used in both the popular media and in blogs since 2001.

Definition
Propaganda is a message with an underlying agenda. That agenda may be obvious or not. Typically this term is used to refer to dramatic or literary works created by highly biased government or religious entities.

Infoganda is a form of propaganda in which the message is delivered in a format that imitates an infomercial (a commercial message that purports itself to be purely informational). An infomercial is a work of commercial speech (typically a television advertisement) whose purpose is to advertise a commercial endeavor. These commercials can often include fake news anchors that pretend to be neutral observers even though they are all participants in a ruse to sell something. The combination of an infomercial and propaganda is an advertisement or show that pretends to be neutral (typically a news source) that has a real agenda of promoting the biased viewpoint of a large organization, typically a religious or government entity.

History
It was explained to a large audience by Rob Corddry on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on March 17, 2004. The Daily Show use of the word infoganda was in reference to a U.S. government video released in early March 2004 to many local television stations. The video featured a short report in local television news format that provided information about recent revisions to prescription drug coverage provided by Medicare.

Infoganda is a relatively new phenomenon. However, many historical instances of propaganda were very close to being infoganda. Filmed news reports of World War II, the Korean War, and other wars can be seen as having carried propaganda in a news format.

However, despite superficial similarities with propaganda, the term infoganda refers to a very peculiar kind of propaganda. The infomercial format that has developed in the U.S. since 1990 has a specific format, which includes fabricated names for the reporters, scripted interviews with other supposedly neutral people, a maximum use of authority-projecting (costumed) professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.), the use of statistics in the same way that news organizations use it, and other similarities to local news. Infoganda is the use of this format to sell propaganda to the viewers.

title: Infoganda


text:
Tat people (Caucasus)

The Tat people or Transcaucasian Persians (also: Tat, Parsi, Daghli, Lohijon) are an Iranian people presently living within Azerbaijan and Russia (mainly Southern Dagestan). The Tats are part of the indigenous peoples of Iranian origin in the Caucasus.

Tats use the Tat language, a southwestern Iranian language somewhat different from Standard Persian, as well as Azerbaijani and Russian. Tats are mainly Shia Muslims with a significant Sunni Muslim minority.

Demographics
As late as the turn of the 20th century, the Tat constituted about 11% of the population of the entire eastern half of Azerbaijan (see Baku Governorate, the section on Demography). They formed nearly one-fifth (18.9%) of the population of the Baku province and over one-quarter (25.3%) of the Kuba Province—both on the Caspian Sea. Either through misrepresentation, data manipulation, or simple assimilation, the Tat portion of the population of Azerbaijan has shrunk to insignificance, facing assimilation.

The 1886–1892 Tsarist population figures counted 124,683 Tats in the Russian Caucasus of which 118,165 were located in the Baku Governorate and 3,609 in the Dagestan Oblast. The 1897 Russian Empire census recorded 95,056 Tats, of which 89,519 were in the Baku Governorate and 2,998 in the Dagestan Oblast. The 1926 Soviet census only counted 28,705 Tats of which 28,443 were in the Azerbaijan SSR and 1,237 in the Dagestan ASSR. Arthur Tsutsiev notes that a major portion of Tats in the 1926 census were listed under the categories "Persians" and "Azerbaijani Turks". This was particularly the case within the Azerbaijan SSR, where some 38,327 individuals were recorded as "Turks whose native language is Tat". The 1979 Soviet census counted 22,441 Tats of which 8,848 were located in the Azerbaijan SSR and 7,437 in the Dagestan ASSR.

History
The earliest mention of Persians in the Caucasus is found in the Greek historian Herodotus' account of the Achaemenid expansion of 558–330 BC, during which they annexed Transcaucasia (South Caucasus) as the X, XI, XVIII and XIX satrapies of their empire.

Archaeological material uncovered in present-day Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia include Achaemenid architecture, jewelry and ceramics.

There is little information about the permanent Persian population in South Caucasus since the Achaemenid period. Likely the ancestors of modern Tats settled in South Caucasus when the Sassanid Empire from the 3rd to 7th centuries built cities and founded military garrisons to strengthen their positions in this region.

Khosrow I (531–579) presented the title of regent of Shirvan in eastern South Caucasus to a close relative of his, who later became a progenitor of the first Shirvanshah dynasty (about 510 – 1538).

After the region had been conquered by Arabs (7th and 8th centuries) Islamization of the local population began.

Since the 11th century Oghuz tribes, led by Seljuq dynasts started to penetrate into the region. The gradual formation of the Azeri people started. Apparently, in this period the Turkic exonym Tat or Tati, which designated settled farmers, was assigned to the South Caucasian dialect of the Persian language.

The Mongols conquered South Caucasus in the 1230s and the Ilkhanate state was founded in the 1250s. Mongol domination lasted until 1360–1370, but that did not stop prominent poets and scientists to emerge.

At the end of the 14th century, South Caucasus was invaded by Tamerlane. By the end of the 15th century, the state of Shirvanshahs had obtained considerable power, its diplomatic and economic ties had become stronger. In the middle of the 16th century the state of Shirvanshahs was eliminated and South Caucasus joined Safavid Iran almost completely.

In the late 18th century Russia actively started to contest the hegemony of Iran in the Caucasus. Following the Russo-Persian Wars of 1804-1813 and 1826-1828 and the respectively resulting treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay, Russia gained most of the South Caucasus and parts of the North Caucasus from Qajar Iran. After that there is data about quantity and settling of the Tats, collected by tsarist authorities. When the city of Baku was occupied in the beginning of the 19th century during the Russo-Persian War (1804–1813), the whole population of the city (about 8,000 people) were Tats.

Russia more or less openly pursued a policy to free their newly conquered land from Iran's influence. By doing this, the Russian government helped to create and spread a new Turkic identity that, in contrast to the previous one, was founded on secular principles, particularly the shared language. As a result, many Iranian-speaking residents of the future Azerbaijan Republic at the time either started hiding their Iranian ancestry or underwent progressive assimilation. The Tats and Kurds underwent these integration processes particularly quickly.

According to the 19th-century Golestan-e-Eram, written by Abbasqulu Bakikhanov, Tati was widespread in many areas of Shamakhi, Baku, Darband and Guba:

"“There are eight villages in Tabarsaran which are: Jalqan, Rukan, Maqatir, Kamakh, Ridiyan, Homeydi, Mata'i, and Bilhadi. They are in the environs of a city that Anushiravan built near the wall of Darband. Its remains are still there. They speak the Tat language, which is one of the languages of Old Persia. It is clear that they are from the people of Fars and after its destruction, they settled in those villages. ..The districts situated between the two cities of Shamakhi and Qodyal, which is now the city of Qobbeh, include Howz, Lahej, and Qoshunlu in Shirvan and Barmak, Sheshpareh and the lower part of Boduq in Qobbeh, and all the country of Baku, except six villages of Turkmen, speak Tat. it becomes apparent from this that they originate from Fars.“"

- Abbas Qoli Aqa Bakikhanov, "The Heavenly Rose-Garden: A History of Shirvan & Daghestan"

According to the 1894 publication of the Caucasian Calendar, there were 124,693 Tats in the Caucasus, however, due to the gradual spread of the Azerbaijani language, Tati was falling out of use. During the Soviet period, after the official term Azerbaijani had been introduced in the late 1930s, the ethnic self-consciousness of Tats changed greatly and many started to call themselves Azerbaijani. Whereas in 1926 about 28,443 Tats had been counted, in 1989 only 10,239 people recognized themselves as such.

In 2005 American researchers carried out investigations in several villages of Guba, Devechi, Khizi, Siyazan, Ismailli and Shemakha districts of the Republic of Azerbaijan, indicating 15,553 Tats in these villages.

Local self-designations
Although the majority of the Tat population of Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan uses the Turkic exonym Tati or Tat as a self-designation, there remain some local self-designations:

 * Parsi—The term Parsi has been used until the present day by the Tats of Absheron as self-designation and zuvan Parsi as an indication of Tat language. This term relates to Pārsīk, the Middle Persian self-designation of Persians, cf. Middle Persian Pārsīk ut Pahlavīk – Persian and Parthian. During the New Persian language period the final consonant was lost and the ethnonym became Pārsī. Some groups of Persian-speaking populations in Afghanistan and the Zoroastrians of India (the Parsis) also use the term Parsi as a self-designation.
 * Lohijon—The citizens of the Tat settlement Lahij in the Ismailli district name themselves after their village Lohuj, plural Lohijon. Lahij is the largest Tat village (about 10.000). Its isolation has prevented the local population from contacts with the outside world which has led to their own isolated self-designation. A small community of the Lohijon, descendants of the 1910–20s migrants from Lahij, live in the village of Gombori in Kakheti, in the east of Georgia. They are registered as Azerbaijanis and speak Azerbaijani as their primary language. As of 2020, there are only about 150 them left.
 * Daghli—The Tats in Khizi district and parts of Devechi and Siyazan districts use another Turkic exonym, Daghli (mountaineers) for themselves. As a result of the spread of Azeri Turkic the term Daghli has strongly come into use and the local Tats started to use it themselves.

On December 14, 1990, the Azeri cultural and educational society for studying and development of Tati language, history, and ethnography was founded by the board of the Ministry of Justice of the Azerbaijan SSR. A primer and textbook of the Tat language together with literary and folklore pieces were published.

Culture
The Persian settlers of the South Caucasus have long interacted with the surrounding ethnic groups, exchanging elements of their cultures. Arts like carpet-making, hand-weaving, metal manufacture, embossing and incrustation are highly developed. The arts of ornamental design and miniature are also very popular.

There is a rich tradition of Tat spoken folk art. Genres of national poetry like ruba’is, ghazals, bayts are highly developed. While studying the works of Persian medieval poets of South Caucasus like Khaqani and Nizami Ganjavi some distinctive features of the Tat language have been revealed.

As a result of the long co-existence of Tats and Azerbaijanis, many common features in farming, housekeeping, and culture have developed. Traditional Tat female clothes are a long shirt, wide trousers worn outside, a slim line dress, outer unbuttoned dress, headscarf, and "Moroccan" stockings. Male clothes are the Circassian coat and high fur-cap.

Farming
Traditional occupations of the Tat population are agriculture, vegetable-growing, gardening and cattle-breeding. The main cultures are barley, rye, wheat, millet, sunflower, maize, potatoes and peas. Large vineyards and fruit gardens are widespread. Sheep, cows, horses, donkeys, buffalos and rarely camels are kept as domestic cattle.

The traditional one or two-storeyed houses made of rectangular limestone blocks or river shingles and also have blank walls facing the street. The roof is flat with an opening for a stone fireplace chimney. The upper floor is used for habitation and living areas where the family gets together (kitchen etc.) were situated on the ground floor. Typically one of the living room walls has several niches for the storage of clothes, bed linens, and sometimes crockery. Rooms were illuminated by lamps or by a skylight through an opening in the roof. House furniture consisted of low couches, carpeted floors, and mattresses. Fireplaces, braziers, and ovens were used for heating the home in winter and cooking year-round.

The property usually has a walled or fenced in yard and almost always has a garden. There is a veranda (eyvan), a paved drain or a small basin (tənu), covered cattle-pan, stable and hen-house.

Religion
Originally the Persians were Zoroastrian. After they had been conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate, Islam became widespread. Today the Tats are mainly Shia Muslim, with a sizeable minority who are Sunni Muslim.

Other Tat-speaking ethnic groups
The Tat language was widely spread in Eastern South Caucasus. Up to the 20th century it was also used by non-Muslim groups: Mountain Jews, part of the Armenians and the Udins. This has led some to the idea that Muslim Tats, Tat-speaking Mountain Jews, and Tat-speaking Christian Armenians are one nation, practicing three different religions.

Tats and Mountain Jews
The "Mountain Jews" belong to the community of Persian-speaking Jews. Some groups of this community live in Iran, Israel (especially), North America (especially), and Europe. The Jews of North Caucasus and modern day Azerbaijan were classified "Mountain Jews" only in 19th-century official Russian documentation. The Mountain Jews call themselves Juhuro, which means "Jews".

In the year 1888 A. Sh. Anisimov showed the closeness of the language of the Mountain Jews and the Tats. In his work Caucasian Jews-Mountaineers he came to the conclusion that the Mountain Jews were representatives of the Iranian family of the Tats, which had adopted Judaism in Iran and later moved to the South Caucasus. The ideas of Anisimov were supported during the Soviet period: the popularization of the idea of the Mountain Jews' Tat origin started in the 1930s. Through the efforts of several Mountain Jews, closely connected with the regime, the idea of mountain Jews being not really Jews at all but Judaized Tats became widely spread. Some Mountain Jews started to register themselves as Tats because of secret pressure from the authorities.

As a result of this, the words Tat and Mountain Jew became almost synonymous. The term "Tat" was used in research literature as the second or even first name for Mountain Jews. This caused the whole cultural heritage (literature, theatre, music) created by Mountain Jews during the Soviet period to be attributed to the Tats.

Comparing physic-anthropological characteristics of Tats and Mountain Jews together with information about their languages suggests no signs of ethnic unity between these two nations.

Like most "Jewish" languages, the grammatical structure of Juhuri retains archaic features of the language it is derived from. At the same time all of these languages are satiated with Hebrew words. The loanwords from Aramaic and Hebrew in Juhuri include words not directly connected with Judaic rituals (e.g. zoft resin, nokumi envy, ghuf body, keton linen, etc.) Some syntactical features that Juhuri has are ones typical for Hebrew.

The physical-anthropological types of Tats and Mountain Jews are also dissimilar.

In 1913 the anthropologist K.M. Kurdov carried out measurements of a large group of Tat population of Lahij village and revealed fundamental differences of their physical-anthropological type from the Mountain Jews. Measurements of Tats and Mountain Jews were also made by some other researchers. Cephalic index measurements have showed that while for Tats mesocephalia and dolichocephalia are typical, extreme brachycephalia is typical for Mountain Jews. Dermatoglyphic characteristics of the Tats and Mountain Jews also exclude ethnic similarity. In 2012 a uniparental genetic markers comparison between Judeo-Tat dialect and Muslim-Tat dialect speakers in Dagestan found independent demographic histories.

Speakers of Mountain-Jew dialect and Tati language are representatives of two different nations, each with its own religion, ethnic consciousness, self-designation, way of life, material and spiritual values.

Tats and Armenians
Some 19th- and 20th-century publications describe the citizens of several Tat-speaking village of South Caucasus as Armenian Tats, Armeno-Tats, Christian Tats or Gregorian Tats. It was suggested that a part of the Persians of Eastern South Caucasus had adopted Armenian Christianity, but this did not take into consideration the fact that those citizens identify themselves as Armenians, because conversion to religion is strongly attached to ethnic identity in eastern cultures.

There are traces of an Armenian phonological, lexical, grammatical, and calque substratum in the dialect of Tat-speaking Armenians. There are also Armenian affricates (ծ, ց, ձ) in words of Iranian origin, which do not exist in the Tat language. This can only be explained by Armenian influence.

Although they have lost their language these Armenians managed to preserve their national identity. It has a distinct "us versus them" dichotomy, "Hay" (us) to "Muslims" (Tats and Azeri together).

Tat people of northern Iran
Starting from the Middle Ages, the term Tati was used not only for the Caucasus but also for northern Iran, where it was extended to almost all of the local Iranian languages except Persian and Kurdish.

Currently the term Tati and Tati language is used to refer to a particular group of north-western Iranian dialects (Chali, Danesfani, Hiaraji, Hoznini, Esfarvarini, Takestani, Sagzabadi, Ebrahimabadi, Eshtehardi, Hoini, Kajali, Shahroudi, Harzani) in Iranian Azerbaijan, as well as south of it in the provinces of Qazvin and Zanjan. These dialects have a certain affinity to the Talysh language as one of the descendants of the Old Azari language.

title: Tat people (Caucasus)


text:
Talk:Tag (game)

gool
" The term "gool" was first recorded in print in Massachusetts in the 1870s, and is common in the northern states of the US. " This needs verification, especially the claim that it is common in northern states (maybe it means NE states?). I don't recall it from my childhood in northern states nor have I heard it as an adult seeing kids play in northern states.Kdammers (talk) 03:04, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Reply: I remember using "gool" playing tag in the 1960's (in 3rd or 4th grade / Chicago). Gool was a "safe place" where you could not be tagged, usually by running to it and placing your hand upon it. Gool was a pole or other such structure within the playing area. I don't recall if there was a time limit using gool before rejoining the game or if somebody could just maintain contact not to be tagged "it". We played a variation of tag eventually when someone defecated in their pants, calling it "contaminated". Same rules as tag, however, by calling out what I remember sounding like "2-10 Out" and touching the bottom of your shoe, this proclaimed that you could not be tagged it. Either this was making yourself a gool or announcing to others that your participation in playing tag ended. Has anyone heard the likes of "2-10 Out" before? 7/13/2020 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darn Time And Gravity (talk • contribs) 22:16, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Chinese tag
What about Chinese tag? dictionary.reference.com/browse/Chinese+tag, 	 www.childbook.com/Chinese-Tag-s/84.htm Kdammers (talk) 03:06, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Safe
A sentence talking about being safe on a base (in the sentence called goal or ghoul?) has been removed. This is an important part of many tag games, so we need a reference to this so we can put it back in. Does some-one have a book, e.g., childcraft, about kids' games?Kdammers (talk) 01:41, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

DDG
In the duck, duck goose section, one can read "The goose then rises and runs around the circle in the opposite direction as the picker". This is not what the animation shows, neither does the dedicated article. It is absurd & I never played it this way. 82.227.17.30 (talk) 13:05, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

 * Thanks for pointing this out. It's fixed now. SQGibbon (talk) 14:53, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 July 2018
Edit: Add in '(Touch and Go)' after the initial 'TAG' to explain the acronym. 2A00:23C4:2796:A400:6DCF:298E:7F90:B367 (talk) 21:45, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Danski454 (talk) 21:47, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

History
Any word on the history of the game? How far can it be traced back? Any indication from early high cultures of similar games? 2003:D1:A72B:6400:3D54:626F:D697:70FA (talk) 18:34, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Names mentioned not the only ones.
I just want to make a couple of observations that could potentially be incorporated into the article if references could be found one day - but these are from personal memory of the game, which I trust - but I have no references which would support them being included in the article, and am not sure how I would find any references.

One concerns the name of the game itself. I got to know about it as a boy in Adelaide and Melbourne, Australia, and I always knew the game as "Chasey", which was not mentioned in the article (only "Chase"). If a reference could be found, this could be added to the list of names already in the article.

The other point concerns the name of the taggd person who chases others. The article speaks as if this is always "It", which was not the case when I was a boy. This person was known as "He" in the circles I played the game in or observed it being played. I went to boys-only schools, so only boys were involved in play, so that would account for the use of the name "He", and I can't say what girls would have been called. (Actually, I think I did play it occasionally with neighbouring kids, two boys and a girl - but I don't remember whether the girl was also called "He" in this situation.) "He" was not treated as a pronoun in this situation, and so the form of the name in the objective and possessive cases remained "He", and didn't turn to "Him" or "His".

It may not be important ever to find references to support including these suggestions into the article, and may not be important to have them added to the article. But I think it would add something, and it's this:

The article gives names (of the game or of the tagged person) and links them with certain countries, and I suspect it may not be as cut and dried as this, that the names might be mixed up more than that suggests, and adding more names (if they can be referenced) would bring the description closer to the reality, namely that most countries probably have many more names for the game and tagged player than are mentioned here, and also the same names may be found in many different countries. But I think this sort of thing would be very difficult to research, because it seems to be largely an orally-transmitted topic with not much material existing about it in writing. M.J.E. (talk) 16:46, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Tag (game)


text:
Duke (disambiguation)

A duke is an aristocrat of very high rank.

Duke or The Duke may also refer to:

 * Duke University, a private research university in Durham, North Carolina

Geography

 * Duke, Missouri, an unincorporated community
 * Duke (Kiseljak), a village in Bosnia and Herzegovina
 * Duke Township, Harnett County, North Carolina
 * Duke Township, Jackson County, Oklahoma – see List of Oklahoma townships
 * (The) Duke City, a nickname for Albuquerque, New Mexico
 * Duke Island (Alaska)
 * La Duke Island, Nunavut, Canada

People

 * Duke (nickname), a list of people
 * Duke (given name), a list of people
 * Duke (surname), including a list of people

Fictional characters

 * Bo, Luke, Daisy and Jesse Duke from the American television series
 * Edmund Duke (StarCraft)
 * Duke (G.I. Joe), from the G.I. Joe TV series, toy line and comic book series
 * Uncle Duke, from Doonesbury
 * Tony "Duke" Evers, in the Rocky films
 * Duke Lavery, on the American soap opera General Hospital
 * Duke, from KOF: Maximum Impact
 * Duke, a narrow-gauge engine created by Rev W Awdry in The Railway Series and Thomas and Friends
 * Duke of New York, aka "The Duke, A Number One", gang leader in Escape from New York
 * Duke Nukem (character), the protagonist in over a dozen video games
 * Duke, protagonist of the eponymous novel by Hal Ellson
 * Duke, the family dog in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies
 * Duke, an anthropomorphic dog with a southern accent in the comic Kelly & Duke
 * Duke, a golden retriever who appears in commercials of Tennessee food producer Bush Brothers and Company (Bush's Baked Beans)
 * Duke, the dog from Barnyard (film)
 * Duke, a dog from The Secret Life of Pets
 * Duke Forrest, from the film version of M*A*S*H
 * Duke, a POW from the play and film Stalag 17
 * Duke Oda, the player in the game Cyber Police ESWAT
 * Duke Caboom, in Toy Story 4

Sports

 * Duke Blue Devils, the athletic teams of Duke University
 * The Duke (horse), a 19th-century racing champion
 * "The Duke", the official nickname of the game ball used in the National Football League of American football

In business

 * TVNZ Duke, a New Zealand television channel
 * Dukes Aerospace, a valve manufacturer and subsidiary of TransDigm Group
 * Duke Energy, a producer of gas and electric services in the United States
 * Dukes Hotel, a luxury hotel in London
 * Duke Realty, a real estate investment trust in the United States
 * Duke Records, a Memphis, Tennessee record label active from 1952 to 1973
 * Duke Video, Motorsport DVD distributor based in the Isle of Man

In the military

 * HMS Duke, various ships and a shore establishment of the Royal Navy
 * Duke Field, a US Air Force airport in Florida
 * Forward Operating Base Duke, a former US base in Iraq

Transportation

 * Beechcraft Duke, a twin-engined airplane developed by Beechcraft in the 1960s and manufactured until 1983
 * Duke motorcycles, such as the KTM 690 Duke and the KTM 390 Duke
 * The Duke, a short-lived 0-6-0 steam locomotive built in 1817 by George Stephenson for the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway
 * GWR 3252 Class, or Duke Class, steam locomotive
 * Duta–Ulu Klang Expressway (DUKE, E33), an expressway connecting various destinations located in Klang Valley, Malaysia

Technology

 * Duke (mascot), the mascot of the Java programming language
 * Duke butterflies, species of the brush-footed butterfly genera
 * Duke, an electronic countermeasure (jammer) specifically designed for radio-controlled improvised explosive devices (RCIED)
 * Xbox Controller, often nicknamed the Duke

Film and television

 * Duke (film), a 2019 crime drama film
 * The Duke (TV series), 1954
 * The Duke (miniseries), 1979
 * The Duke (TV talk show), 2009, TV talk show for men by AXN Asia
 * The Duke (1999 film), a 1999 Disney film
 * The Duke (1998 film), a 1998 short film
 * The Duke (2020 film), 2020 comedy-drama film

Bands and musicians

 * Duke Ellington, American jazz pianist, composer and arranger
 * Duke Special, Northern Irish singer-songwriter
 * Duke (musician), a British vocalist/songwriter/composer/producer
 * Rich Ward, guitarist of metal band Fozzy whose stage name is "The Duke"
 * MC Duke, a British rapper

Albums

 * Duke (album) (1980), by Genesis
 * The Duke (Jørn Lande album) (2006), by Jørn Lande
 * The Duke (Joe Jackson album) (2012)

Songs

 * "The Duke", a 1957 jazz standard penned by Dave Brubeck
 * "The Duke", a song by Blind Melon from Soup

In print

 * Duke: The Life and Times of John Wayne (1985)
 * Duke (magazine), a defunct African-American men's magazine
 * Duke, a 1949 novel by Hal Ellson

Other uses

 * Duke language, an Oceanic language
 * Duke (Lombard), a type of political and military commander of the Lombards, 5th–8th centuries
 * The Duke (board game)
 * Duke, an old English paper size measuring 7×5.5 inches (178×140 mm)
 * "The Duke", an episode of the TV series Adventure Time

title: Duke (disambiguation)


text:
Wooster Square

Wooster Square is a neighborhood in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, to the east of downtown. The name refers to a park square (named for the American Revolutionary War hero, David Wooster) located between Greene Street, Wooster Place, Chapel Street and Academy Street in the center of the neighborhood. Wooster Square is also known as Little Italy: a bastion of Italian American culture and cuisine, and is home to some of New Haven's (and the country's), best-known pizza (specifically, apizza) eateries, including Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana and Sally's Apizza. The square and much of the neighborhood are included in the Wooster Square Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

An annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Wooster Square Park commemorates the planting of 72 Yoshino Japanese cherry blossom trees in 1973 by the New Haven Historic Commission in collaboration with the New Haven Parks Department and neighborhood residents. The festival, founded and organized by the Historic Wooster Square Association, has grown from a modest event in the early 1970s with a local band entertaining a handful of neighbors under lighted trees to a major New Haven event that in 2016 attracted over 10,000 visitors.

Geography
The Wooster Square neighborhood consists of the area between the Amtrak railroad tracks (serving as the boundary with Downtown New Haven) and Interstate 91 (between Exits 1 and 3), bounded on the south by the Oak Street Connector. It is bordered on the west by Downtown New Haven, on the south by Long Wharf, on the east by the neighborhood of Mill River, and on the north by East Rock.

History
Wooster Square takes its name from Revolutionary War General David Wooster, who had a warehouse near Water Street. In 1825 the land was purchased by the city of New Haven and incorporated into the city. At that time, the area was close to the city's waterfront (it is now farther inland due to harbor filling), and by the 1840s it had become a residential area where ship captains and wholesale grocers built large houses near the port. As a result, Wooster Square now includes a concentrated collection of distinctive 19th-century residential architecture, including several buildings by New Haven architect Henry Austin. Included are examples of the Federal, Greek Revival, Islamic Revival, and Italian Villa styles, Late Victorian Italianate row houses, and Second Empire and Queen Anne homes.

By the late 19th century, increased industrial activity in the vicinity made Wooster Square less desirable as a residential neighborhood, and Italian immigrant families began to move in and operate small stores out of their homes. This commercial activity damaged the neighborhood's reputation, and the area was targeted for demolition and redevelopment as early as the 1930s. In the mid-1950s, plans called for building Interstate 91 through Wooster Square Park, but the Wooster Square Project, which started in 1958, began a neighborhood revival and resulted in re-routing of the highway.

Wooster Square made headlines on June 24, 2020, when its Christopher Columbus statue was removed by a city-hired crew in the aftermath of the George Floyd Protests. City officials later announced the commission of a new statue to replace the Columbus statue. The new statue, which was installed in May 2024, depicts an Italian family.

Culture and commerce
Wooster Square is home to restaurants and bakeries known for their pizza and Italian pastries, local businesses, and a weekly farmer's market, City Seed. Its walkable proximity to Downtown New Haven, its architecture, and its neighborhood feel, make it one of the most sought-after New Haven neighborhoods in which to live. It also has a thriving art scene.

A sycamore tree on the west side of Wooster Square Park has been said by some observers to resemble an outline image of Jesus Christ.

List of streets

 * Academy Street
 * Artizan Street
 * Bradley Street
 * Bridge Street
 * Brown Street
 * Chapel Street
 * Chestnut Street
 * Court Street
 * Depalma Court
 * East Street
 * Fair Street
 * Forbes Avenue
 * Franklin Street
 * Grand Avenue
 * Greene Street
 * Hamilton Street
 * Hughes Place
 * Ives Place
 * Jefferson
 * Lyon Street
 * New Street
 * Olive Street
 * Osborn Street
 * Saint John Street
 * Union Street
 * Wallace Street
 * Warren Street
 * Water Street
 * William Street
 * Wooster Place
 * Wooster Street (named for Revolutionary War hero David Wooster)

Notable People

 * Hunter Biden (former resident) - lawyer, second son of President Joe Biden
 * Rosa DeLauro (born and raised) - U.S. Congresswoman

General sources

 * Harrison's Illustrated Guide: Greater New Haven ISBN 0-927054-39-6
 * Michael Sletcher, New Haven: From Puritanism to the Age of Terrorism, (Charleston, 2004)

title: Wooster Square


text:
American Chemistry Council

American Chemistry Council (ACC), known as the Manufacturing Chemists' Association at its founding in 1872 then as the Chemical Manufacturers' Association (from 1978 until 2000 ), is an industry trade association for American chemical companies, based in Washington, D.C.

Activities
The mission of the American Chemistry Council is to promote the interests of corporations of the chemical industry. The trade group represents U.S. chemical companies as well as the plastics and chlorine industries, formerly known as the American Plastics Council, the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry and the Chlorine Chemistry Council.

ACC implemented the Responsible Care program in 1988. At least 52 countries have implemented this initiative. It is managed at a global level by the International Council of Chemical Associations. Participation in the program is a mandatory for all ACC members.

It has a political action committee that gives money to members of the Congress of the United States.

ACC launched a $35 million "essential2" public relations campaign in 2005. "essential2" attempted to improve the industry's image by emphasizing the importance of chemical industry products – especially plastics – to everyday life, and by using the term "American Chemistry" rather than "chemical industry". ACC later shifted to a more directed lobbying and policy-shaping effort, including taking legal action against federal efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from industry.

Sometime in 2008, ACC launched a campaign to oppose California SB1713 – a bill to ban bisphenol A statewide – including bulk postal mailings in July and August encouraging California citizens to demand opposition of their representing legislators.

In 2011, it was a major sponsor of the 5th International Marine Debris Conference which endorsed the Honolulu Commitment to reduce harmful plastics in the environment.

The ACC stepped in in 2023 to prohibit the passage of the Packaging Reduction & Recycling Act in New York state, spending a total $120,000 on two lobbying firms, Greenberg Traurig and Craig Johnson’s Long Point Advisors, to work on its behalf for the duration of the legislative session.

Criticism
The Responsible Care (RC) program has been described as a way to help the industry avoid regulation by imposing its own safety and environmental regulations and to improve its public image in the wake of the 1984 Bhopal disaster. According to a 2000 study, plants owned by RC participating firms improved their relative environmental performance more slowly than non members. The study highlighted the RC program as an example of how industries fail to self-regulate without explicit sanctions. According to a 2013 study, between 1988 and 2001, plants owned by RC participating firms raised their toxicity-weighted pollution by 15.9% on average relative to statistically-equivalent plants owned by non-RC participating firms.

Environmentalists and those concerned about the health effects of chemicals in the environment traditionally oppose ACC's initiatives. They view campaigns like "essential2" as efforts to distract public attention away from products and practices that they view as harmful and dangerous.

The American Chemistry Council's stance on chemical regulation was heavily criticized in the 2015 documentary Stink! available on Netflix.

Fighting plastic bag regulation
ACC has engaged repeatedly in fighting governmental restrictions and bans on plastic shopping bags. The phase-out of lightweight plastic bags has been proposed or implemented in many countries since 2002. In the United States, in July 2008, the Seattle City Council voted to impose an additional 20 cent fee on each plastic bag purchased from stores by shoppers as a convenience for transportation of goods. This effort was suspended until a referendum could be held in 2009, allowing voters a chance to weigh in on the issue of whether they should continue to be encouraged to support industry by purchasing plastic bags without considering disposal costs. During the period leading up to the referendum vote the American Chemistry Council stepped into this local affair, ultimately spending some $1.4 million on their successful effort to thwart the proposed system of fully accounting for the cost of plastic bags. Seattle in 2012 overcame ACC objections and successfully enacted a bag ban.

In 2010, ACC was quoted by The New York Times in opposition to a California bill to outlaw plastic bags, claiming that new law "amounts to a $1 billion tax added to [Californian's] grocery bills."

But subsequent ACC efforts to prevent adoption of municipal ordinances banning plastic bags have not been successful. Over ACC opposition, San Jose, California, in 2010 adopted California's strictest ban. The ordinance, in effect since 2012, prohibits supermarkets, pharmacies, corner shops and others from distributing single-use plastic bags, with fines for violations. Retailers can sell paper bags made of 40 percent recycled materials for 10 cents each, gradually increasing to 25 cents by 2014. In 2016, California voters approved a statewide ban on carry-out plastic bags.

title: American Chemistry Council


text:
Gender gap

A gender gap, a relative disparity between people of different genders, is reflected in a variety of sectors in many societies. There exist differences between men and women as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, scientific and economic attainments or attitudes.

Examples include:

 * Gender pay gap, the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working, with women often paid less than men
 * Gender pay gap in Australia, a persistent and sometimes rising gender pay gap in Australia
 * Gender pay gap in India, difference in earnings between women and men in the paid employment and labor market in India
 * Gender pay gap in New Zealand, the difference in the median hourly wages of men and women in New Zealand
 * Gender pay gap in Russia, occupational segregation by gender and labor market discrimination in Russia, especially since 1991

 * Gender pay gap in the United States, ratio of female-to-male median or average earnings among full-time workers in the US
 * Gender pay gap in the United States tech industry, divergence in pay between men and women who work in areas such as software engineering
 * Gender pay gap in sports, unequal pay in sports, particularly for female athletes who do not receive equal revenue, depending on the sport
 * Gender gap in Pakistan, relative disparity between male and female citizens in Pakistan in terms of legal discrimination, economic inequality, and cultural attitudes
 * Gender gap in education, sex discrimination in the education system affecting both men and women during and after their educational experiences
 * Gender gaps in mathematics and reading, the finding that on average boys and men exceed in mathematics, while girls and women exceed in reading skills
 * Gender differences in suicide, different rates of completed suicides and suicidal behavior; women more often have suicidal thoughts, but men commit suicide more frequently
 * Wikipedia gender gap, the fact that Wikipedia contributors are mostly male, relatively few biographies are about women, and topics of interest to women are less well-covered
 * Voting gender gap in the United States, the difference in the percentage of men and women voting for a particular candidate in US elections
 * Orgasm gap, a social phenomenon referring to the general disparity between heterosexual men and women in terms of sexual satisfaction
 * Digital Gender Gaps

title: Gender gap


text:
List of municipalities in Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a state located in the Southern United States. According to the 2020 census, Oklahoma is the 28th most populous state with inhabitants but the 19th largest by land area spanning 68594.92 sqmi of land. Oklahoma is divided into 77 counties and contains 596 municipalities consisting of cities and towns.

In Oklahoma, cities are all those communities which are 1,000 or more in population and are incorporated as cities. Towns are limited to town board type of municipal government. Cities may choose among aldermanic, mayoral, council-manager, and home-rule charter types of government. Cities may also petition to incorporate as towns.

title: List of municipalities in Oklahoma


text:
United Party (New Zealand)

The United Party was a political party in New Zealand. It was founded in 1927, partly out of the remnants of the Liberal Party, and formed the United Government between 1928 and 1931, and the United–Reform coalition Government between 1931 and 1935. In 1936, it merged with the Reform Party to form the National Party.

Foundation
In the 1920s the Liberal Party, although previously dominant in New Zealand party politics, seemed in serious long-term decline following the advent of the Labour Party, and its organisation had decayed to the point of collapse. The United Party represented an unexpected resurgence of the Liberals, and some historians consider it nothing more than the Liberal Party under a new name.

The United Party emerged from a faction of the decaying Liberal Party known as "the National Party" (not directly related to the modern National Party, although it may have inspired the name). George Forbes, a Liberal Party leader, led the faction. In 1927 Forbes joined with Bill Veitch (who led another faction of the Liberals, but who had once been involved with the labour movement) and with Albert Davy (a well-known and highly successful organiser for the Reform Party, the traditional opponent of the Liberals). They hoped that the United Party would draw support not only from former Liberals, but from moderates on either the right or left of the Liberals by promoting themselves as a safer alternative than the Labour Party.

The new organisation adopted the name "the United Party". This reflected in shortened form the name of the "United New Zealand Political Organisation", which Davy had used after he had left Reform. Forbes and Veitch both contested the leadership, but eventually, Joseph Ward won the position. Although Ward, a former Liberal Prime Minister in 1906 - 1912, did not enjoy the best of health, Davy backed him as a compromise candidate.

The reversal of the party fortunes came in Auckland, where the big business group abandoned the Reform Party because of the handling of a licensing bill, and put forward a programme equally appealing to the business community and to the remnants of the Liberal Party. So 42,000 votes and five seats went to United, compared with 8,800 votes and no seats in the previous election.

Success
In the 1928 elections, the new United Party performed surprisingly well, winning twenty-seven seats. The Reform Party also had twenty-seven seats, the Labour Party had nineteen, the Country Party had one, and independents held six. The United Party formed a government with the backing of the Labour Party, and Ward became Prime Minister again.

The United Party administration did not run particularly smoothly, however. Ward's ill health persisted, and he finally resigned in 1930. His deputy, George Forbes, became Prime Minister, though he had effectively been leading both the party and the government for some time before Ward's formal departure. Forbes faced serious economic problems, including the onset of the Great Depression. He did not project an image of activity or leadership — William Downie Stewart Jr, finance spokesman for Reform, privately described Forbes as "apathetic and fatalistic", and suggested that although he had "a rotten job", Forbes was really simply marking time.

Coalition
In 1931 the United government passed a number of economic measures which appeared unfavourable to workers, and the Labour Party withdrew its support. The United Party continued in office with reluctant support from the Reform Party, which feared that a collapse of government (and thus a general election) would see large gains for Labour. Later the same year, formal coalition talks took place between United, Reform, and Labour, with a "unity government" proposed to counter the depression. Labour eventually walked out of the talks, but Reform leader Gordon Coates (pressed by Downie Stewart) eventually agreed to form a coalition between United and Reform. Forbes, backed by dissident members of Reform, won the leadership of the coalition government, but Downie Stewart of Reform became the Minister of Finance.

In the 1931 elections, the coalition worked in close co-operation and won fifty-one out of the eighty seats. United and Reform between them had held a few more seats before, but their combined tally exceeded what many had anticipated in light of the economic conditions. The government did not exhibit great stability, however — particularly strong tensions arose between Coates and Downie Stewart, who clashed over the best response to the country's economic problems. Coates eventually won, and Stewart resigned. Coates, as the new Minister of Finance, became increasingly powerful, and the weary Forbes did not strongly oppose Coates's influence; while Forbes remained Prime Minister, Coates effectively led the government. The economic situation persisted.

In the 1935 elections, United and Reform maintained their coalition. Anger at the country's ongoing economic problems remained high, however, and many saw Forbes and Coates as jointly responsible for the situation. In addition, Albert Davy had founded a new "anti-socialist" party, the Democrats, which took votes away from the coalition. Forbes, still the nominal leader of the coalition, appeared tired and apathetic. These factors all added up to a decisive defeat of the coalition, which won only 19 seats–including only seven for United–to Labour's 53. Michael Joseph Savage became New Zealand's first Labour Prime Minister.

Merger
United and Reform maintained their coalition while in opposition. In 1936 they decided to make the coalition permanent and to merge United and Reform into a single party. The new organisation took the name of "the National Party", and - along with Labour - became one of New Zealand's two dominant political parties from that point on.

Parliamentary Leaders
Key:

PM: Prime Minister LO: Leader of the Opposition

Electoral results
†Total Coalition vote.

title: United Party (New Zealand)


text:
1996 New Zealand general election

The 1996 New Zealand general election was held on 12 October 1996 to determine the composition of the 45th New Zealand Parliament. It was notable for being the first election to be held under the new mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system, and produced a parliament considerably more diverse than previous elections. Under the new MMP system, 65 members were elected in single-member districts by first-past-the-post voting, while a further 55 "top-up" members were allocated from closed lists to achieve a proportional distribution based on each party's share of the nationwide party vote.

1996 saw the National Party, led by Jim Bolger, retain its position in government, but only after protracted negotiations with the smaller New Zealand First party to form a coalition. New Zealand First won 17 seats—including sweeping every single Māori electorate, all of which had been dominated by the Labour Party since the Second World War. Particular emphasis was placed on New Zealand First's unprecedented success, particularly among Māori; their five Māori electorate winners became known as the "Tight Five". The party's position as "kingmaker" meant they were able to place either of the two major parties into government, a significant election outcome for such a new party.

Various other unusual results occurred under the new system. For one, the National Party sought to ensure the parliamentary representation of the ACT New Zealand, a newly-formed libertarian party which had largely split from the Labour Party after the end of Rogernomics. National endorsed ACT leader and former Labour minister Richard Prebble against their own for Wellington Central, a consistently safe Labour seat. Under New Zealand's MMP rules, a party qualified for list seats if it won at least one electorate seat, regardless of vote share. Bolger thus wanted to ensure ACT could potentially be part of a National-led coalition. Prebble unexpectedly won, though ACT's vote share would have qualified them for MMP in any event. Other unusual occurrences was the large amount of new Māori MPs – leading to the backronym "More Māori in Parliament" for MMP. With the introduction of MMP in 1996, the proportion of Māori in Parliament increased from 8% to 14%, to an all-time record of 17 MPs.

Changes mid-term
In the 1993 election, the National Party and the Labour Party had won 50 and 45 seats, respectively. The Alliance and the New Zealand First party had each won two seats. In the approach to MMP, however, there had been considerable rearrangement in parliament, with three new parties being established. As such, the situation just before the 1996 election was markedly different from the situation that had been established at the 1993 election.

Electoral redistribution
The 1996 election was notable for the significant change of electorate boundaries, based on the provisions of the Electoral Act 1993. Because of the introduction of the MMP electoral system, the number of electorates had to be reduced, leading to significant changes. Under MMP, there would be only 65 district members, down by 34 from the number elected in the 1993 election.

Many electorates were abolished, with their territories being incorporated into completely new electoral districts. More than half of the electorates contested in 1996 were newly constituted, and most of the remainder had seen significant boundary changes. Wanganui was renamed as Whanganui. In total, 73 electorates were abolished, 29 electorates were newly created, and 10 electorates were recreated, giving a net loss of 34 electorates.

Since the 1967 electoral redistribution, the South Island had its number of general electorates fixed at 25. For the 1996 election and onwards, the number of South Island electorates is fixed at 16. The number of electors on the general roll of the South Island divided by 16 gives the target size for North Island and Māori electorates; this is referred to as the South Island quota.
 * South Island

The electorates of, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and were abolished in the South Island. Six existing electorates (,, , , , and ) were kept. Seven electorates (,, , , , , and ) were newly formed. Three electorates (,, and ) were recreated.

Based on the calculation described above, the target size for North Island electorates resulted in 44 of them being required.
 * North Island

The electorates of, , , , , , , , , , Hauraki, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and were abolished in the North Island. Twenty existing electorates (,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and ) were kept. Seventeen electorates (,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and ) were newly formed. Eight electorates (,, , , , , and ) were recreated.

All four existing Māori electorates (,, , and ) were abolished. The calculation described above resulted in five Māori electorates being required; these were, , , , and.
 * Māori electorates

The House of Representatives was to have 120 seats, of which 65 were filled through electorate MPs (16 from South Island electorates, 44 from North Island electorates, and 5 from Māori electorates). This left 55 list seats to be filled. An outcome of the election was that no overhang seats were required.
 * List seats

MPs retiring in 1996
Eleven MPs intended to retire at the end of the 44th Parliament.

The election
The date of the 1996 election was 12 October; it was brought forward slightly to avoid the need for a by-election following the resignation of Michael Laws, as a by-election is not needed if there will be a general election within 6 months of a seat being vacated.

Of the 2,418,587 people registered to vote, 88.3% turned out to vote. The turnout was a slight improvement on the previous two elections, but still slightly lower than what would have been expected during the 1980s. The number of seats being contested was 120, an increase of 21 from the previous election, but as 55 of the new seats were for list candidates, the number of electorates was reduced considerably and many electorates had their boundaries amended or were abolished. While the number of general electorates decreased from 95 (1993) to 60 (1996), the number of Māori electorates increased from 4 to 5.

In the election 842 candidates stood, and there were 21 registered parties with party lists. Of the candidates, 459 were electorate and list, 152 were electorate only, and 231 were list only. 73% of candidates (616) were male and 27% (226) female.

Summary of results
The 1996 election eventually saw a victory for the governing National Party, which won around a third of the vote. The opposition Labour Party won slightly less. The election, however, was not decided by the comparative strengths of the major parties – rather, the smaller New Zealand First party, which won 17 seats, including 5 Māori seats won by the Tight Five, and was placed in the position of "kingmaker", able to provide the necessary majority to whichever side it chose. Although predicted by many to ally with Labour, on 10 December 1996 New Zealand First leader Winston Peters chose to form a coalition with National, thus preserving Prime Minister Jim Bolger's administration.

The 1996 election effectively showcased the difference made by the new electoral system. The Alliance and New Zealand First, both of which held two seats each in the old parliament, increased their representation to 13 and 17 seats, respectively, as a result of the change. The new ACT New Zealand also benefited, taking eight seats. The new United New Zealand party however was virtually wiped out, retaining only a single seat. The Conservative Party also only established only in previous Parliament by defecting Members of Parliament fared even worse, failing to remain in parliament at all. Strategic voting took place for the first time in a New Zealand MMP election in the Wellington seats of Ohariu-Belmont and Wellington Central.

However, Labour did manage to retain its status as among the top-two parties, as polls in the 1993–1996 period had shown Labour was in danger of being overtaken by the Alliance or New Zealand First. Labour's success was credited largely to its leader Helen Clark being seen as having convincingly won the election debates and running a strong campaign on health, education and social services, while Bolger was said to have run a lackluster campaign.

Also notable in the 1996 election campaign was the Christian Coalition, an alliance of the Christian Democrats and the Christian Heritage Party. Although the party had briefly crossed the 5% threshold in some polls, it gained only 4.33% at the election, and therefore did not qualify for parliamentary representation. With the exception of the Maori Ratana movement, this is the closest that an overtly religious party has come to winning representation in parliament.

Voters were prepared with MMP to vote for minor party candidates with their electorate vote, hence in a number of electorates won by National or Labour the other major party candidate came third or even fourth; previously the two top polling candidates were almost always National and Labour.

Detailed results
! colspan=2 rowspan=2 style="width:213px;" | Party ! Colspan=2 | Party vote ! Colspan=3 | Electorate vote ! Colspan=4 | Seats ! Votes ! % ! Votes ! % ! Change (pp) ! List ! Electorate ! Total ! +/- ! colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Valid Votes ! 2,072,359 ! 97.06 ! 2,061,746 ! 96.56 ! — ! Colspan=4 | ! — ! Colspan=4 | ! — ! Colspan=4 | ! colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Total ! 2,135,175 ! 100 ! 2,135,175 ! 100 ! ! 55 ! 65 ! 120 ! 21a In addition to the registered parties listed above, a number of unregistered parties also contested the election. Being unregistered, they could not submit party lists (and thus receive party votes), but they could still stand candidates in individual electorates. Among the parties to do this were the Indigenous Peoples Party, the New Zealand Progressive Party (unrelated to the 2002–2012 party of the same name) and the Nga Iwi Morehu Movement. Most unregistered parties stood only a single candidate, with only four parties running in multiple electorates. In total, around 1,500 people voted for candidates from unregistered parties. In addition, 26 independents contested electorate seats. A total of 16,436 people voted for independent candidates. No candidate from an unregistered party or an independent candidate won an electorate seat.
 * colspan=11 align=center| 1996 New Zealand general election - composition chart.svg
 * - style="text-align:center;"
 * - style="text-align:center;"
 * 701,315
 * 33.84
 * 699,073
 * 33.91
 * 1.14
 * 14
 * 30
 * 44
 * 6
 * 584,159
 * 28.19
 * 640,884
 * 31.08
 * 3.60
 * 11
 * 26
 * 37
 * 8
 * 276,603
 * 13.35
 * 278,103
 * 13.49
 * 5.09
 * 11
 * 6
 * 17
 * 15
 * 209,347
 * 10.10
 * 231,944
 * 11.25
 * 6.96
 * 12
 * 1
 * 13
 * 11
 * 126,442
 * 6.10
 * 77,319
 * 3.75
 * new
 * 7
 * 1
 * 8
 * new
 * 18,245
 * 0.88
 * 42,666
 * 2.07
 * new
 * 0
 * 1
 * 1
 * new
 * 89,716
 * 4.33
 * 31,995
 * 1.55
 * 0.47
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 34,398
 * 1.66
 * 3,420
 * 0.17
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 5,990
 * 0.29
 * 12,177
 * 0.59
 * 0.02
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 5,288
 * 0.26
 * 7,437
 * 0.36
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 4,070
 * 0.20
 * 4,763
 * 0.23
 * 0.06
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 3,543
 * 0.17
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 3,189
 * 0.15
 * 5,385
 * 0.26
 * 0.05
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * style="background-color:#F93" |
 * style="text-align:left;" |Ethnic Minority Party
 * 2,514
 * 0.12
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 2,363
 * 0.11
 * 1,140
 * 0.06
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 1,431
 * 0.07
 * 4,377
 * 0.21
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 1,244
 * 0.06
 * 686
 * 0.03
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 949
 * 0.05
 * 637
 * 0.03
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 671
 * 0.03
 * 553
 * 0.03
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 478
 * 0.02
 * 293
 * 0.01
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 404
 * 0.02
 * 818
 * 0.04
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 134
 * 0.01
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * style="background-color:#ffffff" |
 * style="text-align:left;" |Unregistered Parties
 * 1,506
 * 0.07
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 16,436
 * 0.80
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0.03
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 478
 * 0.02
 * 293
 * 0.01
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 404
 * 0.02
 * 818
 * 0.04
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * 134
 * 0.01
 * new
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * new
 * style="background-color:#ffffff" |
 * style="text-align:left;" |Unregistered Parties
 * 1,506
 * 0.07
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 16,436
 * 0.80
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0.07
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 16,436
 * 0.80
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0.80
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * 0
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Informal votes
 * 8,183
 * 0.38
 * 18,796
 * 0.88
 * 0.88
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Disallowed votes
 * 54,633
 * 2.56
 * 54,633
 * 2.56
 * 2.56
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Eligible voters and Turnout
 * 2,418,587
 * 88.28
 * 2,418,587
 * 88.28
 * 5.46
 * Colspan=4 |
 * }
 * }

Electorate results

No party managed to win a straight majority of the 65 electorates. The National Party, the governing party, was three seats short of a majority, gaining 30 seats. The Labour Party, in opposition, won 26 electorate seats. New Zealand First won six electorate seats, the highest number of any minor party for over 50 years.

The Alliance, ACT and United managed to win one electorate seat each. For United, this was a significant loss – established by break-away MPs from National and Labour, the party entered the election with seven seats, but only Peter Dunne managed to retain his position, being helped by National's decision not to field a candidate in his electorate of.

For the most part, traditional patterns prevailed when it came to the distribution of electorates – National performed best in rural areas, while Labour was strongest in the cities. A very significant departure from traditional patterns, however, was New Zealand First's capture of all five Maori seats, which had traditionally been Labour strongholds. Although Labour was to reclaim these seats in the subsequent election, Labour's monopoly was no longer so secure as it had been.

The table below shows the results of the 1996 general election:

Key

|colspan=10 style="background-color:#FFDEAD" | General electorates

|colspan=10 style="background-color:#FFDEAD" | Māori electorates

 * }

List results

 * Notes:
 * 1) These party list members later entered parliament in the term as other list MPs elected resigned from parliament.
 * 2) These party list members later resigned during the parliamentary term.

Summary of seat changes

 * Seats captured:
 * By National: Hamilton East, Hamilton West and Nelson were captured from Labour. North Shore was captured from United.
 * By Labour: Auckland Central was captured from the Alliance.
 * Seats transferred from departing MPs to new MPs:
 * The seats of Albany, Otago, Rotorua and Waitakere, all held by departing National MPs, were won by new National candidates. One departing MP retired, one was re-elected in a different electorate, and two became list MPs.
 * The seats of Christchurch Central, Mangere and New Lynn, all held by departing Labour MPs, were won by new Labour candidates. One departing MP retired and two became list MPs.

title: 1996 New Zealand general election