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Rescue 911

Rescue 911 is an informational docudrama television series that premiered on CBS on April 18, 1989, and ended on August 27, 1996. The series was hosted by William Shatner and featured reenactments (and occasionally real footage) of emergencies that often involved calls to 911.

Though never intended as a teaching tool, various viewers used the knowledge they obtained watching the show. Two specials, titled 100 Lives Saved and 200 Lives Saved, were dedicated to these viewers who had written to CBS with their stories on how the knowledge they obtained watching the show allowed them to save the life of someone else. At least 350 lives have been saved as a result of what viewers learned from watching it. The show's popularity coincided with, if not led to, the widespread adoption of the 911 emergency system replacing standalone police and fire numbers that varied from municipality to municipality; the number is now universally understood in the United States and Canada to be the number dialed for emergency assistance.

At its height, the show was adapted in 45 countries (with their own 911 equivalent showcased).

Conception and early airing
The idea for Rescue 911 was conceived in early 1989 by then-president of CBS Entertainment Kim LeMasters, when he heard a recording of a dramatic 911 call on Charles Osgood's radio show while driving to work. LeMasters discussed the idea of creating a television program centered on actual 911 recordings with in-house production head Norman Powell who, in turn, hired documentary producer Arnold Shapiro to produce three television specials. LeMasters initially suggested that Leonard Nimoy should host the show, but Shapiro felt William Shatner would be a better fit due to his role as a police officer on the TV series T. J. Hooker. The first Rescue 911 special aired on April 18, 1989, and included a segment ("Arlington") featuring the 911 recording that had given LeMasters the idea for the show. A second special aired on May 9, 1989. Both specials received high ratings, prompting CBS to pick up Rescue 911 for the 1989 fall season. It began airing as a regular series on September 5, 1989, and ran for 7 seasons, with the last new episode airing on August 27, 1996, though it was not acknowledged as the series finale. The last episode to air on CBS (a repeat of Episode 627) aired on September 3, 1996.

Though it aired Tuesdays at 8:00 PM for most of its run, Rescue 911 occasionally aired on other nights either as an additional episode shown during that week, or a temporary rearrangement to make room for another program.

Syndication
In 1993, The Family Channel began airing reruns, but it was removed from the lineup when the Family Channel became the FOX Family Channel in August 1998. The original format was most recently shown in Ecuador on Oromar Televisión and in Brazil on SBT and Canal Viva.

That same year, a reformatted version (see below) of the show was sold into off-network syndication. The syndicated version continued to air both in the U.S. and internationally long after the show's cancellation, but it had not aired in the U.S. since July 2005. The syndicated version of the show aired on the Justice Network from October 2017 to November 2019, on GetTV from August 2019 to May 2020, and currently has its own channel on Pluto TV, where it airs 24 hours a day.

The following networks have aired the show in the syndicated format:

 * Numerous local affiliates
 * The Family Channel (also showed the original format)
 * Odyssey /The Hallmark Channel
 * Discovery Health Channel
 * Reality TV /Zone Reality
 * Justice Network/True Crime Network
 * GetTV
 * Pluto TV
 * Living
 * CI (Australia)
 * AXN
 * Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (Uganda)
 * RPN (Philippines), under partnership with Silverstar Communications

Potential revival
In October 2018, Variety announced that CBS Television Studios was developing a two-hour Rescue 911 reboot with William Shatner slated to return as host. The reboot would have featured a live format similar to that of Live PD showing rescuers responding to calls in real time (in the original versions, only a small portion of the segments were done as such and were pre-recorded). However in February 2020, Shatner said in a radio interview that the reboot had not moved forward because CBS could not work out the logistical difficulties of obtaining consent from accident victims to be filmed live as the events unfolded; incidentally, many loyal fans of the original series had criticized the reboot for the same reasons.

Additional/alternate timeslots

 * Season 2: Wednesday, 8 p.m.: April 1990 (in addition to Tuesday at 8 p.m.)
 * Season 3: Friday, 8 p.m.: January–February 1992 (in addition to Tuesday at 8 p.m.)
 * Season 7: Tuesday, 8 p.m.: September 1995, August–September 1996 (with the majority of the rest of the season airing on Thursdays at 9 P.M.)

Ratings by episode

Original format
When the show aired on CBS, episodes normally ran 60 minutes and featured four stories, although some episodes featured three or five stories. Three-story episodes were common during the second and third seasons, but became less common during the later seasons.

Because the show was paired with The CBS Tuesday Night Movie for most of its run, episodes with irregular running times were occasionally created to accommodate movies that didn't fit the regular two-hour time slot. Such episodes usually ran 30 minutes and contained two stories. Others included a 90-minute episode, a 50-minute episode, a 45-minute episode, and a 15-minute episode containing only one story.

From seasons one through five, an opening disclaimer was shown before each episode. Shatner's voice was heard saying: "'This program contains true stories of rescues. All of the 911 calls you will hear are real. Whenever possible, the actual people involved have helped us reconstruct the events as they happened.'" In a few of the early episodes, the last sentence of the disclaimer said: "'Unless indicated, the actual people involved have helped reconstruct the events as they happened.'"

In seasons six and seven, three segments from the episode were previewed in place of the disclaimer, and a shortened version of the original introduction was shown. Reruns from earlier seasons that aired after September 1994 had their old introductions replaced by the new version of the introduction.

When reruns aired on The Family Channel, episodes were edited for running time, censored for profanity and negative religious references, and graphic footage was sometimes cut out. Family initially showed the opening disclaimer at the beginning of the episodes, but it was later replaced with a short teaser that previewed one or two segments from the episode. Season six episodes that aired on Family had their introductions replaced with the original introduction, although the opening credits were not changed accordingly and were sometimes incorrect. Season seven episodes were never shown on Family.

Syndicated format
The syndicated version of the show ran 30 minutes and typically included two stories, although a few episodes contained one long-running story. Some syndicated episodes featured stories that began on one episode and concluded on the next, which was never done in the show's original format. These syndicated episodes contained no new material; they consisted entirely of stories taken from episodes that aired in the original format. Stories featured on syndicated episodes were often edited for running time, omitting short scenes that were shown in the original broadcasts. Three hundred syndicated episodes were produced, and they featured segments from the first six seasons of the show.

Presentation
Shatner would introduce episodes (and usually, all segments within them) from inside 911 dispatch centers or fire stations, or next to police cars and/or ambulances. He would end episodes from such locations as well. In addition, all segments included voiceover narration by Shatner, interview clips with the people involved and, in many cases, the actual recorded 911 call. Most segments were about 9 to 13 minutes in running time, although some ran shorter, particularly on five-segment episodes, and a few were longer in duration. Usually, the first segment of an episode included a commercial break shortly after the incident itself unfolded, and after the break Shatner would usually pick up again from the station the segment was introduced.

Unless otherwise specified, stories were presented in the form of re-enactments. Occasionally, recorded video footage of all or part of the event itself (usually amateur video or television news coverage) would be used. In these instances, Shatner would mention that a particular amount of footage was taped "as events unfolded" in the opening to a segment in which recorded footage was included. Many re-enactments required complex presentation, such as the recreation of house fires, automobile accidents, police chases, explosions, pregnant women in labor, and even natural disasters.

Some stories took place in the form of a documentary. In these stories, the show's camera crews would ride along with paramedics, firefighters or police, or wait in hospitals and film whatever happened to unfold. These stories usually involved more than one event in a single segment at the same medical facility. One such story was the Charles Stuart murder case, which happened during a ride-along with Boston EMS.

In the show's early seasons, Shatner would close episodes with a statement advising viewers to learn the emergency numbers in their area and to post them by each phone, as not all areas had the 911 system back then. Later in its run, however, the closing statements focused on other lifesaving tips such as learning various first aid techniques, among other things.

Each episode would end with Shatner making some variation of the following statement:

"'This series is dedicated to all the men, women, and children who answer our calls for help, and are there when we need them most.'"

Situations
Crimes, automobile accidents, medical emergencies, fires, choking/asphyxiation, and miscellaneous injuries were the most common situations presented on the show. Other situations commonly presented on it included technical rescues, near-drownings, childbirth, animal rescues, search and rescue situations, and aircraft-related emergencies. Occasionally, stories involving gas leaks, electrocutions, suicide attempts, scuba diving accidents, drug overdoses, train-related accidents, allergic reactions, and natural disasters were also presented.

Although the show mostly featured serious emergencies, there were occasionally humorous stories of non life-threatening situations and false alarms. Examples included a burglar who got stuck upside-down when he tried to enter a house through the chimney, a young boy who got stuck in a laundry chute while playing hide-and-seek, a young boy whose tongue froze to the inside of a freezer while he attempted to get ice cream, a man who got a plaster mask stuck on his face, a dog that stepped on the 911 speed dial button after getting tangled in the phone cord (although the dog was in danger of being strangled), a woman who got a plaster mold stuck to her torso, a woman who called 911 when she mistook her parents' new mannequin for an intruder, a girl who called 911 after her mom got stuck in her bathroom when the door's lock failed, a boy who got his tongue stuck in a canteen, a woman who got trapped in her apartment behind a mattress, and a man who woke up to a break-in at his house, only to discover the burglar was a bobcat.

A few segments featured on the show had previously gained national news coverage. These incidents included the New Year's Eve 1986 fire at Puerto Rico's DuPont Plaza Hotel, the 1987 Amtrak train wreck in Maryland, two segments on Hurricane Hugo, the June 1990 Ohio tornado, the Stuart murder case, the Salt Lake City Public Library hostage incident, and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Deaths
Although the majority of stories featured ended with all lives being saved, there were some exceptions in which one or more victims died. Such occurrences became exceedingly rare later in Rescue 911's run, and usually occurred in documentary segments or in those reenacting multiple casualty incidents in which other victims survived. This list does not include segments where criminals were killed, either directly or indirectly, as a result of the incident with no other deaths.

List of deaths on Rescue 911

"Church Bus" (Pilot/S1E17): A busload of children of swept away in a flooded river. Ten die, but many others are rescued.

"Sudden Death" (Special 2/S1E09): A man in his 30s, who was stabbed and went into cardiac arrest, is pronounced dead after doctors try to save him.

"Atlanta Fire" (S1E06): Five people die in a high-rise office building fire.

"Baltimore Cops" (S1E06): A man is shot to death in a restaurant.

"Double Football Player" (S1E09): Former NFL player Jerry Anderson drowns while saving a boy from a river.

"Puerto Rico" (S1E13): In the Dupont Plaza Hotel arson, 98 people die while many are rescued.

"Amtrak" (S1E16): Sixteen people die in the train collision in Chase, Maryland.

"Resurrection Rescue" (S1E19): Three children and a young man are pulled from a burning house. Two of the children survive, but one child and the young man do not.

"Runaway Boxcars" (S1E19): An elderly woman is killed when the car she is riding in is hit by runaway boxcars; her husband survives.

"Boston" (S1E20): Charles Stuart murders his pregnant wife; his child later dies, and then he commits suicide.

"Miami Medchopper" (S1E27): Two men are shot in a restaurant robbery; one dies.

"Scuba Cave" (S2E02): Two out of three scuba divers are successfully rescued from an underwater cave; one dies.

"Loma Linda Docu" (S2E02): An infant dies shortly after birth; its heart is transplanted into another newborn infant. Two months after the transplant, the mother's husband dies from a heart attack.

"Philly Docu" (S2E05): One man dies in a hotel fire later found to be arson; all other tenants escape or are rescued.

"Daytona" (S2E08): Slick Johnson is killed in a crash during an auto race; a paramedic injured aiding another driver survives.

"Bingo" (S2E10): A woman dies from complications 3 years after being shot by her husband. She was alive when the episode originally aired, but re-runs indicated that she later passed away.

"Bar Blast" (S2E19): A man is murdered at a bar; officers chasing the suspects are threatened by gunfire, but survive and are later able to apprehend the suspects.

S2E21: A man dies after being injured during a stock car race

"Terror in the Sky" (S2E27): The pilot of an aircraft dies while flying the plane. His wife brings it to a safe landing, saving herself and a friend who was also on board.

"Denver Chopper" (S2E29): A fleeing bank robber being chased by police strikes and kills a detective, and the suspect is later killed in a shootout with police. The gunman's hostage survives unharmed.

"Cincinnati Neonatal Docu" (S3E06): A documentary follows three premature babies in a neo-natal care facility; one baby dies, specifically, from severe brain damage due to complications from Group B streptococcal infection.

"St. Pete Docu" (S3E07): An elderly woman dies after being struck by a car.

"Fernie's Heart" (S3E19): A boy is killed in a car crash. His family donates his organs, saving a five-year-old boy in need of a heart transplant.

"Boomer's Rescue" (S3E26): A girl with terminal brain cancer's support dog is rescued from a house fire. She was alive when the episode originally aired, but re-runs indicate that she later passed away.

"Las Vegas Docu II" (S4E06): A teen's friend is killed in a car crash caused by a drunk driver.

"Oklahoma Cops Documentary" (S4E14): A young man is killed in a drive-by shooting.

S5E19: A teen is brain dead after a car crash. Her family donates her organs, saving three people in need of organ transplants.

"Butane Huffing" (S5E22): A teenage boy dies 11 hours after huffing butane. This was the only re-enacted segment in which the sole victim died.

"Repentant Drunk Driver" (S6E14): A drunk driver kills a man and seriously injures a woman.

"Healing the Healers" (S6E27): The Oklahoma City Bombing is profiled.

"Trooper Buddy Down" (S7E04): A woman is killed in a head-on collision. A state trooper and his pregnant fiancée survive the wreck.

"Toddler Falls From Truck" (S7E15): A child opens the door of a moving pickup truck, falls out of it, and lands on the Walmart parking lot pavement headfirst. He suffers permanent head injuries and dies from choking on food when a nurse left him alone

International versions
A British version called 999 (after the UK emergency telephone number) premiered in 1992 and ran on BBC One until 2003, hosted by journalist and newsreader Michael Buerk.

In New Zealand, TV2 began screening the first season of Rescue 911 in 1991 and subsequent seasons following this. At the start of each episode, the network would display a reminder to viewers that the emergency number in New Zealand is 111. In 1992, with the permission of CBS, the show was renamed to Rescue 111 in New Zealand. This was done following reports of New Zealanders calling 911 in emergencies instead of 111. The show's starting was shortened with a Rescue 111 title replacing the Rescue 911 title. Its format remained the same, however, with Shatner still addressing the show as Rescue 911 along with all stories mentioning calling 911. He also recorded a special outro for the show reminding viewers of New Zealand's emergency number. When the final series screened in 1996, the show was simply called Rescue.

Featured episodes from the U.S. version of Rescue 911 were dubbed over in Spanish by Venezuelan distributor Etcétera Group. It aired in Mexico from 1993 to at least 1996 on the TV Azteca network, and in Ecuador from 1994 to 2000 on RTS. It currently airs on Oromar Televisión.

The Italian channel Rai3 realized its version, called Ultimo Minuto: it ran on Saturday evening, during the period of winter and spring, from 1993 until 1997. It contained also some episodes from Rescue 911 and 999.

German network RTL started its own version with a mix of cases from Germany and the US in 1992. The show ran for over 14 years, with the last episode broadcast on August 27, 2006, and from 1998 to 2001 also aired the offshoot Notruf Täglich. In August 2009, the format was briefly revived as Helfen Sie Mir!.

Hungarian channel RTL Klub ran its own version from May 1, 1998, until August 27, 1999, hosted by György Cserhalmi. Each episode contained 2 cases from Rescue 911, one from Germany's Notruf, and one original story.

Home media
In Rescue 911's early seasons on CBS, ads were shown after the end credits of every episode that gave an 800 number viewers could call to order a copy of that night's episode. This ad was dropped in later seasons.

On May 27, 1997, "Rescue 911: World's Greatest Rescues" was released on VHS. This video featured stories of rescue attempts from around the world; segments were taken from both the U.S. and international versions of the show. The segments on the video were edited for running time, and the original narration on all segments (including those originally narrated by Shatner) were dubbed over by an uncredited narrator. The two stories taken from the U.S. version were about a New Zealand girl pinned beneath a flaming gasoline tanker (season three, episode 25) and the infamous documentary of the Stuart murder case in Boston, Massachusetts (season one, episode 20). The other stories, taken from international versions of the show, were about a Belgian family trapped in a car hanging precariously from a high overpass, a Russian hostage crisis in which a terrorist held two women captive, an Austrian skier who fell into an underground glacier river, and a French mother who was forced to drop her two children 60 feet from a burning apartment to bystanders below (the latter segment is not included on some versions of the video).

Books
Several books were written that recounted stories featured on Rescue 911:
 * Rescue 911 Extraordinary Stories by Linda Maron
 * Rescue 911 Kid Heroes by Alison Hendrie
 * Rescue 911 Amazing Rescues by Alison Hendrie
 * Rescue 911 Humorous Rescues by R. M. Ferrara
 * Rescue 911 Animal Rescues by R. M. Ferrara
 * The Rescue 911 Family First Aid & Emergency Care Book by Julie Motz

Toys and games

 * Model kits: In 1993, AMT-ERTL released three Rescue 911 themed emergency vehicle model kits. Each of the three kits contained decals with the Rescue 911 logo, and each box had on its side panel a synopsis of a relevant story from Rescue 911. These models were:
 * Police car (1990 Ford Taurus). The side panel contained a synopsis of "911 Sister Abduction", in which a police officer rescued a six-year-old girl who was kidnapped from her back yard.
 * Rescue ambulance (Dodge). The side panel contained a synopsis of "911 Cribbage Choke", in which paramedics performed a risky procedure on board an ambulance to save a young boy choking on a cribbage piece.
 * Rescue helicopter (Civilian Medical Rescue Helicopter). The side panel contained a synopsis of "The Helicopter Horse", in which an injured horse was lifted out of a canyon by helicopter.

 * Squirt Extinguisher: In 1993, JA-RU, Inc. released a toy fire extinguisher water squirter.
 * Handheld game: In 1993, Micro Games of America released a handheld game based on the show. The objective of the game is to help the firefighter extinguish the fire in the building and the electrical room while avoiding falling debris.
 * MatchBox Rescue 911 themed cars Pacecar, medic's car, and fire observer van and police van along with a search and rescue-themed vehicles.
 * Slot car sets: In 1993, Marchon, Inc. released 2 slot car sets called "Rescue 911 Chopper Rescue" and "Rescue 911 Police Pursuit". The Chopper Rescue set included two slot cars (a fire truck and a police jeep) and a complete racetrack. A unique feature of this track was that it allowed racers to jump their cars over a canyon with the aid of a magnetic helicopter. The Police Pursuit set included two slot cars (a sports car and a police car) and a battery powered racetrack which included an automatic lap counter.
 * Emergency Communications Vehicle: In 1993, Marchon, Inc. released a toy battery-powered police car which included a remote control intercom.

Pinball machine
In May 1994, Premier Technologies, trade-name Gottlieb, released a Rescue 911 pinball machine. It featured a helicopter that magnetically captured the ball as well as a red revolving light on the backbox. In March 2016, it was released in The Pinball Arcade for PC, Android mobile devices and iOS.

title: Rescue 911


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Dance bar

Dance bar is a term used in India to refer to bars in which adult entertainment in the form of dances by relatively well-covered women are performed for male patrons in exchange for cash. Dance bars used to be present only in Maharashtra, but later spread across the country, mainly in cities. Dance bars are a flirtatious world of fantasy catering to the need of feeling of being wanted.

Dance bars were banned in the state of Maharashtra in August 2005, which was first struck down by the Bombay High Court on 12 April 2006, and the verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court in July 2013. The Maharashtra government banned dance bars again in 2014 by an Ordinance, but this too was found "unconstitutional" by the Supreme Court in October 2015, allowing Mumbai dance bars to reopen.

History
The first dance bars were in Khalapur in the Raigad district of Maharashtra, in the early 1980s. The first dance bar in Pune district was hotel Kapila International.

Clothing
Bar dancing in India, markedly differs from erotic dancing and nightclub dance in the Western world and some parts of the Eastern world. In a way, it is more similar to bellydancing performed as entertainment. The dancers, known as bar girls, remain significantly clothed throughout the performance, showing at most some midriff, part of the back, and bare arms. Therefore, the erotic aspect of bar dancing is mostly achieved through suggestion. In Maharashtra, bar dancer attire is often ethnic Indian (sari or lehenga-choli), whereas in some other places, such as Bangalore, it may include Western garb. The bar dances are often compared to mujras, wherein women would dance to live classical Indian music, traditionally performed by tawaif (courtesans) during the Mughal era.

Dancer protocol
Bar girls dance to Bollywood and Indipop numbers on a colourfully lit dance floor, in the central focus of a dance bar's seating arrangement. Patrons sit in chairs lined up against the walls of the room. The dancing is minimalist kind and features no pelvic thrusting and bosom heaving seen typical Bollywood dance, nor any belly-dancing or suggestive gyrations. Most of the time, bar girls reservedly sway to music, in a movement designed for the conservation of energy, until they find a patron whose attention they wish to attract, or are called upon by a patron. They then dance in front of the patron, making fleeting eye contact, pointing, gesturing, or generally making their targeted patron "feel special". No bodily contact between the two is allowed, and the bar dancers often stay within the confines of the dance floor. Male waiters hover over patrons and dancers who get too close to each other, both to oversee transactions between the two as well as ostensibly to prevent sex-for-money deals being made. Patrons sometimes shower bar girls with currency notes, which generally results in more animated dancing.

Income
The patron showers his favoured dancer with currency notes. He does this either by handing over nominal denominations of cash (10 or 20 rupee notes), or through an act known as "scratching", where he holds a wad of currency notes above his dancer and rubs notes off the wad down upon the dancer. In some cases, he would even garland the dancer with rupees. Many bar dancers are able to make hundreds of rupees a night in this way, thanks to generous, well-off, and possibly inebriated patrons. At the end of the day, each girl's earnings are counted and split in some predetermined proportion between the dance bar and the girls. The dance bars also make money through the sale of alcohol and snacks. Most women earned up to inr 10000 a month, this attracted women from all over India and even as far away as Nepal and Bangladesh, especially as dance bars was considered by them as a safer way to make a living, than working in the Mumbai's red-light district.

Income depended on the popularity and status of the bar girl. The Hindustan Times reported that the less popular girls were given 60% of the amount showered on them. It also stated that popular girls received a monthly salary of ₹ 100,000–300,000, while the bar owner kept all the money showered on them.

Social and economic aspects
Dance bars closed at midnight, but in 2000, the government changed the rule to permit them to stay open until 1:30 am. However, this was changed to 12:30 am, following the rape of a minor at Marine Drive, Mumbai in 2005, although the rape was committed by a police constable inside a police chowki (station). Once dance bars end by 2 am, the bar owners provide security and safe transport to home the bar dance girls, many of these girls are married with children. Their clients are from all strata of society, including college students, corporate workers and even schoolboys who bribe to get in.

Policemen and local thugs also make money off regular haftas from the dance bars. Dance bars serve as a meeting place for criminals, making them a hub for intelligence gathering by police.

Laws were enacted and court cases were filed to shut down the dance bars to advance political fortunes and curry favor with moralist public and also due to the breakdown bribery arrangements between the dance bar owners and authorities who were deeply entrenched in the sexual economy of dance bars.

Notable incidents

 * Indian scamster Abdul Karim Telgi spent nearly inr 9300000 in one night at a dance bar in Grant Road, Mumbai in November 2002.
 * Matka kingpin Suresh Bhagat's son Hitesh allegedly spent inr 200000 per night for two years at dance bars.
 * Samajwadi Party MLA from Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh Mahendra Singh, along with five other persons, was arrested and booked under the Anti-Prostitution Act by Goa police on 26 August 2013 following a raid at a dance bar in Panaji. Police said they arrested Singh from a mujra party at a hotel, and six women dancers who were "rescued", were prostitutes called from Mumbai, Delhi and Chandigarh. Singh later told the media that he was not ashamed about the incident saying, "In UP and Bihar, women dancers perform on every occasion. From the time of mundan, engagement and marriage, we have women who dance to music. Why should I be ashamed of it?"
 * A bar girl allegedly died during a raid of the Ellora Bar and Restaurant in Borivli, Mumbai by the Social Service (SS) branch of the Mumbai Police, around 10 pm IST on 31 August 2013. Kasturba Marg police registered an accidental death report for investigation. However, the bar management claimed that the police had assaulted a bar employee during the raid, which created panic and the bar girl died due to a heart attack. Bar owner Pravin Agrawal said that, "We have CCTV recording of the entire incident. But the police have taken every thing into their custody and even seized the mobile phones of the bar employees. They are not allowing me inside and I am unable to contact my employees."

Dance bars outside Maharashtra
Dance bars exist in other parts of India, although they are illegal.

On 4 June 2006, the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police busted the El Dorado dance bar in Hotel Rajdoot on Mathura Road, and arrested 13 dance bar girls and one of the hotel owners on charges ranging from obscenity to immoral trafficking and abetment. The girls were aged between 20 and 30 and came from lower-middle-class families. Four of them were from Delhi, two each were from Bihar, Noida and Punjab and one each from Kolkata and Allahabad. The girls had previously been employed in Mumbai dance bars, but shifted to Delhi after those establishments were banned.

In popular culture
Dance bars have been theme of several films, such as Chandni Bar. Dance bars are also regularly featured in item songs in Bollywood movies.
 * Chandni Bar, a 2001 film in which Tabu played role of a Bar Dancer.
 * Deepika Padukone played the role of a bar dancer 'Mohini' from Maharashtra during the time of the ban in the 2014 film Happy New Year.

Controversies
Dance bars were banned in the state of Maharashtra, in August 2005, with the passing of the Maharashtra Police (Amendment) Act, 2005. Subsequently, the government shut down dance bars. However, many continued to flourish as late as 2011, although in a clandestine way in Mumbai and its outskirts. Mumbai alone had 700 dance bars, at their peak in April 2005 when it was banned, though officially only 307 dance bars existed, the rest were illegal, while the figures for rest of the state was 650 dance bars in total. In all they employed 150,000 people, including 75,000 bar girls. These bars functioned as fronts for prostitution. After the ban was enforced, no rehabilitation program was initiated for the nightclub dancers, known as bar-balas. Many moved to Dubai and other Middle Eastern countries, while others went to New Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad.

The ban was first struck down by the Bombay High Court on 12 April 2006, and the verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court in July 2013. The Hindu reported that the number of women employed in bars in Maharashtra was around 20,000 in September 2013. Most of them were waitresses or singers at orchestra bars.

The Maharashtra government banned dance bars again in 2014 by an Ordinance, but this too was found "unconstitutional" by the Supreme Court in October 2015, allowing Mumbai dance bars to reopen. On 25 February 2004, following the raid, the Maharashtra government issued a notification restricting persons below the age of 21 from entering dance bars, discothèques and pubs. Bars violating the law would face fines and possible cancellation of licences. The ban, under the Bombay Prohibition Act, was effective from 1 April 2004.

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

title: Dance bar


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Orange Range

Orange Range (オレンジレンジ) are a 5-member Japanese rock band, based in Okinawa, Japan. Formed in 2001, the band began with Spice Music and later signed with Sony Music Japan's gr8! records division in 2003. The band left gr8! records in 2010 to start their own label, Super Echo. In 2012, they signed with Victor Entertainment's Speedstar Records label.

2002
The band has roots in Okinawa, an area famous for being the home of many well-known acts. Before they were signed by a major label, Orange Range played mostly in small art houses and clubs until they were found by a record agent. The band is mix of pop- and rock-style music as can be heard by the vocals and the instrumentals. Their style is also made up of many different cultures and musical styles from around the world. This is attributed to their hometown being Okinawa, a well-known station for American military bases and, thus, cultures and different styles often blend. Due to high sales of their works, Orange Range's singles are often attached to various movies, shows or Japanese products. This is usually seen as a sign of a band or singer having hit "the big time" in the Japanese media.

Originally, Orange Range was a cover band, doing mostly covers of songs by other artists. The band was started by childhood friends Kitao "Kat-chan" Kazuhito and Hiroyama Naoto, but Naoto has professed that Kazuhito was the one to come up with the idea of forming a band. Soon a longtime friend of Naoto, Miyamori Yoh, would join the band as a bassist. Unlike the current band members, the next band member to join, Hokama Hiroki, was relatively an "outsider" in the group of friends that made up the original band. Hiroki was also the first vocalist of the band. Next Miyamori Yoh invited his younger brother, Miyamori Ryo, to join the band as a low vocalist and the second overall vocalist. The band stayed like this for a few months before scouting high range vocalist, Yamato Ganeko to the band.

Between the time that Yamato joined and the band being signed to Spice Music's Japanese division, Orange Range mainly did covers of already famous singers and bands, like Glay and Mr. Children, for school concerts and for small art houses. In early 2002, the band was signed to Spice Music and released their first official commercial work, the mini-album Orange Ball, which contained the single Michishirube. The single peaked at No. 133 on the Oricon charts. It was around this time that the band finally left their home of Okinawa and began touring across the country and opening for various Japanese acts such as Do As Infinity.

2003
In June 2003, the band signed with Sony Music and released their first wide release single, "Kirikirimai". The single only had a moderate amount of sales and peaked at No. 50 on the mainstream Oricon charts. The very next month though, any doubts of Orange Range being able to make it to the "big time" in the Japanese music scene were dashed when they released their second single, "Shanghai Honey", the single peaked at No. 5 on the Oricon charts. This was seen as a large feat for the band as the single had almost no promotion due to the low sales of Kirikirimai. A cover version of Shanghai Honey was also featured in the game Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan.

The band then released two more singles, "Viva Rock", in which the title song was used as the third ending to the anime Naruto, and "Rakuyō" which was used as commercial song for Daiichi Kosho Mero Dam. 1st Contact, the band's first full album, was then released in late 2003. It entered the charts at No. 2 and was only able to stay there for a single week. The album's sales dropped by nearly double in the time frame of a month. Even with the low sales, the album became the 15th highest selling album of 2004.

2004
In the time following their first album, the band re-released "Michishirube" and "Kirikirimai". During the same year, the band also performed "Kirikirimai (Fantastic Four Remix)" for the superhero film Fantastic Four and its soundtrack.

"Michishirube" was used as the ending theme to the popular J-Drama, Fire Boys: Megumi no Daigo, this version of the single went straight to No. 1 on the Oricon charts. It marked the first single from the band that was able to reach the coveted spot on the charts. The band's next single was "Locolotion", which rocked the group with plagiarism controversy and accusations. Even with what was seen as "bad media light" for the band, the single still reached the No. 1 spot, as would their next seven singles, making Orange Range the band with the longest streak of consecutive number one singles since the start of the new millennium.

The band's 9th single, "Hana", went on to become the highest selling single from the band; to date, the single has sold nearly 800,000 copies. This single also went on to become the number four highest selling single of 2004 and was able to stay on the Oricon charts for nearly 50 weeks. Hana was also used as the ending theme for the movie Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu. Their second album, MusiQ, debuted at the No. 2 spot on the Oricon charts. It only stayed at the spot for one week, as its second week saw the album climb to the number one spot. This would go on to become Orange Range's best selling album, claiming the number one spot for 2005.

2005
The band's next single, "Asterisk", was used as the first opening theme to the anime Bleach and went straight to No. 1 on the charts and was able to stay in the top 20 for 22 weeks. Because it was released in late 2005, it was counted as a 2005 album; often album sales for albums released late in the year are counted for next year's charts. "Asterisk", however, was counted in both 2005 and 2006. The album's chart run ended with over 900,000 sales and was the 11th highest selling album of 2005.

The band then somewhat slowed down as they had what many fans called a "face change." This was because founding member, Kitao Kazuhito, left the band in the middle of 2005. At first it was reported by the Japanese media that he left the band due to tendinitis that had increased in severity. It was later revealed that he left the band due to "creative differences," it was said that Kazuhito did not like that the band was moving more and more to hip-hop and away from rock. As of December 2006, the band had yet to find a replacement member.

2006
The band finally returned to the studio and release their first single of 2006, "Champione", in mid-2006. "Un Rock Star", the band's next single, would break the string of consecutive number one singles. The single debuted at No. 3 and never rose higher. However, this single had a limited release, with only 100,000 copies made.

The band's 16th single is titled "Sayonara", contrary to rumors of this being the band's final single, this is supposed to mark the second phase of the band's life, thus they are saying goodbye to the first phase. "Sayonara" was used as the theme song for the TBS drama Teppan Shōjo Akane!!. In addition, the band has also created new songs with commercial tie-ins, one titled "Dance2" to be used in a Pocky advertisement (and the song was used in Japanese DS game Taiko no Tatsujin) and the other called "Hello", which will be used by the Disney Channel.

Their fourth album, the self-titled Orange Range was released on December 6, 2006; it contained 17 tracks; three were re-releases and 14 were new tracks. Even with a No. 2 peak, this was the band's lowest charting album in four years, as well as their lowest selling album to date.

Orange Range performed at Music Station Super Live 2006 on December 22. Music Station is a long-running Japanese music television program that holds a "Super Live" extended edition to celebrate Christmas and the end of the year every December. This was the second year in a row that Orange Range was invited.

2007
Their 17th single, "Ika Summer", was released in April and had a weekly peak of No. 3 on Oricon. This was the band's lowest selling and charting single in years, only staying in the top five for one week.

July saw three major releases from Orange Range. To celebrate their 5th anniversary, the band released two separate best albums entitled Orange and Range, each containing a different selection of their hit singles and popular album tracks. On the first day of their release, Orange and Range would obtain the top two spots on the Oricon charts and the same spots on the weekly charts. Two weeks later, the albums would go on to obtain the top two spots in the United World Music charts. Their next single, "Ikenai Taiyō", was used as the opening theme to the J-Drama adaptation of the popular manga series Hana-Kimi. "Ikenai Taiyō" would go on to have to obtain the No. 3 spot on Oricon in its first week, obtaining the band's highest sales in a year.

2008
The band's first single of the year, "Kimi Station", was released on March 5, 2008. The band also performed the opening and ending themes to the Sunrise anime series, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2. They are titled "O2" (02~ｵｰ･ﾂｰ~) and "Shiawase Neiro" (シアワセネイロ). The song "O2" was released as a single late May. "Shiawase Neiro" was included on Orange Range's fifth studio album, Panic Fancy, which was released on July 9, 2008 and immediately topped the Oricon Album Charts on its launch date. The DVD version of the album also included an Orange Range Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 commercial, along with the music videos for its single releases. The band's next single "Oshare Banchou feat. Soy Sauce" was released on November 12 in CD and CD+DVD formats. Shortly after, a B-sides double album entitled Ura Shopping was released on December 3.

2009
Orange Range started 2009 with the release of their Orange Range Live Tour 008: Panic Fancy DVD. The DVD features footage from the final day of their concert performance at Nippon Budokan. "Hitomi no Saki ni" (瞳の先に), Orange Range's newest single after approximately 8 months was released on July 8 in CD and CD+DVD formats. It features a ballad. Another song titled "Oni Goroshi" (鬼ゴロシ) which translates to Demon Slayer, will be the ending theme song of the movie The Good, the Bad, the Weird. "Oni Goroshi" is an upbeat song on the lines of GOD69 and Chest. The band's 6th album entitled World World World was released on August 5 in both CD and DVD formats featuring Hitomi no Saki ni, Oni Goroshi, Oshare Banchou and 10 all new songs for a total of 13 tracks. Best of Albums Orange and Range were re-released on September 2 in the new Blu-spec CD format.

2010
On February 20 at the Saitama Super Arena, Orange Range performed Carnival - Haru no Saiten Special; the band released the concert footage on DVD on June 9 of the same year. Shortly after on July 14, the band released their newest best hits album titled All the Singles; the album has a limited edition version that contains music videos for each song on the regular cd. That same day, Orange Range also released ORANGE RANGE world world world TOUR VS Nagoya ELL, which is a DVD from the World World World tour. On July 28, the band left former label Gr8! Records, and established their own record label Super Echo Label. Following the change in record label, Orange Range released the singles Uturusanu (July 28) and Ya-Ya-Ya (September 22). The band released a new studio album on October 20: orcd. Five days later, Orange Range held their first free live concert in five years when they performed Onegai! Senorita. The band also announced a nationwide tour titled LIVE TOUR 010-011 "orcd" from November 17, 2010 to March 8, 2011.

2011
After the Great East Japan earthquake struck on March 11, 2011, Orange Range released a single titled "one" on March 26. The song was written for the victims of the earthquake, and it was available for free download on the band's website. In response to the song release, Orange Range left this message on their page: "What we can do is to deliver music. Everyday, the television broadcasts footage that feels detached from reality. We were shocked to see people helping with the rescue efforts there, bravely and cheerfully, despite being victims themselves. We were touched by those people, and decided to write this song. It's a small power, but we want to walk forward together. Let's sing together." Also, the band announced additional performances for their LIVE TOUR 010-011 "orcd" renaming the remainder of the tour LIVE TOUR 011 orcd "one"; the tour was extended from April 15 to July 22. From August 10 to August 30, Orange Range held a concept tour for their fan club titled RANGE AID + presents: RWD ← SCREAM 01.

2012
Orange Range kicked off 2012 by switching their label again. On January 10, the band switched from "SUPER ECHO LABEL" to SPEEDSTAR RECORDS. The year 2012 was the band's 10th anniversary, so to celebrate this, Orange Range released a new single "Anniversary Song ~ 10th" for free release. The band also announced a new album and a new tour to celebrate their anniversary. On April 18, Orange Range released their new studio album Neo Pop Standard; the band also announced the new nationwide tour LIVE TOUR 012 "NEO POP STANDARD" The tour was held from May 10 to August 19.

2013
From January 31 to February 23, Orange Range held yet another concept tour titled RANGE AID + presents" RWD ← SCREAM 013. Then from March 18 to March 21, the band held an exclusive tour for their fan club called "ORANGE RANGE FC TOUR SHOWCASE LIVE 013"; this tour was done in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya. After months of touring, Orange Range released their first single in 3 years 9 months. The new single, Oborona Ageha/Moshimo, peaked at the 18th place on the Oricon charts. On May 30, the band announced a new album and a nationwide tour. Their new studio album, spark, was successfully released on July 24, 2013. On the same date, Orange Range released their new tour DVD "Orange Range Live Tour 012: Neo Pop Standard" on the Japanese iTunes storefront. The band also released "spark" and "Neo Pop Standard" on iTunes worldwide, marking the first time Orange Range has released one of its albums for worldwide, digital release. A week after spark was released, Oricon charts indicated that the album had only managed to reach the 18th spot before falling from the Top 30. This indication makes "spark" Orange Range's lowest ranking studio album on the Oricon charts since "1st Contact". In July, Naoto Hiroyama and Hiroki Hokama formed a separate group from the band as a side project called NaotoHiroki & Karatesystems. The side project was headed by Naoto and Hiroki, and the premise behind it is an international collaboration on a series of songs. After working with many international artists on the album "Travel Sounds", Naoto commented "I want to collaborate with more people for a unique worldview." From September 14 to December 22, Orange Range conducted their ORANGE RANGE LIVE TOUR 013 ～spark.

2014
Beginning in 2014, Orange Range announced for the first time a tour of Asian countries. ORANGE RANGE ASIA LIVE 014 held venues in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea; the tour was held between February 14 and February 23. From April 2 to May 31, Orange Range held their annual fan club tour with RANGE AID + presents ORANGE RANGE FC TOUR 014. To mark the 10th volume of Embu, a battle of the bands event started by Orange Range, the band announced a special Embu tour. The tour is set as a battle of the bands with Orange Range going against another band at each different venue.

2018
On August 29, 2018 the band will release their eleventh album, Eleven Piece. It will be their first studio album produced in three years, and will be released simultaneously in Japan and Taiwan. A showcase concert will take place on August 23, and a 30-concert tour supporting the new album will commence on September 28 in Taiwan at the Legacy Taipei.

Members

 * Current
 * Naoto Hiroyama - guitar
 * Ryo Miyamori - low vocals, MC
 * Yamato Ganeko - high vocals, MC
 * Hiroki Hokama - mid-range vocals, MC
 * Yoh Miyamori - bass guitar

 * Former
 * Kitao Kazuhito "Katchan" - drums

DVDs

 * 1) Video la Contact (ヴィデオ・ラ・コンタクト) (July 28, 2004)
 * 2) Video de Recital (ヴィデヲ・DE・リサイタル) (April 27, 2005)
 * 3) Live MusiQ - from Live Tour 005 "MusiQ" at Makuhari Messe 2005.04.01 (December 21, 2005)
 * 4) Live Natural - from Live Tour 005 "Natural" at Yokohama Arena 2005.12.13 (September 20, 2006)
 * 5) Orange Range Live Tour 006: Fantazical (December 5, 2007)
 * 6) Orange Range Live Tour 008: Panic Fancy (April 8, 2009)
 * 7) Orange Range Carnival: Haru no Saiten Special (June 9, 2010)
 * 8) Orange Range World World World Tour vs Nagoya ELL (July 14, 2010)
 * 9) Orange Range Live Tour 012: Neo Pop Standard (July 24, 2013)

title: Orange Range


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Emperor Shengzong of Liao

Emperor Shengzong of Liao (16 January 972 – 25 June 1031), personal name Wenshunu, sinicised name Yelü Longxu, was the sixth emperor of the Khitan-led Chinese Liao dynasty and its longest reigning monarch.

Conflict with the Northern Song dynasty
Emperor Shengzong succeeded his father, Emperor Jingzong, at the age of 12 in 982. As he was too young to rule at the time, his mother, Empress Dowager Xiao, became the regent.

Emperor Taizong of the Northern Song dynasty sought to take advantage of the situation by launching an invasion on the Liao dynasty's southern capital (present-day Beijing) in the contentious Sixteen Prefectures in 986. Three large Song armies were sent to three different strategic locations on the approach to the southern capital. While initially successful, the young Emperor Shengzong, along with Empress Dowager Xiao, led an army of Liao cavalry to counter the enemy and defeated the Song forces at the Battle of the Qigou Pass in June. Empress Dowager Xiao appointed Yelü Xiuge as her senior general to continue attacks on the Song dynasty in retaliation until the following year.

In 1004, the Liao dynasty carried out a large-scale invasion of Song territory, camping out in the town of Shanyuan, about 100 miles north of the Song capital of Kaifeng. This resulted in the Treaty of Shanyuan, signed in mid-January 1005. According to this treaty, the Song dynasty would pay an annual tribute of 200,000 bolts of silk and 100,000 taels of silver to the Liao dynasty in exchange for peace. This arrangement would remain in place with modifications until the end of the Liao dynasty, and in fact, the Jurchens could continue this arrangement with the Song dynasty with the founding of their Jin dynasty.

Examination system
Emperor Shengzong also institutionalised state examinations for the selection of officials, which was done in 988, based on models used by the Han Chinese-led Tang and Song dynasties. Despite the importance of the return of the examination system, it initially only opened the road for very small numbers, as only three to five were awarded initially, and the number only increased to between 30 and 130 candidates passing the triennial exams by 1014.

Most jinshi degree holders were not even appointed to office, as Khitan aristocrats were far more likely to receive appointments. Khitan people receiving appointments did so specifically through patronage, as they were expressly prohibited from taking the examinations.

Spread of Buddhism
Emperor Shengzong began the active patronage of Buddhism, rebuilding temples such as the Monastery of Solitary Joy. Within a century of his reign, an estimated 10% of the Liao population were Buddhist monks or nuns, though this figure may have been exaggerated. While the Khitans did not associate Buddhism with the Chinese people because it was seen more as a Uyghur religion and thus not the religion of the Chinese, whom they saw as inferior, what is not clear is the extent that Buddhism penetrated the Khitan population, as the bulk of Buddhist shrines and temples were located in the southern part of the domains of the Liao where the largely Chinese sedentary population resided. There is evidence to suggest that the Khitan populace maintained their animistic belief systems along with their rituals.

Innovations
During the rule of Emperor Shengzong, the Liao dynasty instituted feudal reform, spurring its economy. Prior to this, it had depended on territorial expansion, slavery and thievery. Under Emperor Shengzong's rule, most slaves were liberated, becoming normal members of society. The most important parts of the economy from then on were animal husbandry, particularly horse and sheep raising, as well as agriculture and fishing. During Emperor Shengzong's reign, the Liao dynasty enjoyed peace and prosperity, so it is widely praised that Emperor Shengzong's reign was a golden age of the Liao dynasty

Family
Consort and issue(s):
 * Deposed Empress, of the Xiao clan (廢后蕭氏)
 * Empress Rende, of the Xiao clan (仁德皇后 蕭氏; 983–1032), personal name (菩薩哥), a niece of Empress Ruizhi
 * Unnamed Prince, 2nd son
 * Unnamed Prince, 3rd son
 * Empress Qin'ai, of the Xiao clan (欽哀皇后 蕭氏; d. 1057), personal name Noujin (耨斤)
 * Yelü Zongzhen, Emperor Xingzong of Liao (耶律宗真; 1016–1055), 4th son
 * Yelü Zongyuan, Prince of Qin (秦國王 耶律宗元; 1021–1063), 6th son
 * Princess Zhang of Qin State (秦國長公主 耶律岩母堇), personal name Yanmuqin (岩母堇), 2nd daughter
 * Married Xiao Zhuobu (蕭浞卜)
 * Married Xiao Haili (蕭海里)
 * Married Xiao Hudu (蕭胡覩)
 * Married Xiao Hui (蕭惠) and had issue (one son)
 * Princess of Yue State (越國公主), personal name Shuogu (槊古), 3rd daughter
 * Married Xiao Xiaozhong (蕭孝忠) and had issue (Xiao Guanyin)
 * Noble Consort Xiao, of the Xiao clan (貴妃 蕭氏; 970–993), daughther of Xiao Pai (蕭排)
 * Unnamed Prince
 * Unnamed Princess
 * Princess of Qin (秦國公主, b. 990), personal name Yange (燕哥), 1st daughter
 * Married Xiao Pili (蕭匹里) in 1012 and had issue (five sons and six daughters).
 * Virtuous Consort Xiao, of the Xiao clan (德妃 蕭氏; d. 1017)
 * Liyi, of the Ma clan (麗儀 馬氏)
 * Princess Xunyang (潯陽公主), personal name Jiuge (九哥), 7th daughter
 * married Xiao Lian (蕭璉) in 1017
 * Shuyi, of the Geng clan (淑儀 耿氏)
 * Yelü Zongyuan, Prince of Beiyuan (北院大王 耶律宗願; 1008–1072), 10th son
 * Zhaoyi, of the Bai clan (昭儀 白氏)
 * Princess Tongchang (同昌公主), personal name Bage (八哥), 9th daughter
 * married Liu Sangu (劉三嘏)
 * Princess Sanhe (三河郡主), personal name Shige (十哥), 10th daughter
 * married Xiao Gaojiu (蕭高九)
 * Princess Renshou (仁寿縣主), personal name Baishi (擘失), 11th daughter
 * married Liu Siduan (劉四端)
 * Princess Yelü (耶律公主), personal name Taige (泰哥), 12th daughter
 * married Xiao Hulie (蕭忽烈)
 * Shunyi, of the Li clan (順儀 李氏)
 * Princess Jinxiang (金鄉郡主), personal name Saige (賽哥), 13th daughter
 * married Xiao Tuyu (蕭圖玉)
 * Fangyi, of the Ai clan (芳儀 艾氏)
 * Princess Yelü (耶律公主), personal name Xingge (興哥), 14th daughter
 * married Xiao Wangliu (蕭王六)
 * Heyi, of the Puhai clan (和儀 仆槐氏)
 * Yelü Zongxun (耶律宗訓), 8th son
 * Yelü Zongwei, Prince of Liang (梁王 耶律宗偉), 9th son
 * Lady, of the Xiao clan (萧氏)
 * Princess Nanyang (南陽公主, b. 1130), personal name Cuiba (崔八), 4th daughter
 * married Xiao Xiaoxian (蕭孝先)
 * Princess Zhangning (長寧公主), personal name Taoge (陶哥), 5th daughter
 * married Xiao Yangliu (蕭楊六)
 * Lady, of the Xiao clan (蕭氏)
 * Princess of Jing State (荆國公主), personal name Dianni (鈿匿), 6th daughter
 * married Ciao Shuanggu (蕭雙古)
 * Lady, of the Da clan (大氏)
 * Princess Linhai (臨海縣主), personal name Changshou (長壽), 8th daughter
 * married Dali Qiu (大力秋) of Bohai
 * married Xiao Gu (蕭古)
 * Unknown
 * Yelu Fubaonu (耶律佛寶奴, b. 988), 1st son
 * Yelu Shusi (耶律屬思, b.1017), 5th son
 * Yelü Zongjian, Prince of Liucheng (柳城郡王 耶律宗簡; d. 1050), 7th son

In popular culture

 * Portrayed by Jang Dong-jik and Oh Gun-woo in the 2009 KBS2 TV series Empress Cheonchu.
 * Portrayed by Chen Hao, Cary Ye and Leo Pei in the 2020 Chinese TV series The Legend of Xiao Chuo.
 * Portrayed by Kim Hyuk in the 2023~2024 KBS2 TV series Korea-Khitan War.

title: Emperor Shengzong of Liao


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User talk:RichardMuirhead

Welcome to Wikipedia. On Budyonny, you are of course right, but I suspect your edits will soon be reverted as POV. If you are interested in Soviet military history, you could consider contributing to the Marshal of the Soviet Union series, which has been stalled for some time. Adam 09:29, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:RichardMuirhead


text:
Myristic acid

Myristic acid (IUPAC name: tetradecanoic acid) is a common saturated fatty acid with the molecular formula CH3(CH2)12COOH. Its salts and esters are commonly referred to as myristates or tetradecanoates. The name of the acyl group derived from myristic acid is myristoyl or tetradecanoyl. The acid is named after the binomial name for nutmeg (Myristica fragrans), from which it was first isolated in 1841 by Lyon Playfair.

Occurrence
Nutmeg butter has 75% trimyristin, the triglyceride of myristic acid and a source from which it can be synthesised. Besides nutmeg, myristic acid is found in palm kernel oil, coconut oil, butterfat, 8–14% of bovine milk, and 8.6% of breast milk as well as being a minor component of many other animal fats. It is found in spermaceti, the crystallized fraction of oil from the sperm whale. It is also found in the rhizomes of the Iris, including Orris root.

Chemical behaviour
Myristic acid acts as a lipid anchor in biomembranes.

Reduction of myristic acid yields myristyl aldehyde and myristyl alcohol.

Health effects
Myristic acid consumption raises low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.

title: Myristic acid


text:
Western lowland gorilla

The western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) is one of two Critically Endangered subspecies of the western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) that lives in montane, primary and secondary forest and lowland swampland in central Africa in Angola (Cabinda Province), Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. It is the nominate subspecies of the western gorilla, and the smallest of the four gorilla subspecies.

The western lowland gorilla is the only subspecies kept in zoos with the exception of Amahoro, a female eastern lowland gorilla at Antwerp Zoo, and a few mountain gorillas kept captive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Description
The western lowland gorilla is the smallest subspecies of gorilla but still has exceptional size and strength. This species of gorillas exhibits pronounced sexual dimorphism. They possess no tails and have jet black skin along with coarse black hair that covers their entire body except for the face, ears, hands and feet. The hair on the back and rump of males takes on a grey coloration and is also lost as they get older. This coloration is the reason why older males are known as "silverbacks". Their hands are proportionately large with nails on all digits (similar to those of humans) and very large thumbs. They have short muzzles, prominent brow ridges, large nostrils and small eyes and ears. Other features are large muscles in the jaw region along with broad and strong teeth. Among these teeth are strong sets of frontal canines and large molars in the back of the mouth for grinding fruits and vegetables.

A male standing erect can be up to 1.83 m tall and weigh up to 227 kg. Males have an average weight of 140 kg, females of 90 kg. Males in captivity, however, are noted to be capable of reaching weights up to 275 kg. Males stand upright at 1.67 m, females at 1.5 m. Zoo owner John Aspinall claimed a silverback gorilla in his prime has the physical strength of seven or eight Olympic weightlifters, but this claim is unverified. Western gorillas frequently stand upright, but walk in a hunched, quadrupedal fashion, with hands curled and knuckles touching the ground; as a result, their arm span is greater than their standing height.

Albinism
The only known albino gorilla – named Snowflake – was a wild-born western lowland gorilla originally from Equatorial Guinea. Snowflake, a male gorilla, was taken from the wild and brought to the Barcelona Zoo in 1966 at a very young age. He presented the typical traits and characteristics of albinism seen in humans, including white hair, pinkish skin, light colored eyes, reduced visual perception and photophobia, and was diagnosed with non-syndromic albinism. The genetic variant for Snowflake’s albinism was identified by the scientists as a non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism located in a transmembrane region of SLC45A2. This transporter is also known to be involved in oculocutaneous albinism type 4 in humans. As it is a recessive allele, and his parents were an uncle and niece who were both carriers, this revealed the first evidence of inbreeding in western lowland gorillas.

Social structure
Western lowland gorilla groups travel within a home range typically between 8 and 45 sqkm in area. Gorillas do not display territorial behavior, and neighboring groups often overlap ranges. The group usually favours a certain area within the home range, but seems to follow a seasonal pattern depending upon the availability of ripening fruits and, at some sites, localised large open clearings (swamps and "bais"). Gorillas normally travel 3 - 5 km per day. Populations feeding on high-energy foods that vary spatially and seasonally tend to have greater day ranges than those feeding on lower-quality but more consistently available foods. Larger groups travel greater distances in order to obtain sufficient food.

It is easier for males to travel alone and move between groups, as before reaching the age of sexual maturity, males leave their natal group and go through a “bachelor stage” that can last several years either in solitary or in a nonbreeding group. However, while both sexes leave their birth group, females are always part of a breeding group. Males like to settle with other male members of their family. Their breeding groups consist of one silverback male, three adult females and their offspring. The male gorilla has the role of the protector. Females tend to make bonds with other females in their natal group only, but form strong bonds with males. Males also aggressively compete for contact with females.

The group of gorillas is led by one or more adult males. In cases where there is more than one silverback male in a group, they are most likely father and son. Groups containing only one male are believed to be the basic unit of the social group, gradually growing in size due to reproduction and new members migrating in. In the study done at Lope, gorillas harvest most of their food arboreally, but less than half of their night nests are built in trees. They are often found on the ground, and the group has up to 30 gorillas. Western lowland gorillas live in the smallest family groups of all gorillas, with an average of four to eight members in each. The leader (the silverback) organizes group activities, like eating, nesting and travelling in their home range. Those who challenge this alpha male are apt to be cowed by impressive shows of physical power. He may stand upright, throw things, make aggressive charges, and pound his huge chest with open or cupped hands while barking out powerful hoots or unleashing a frightening roar. Despite these displays and the animals' obvious physical power, gorillas are generally calm and nonaggressive unless they are disturbed. Young gorillas, from three to six years old, remind human observers of children. Much of their day is spent in play, climbing trees, chasing one another and swinging from branches.

Reproduction
Female western lowland gorillas do not produce many offspring due to the fact that they do not reach sexual maturity until the age of 8 or 9. Female gorillas give birth to one infant after a gestation period of nearly nine months. Female gorillas do not show signs of pregnancy. Unlike their powerful parents, newborns are tiny, weighing 4 lb, but are able to cling to their mothers' fur. These infants ride on their mothers' backs from the age of four months through the first two or three years of their lives. Infants can be dependent on their mother for up to five years.

A study of over 300 births to captive female gorillas revealed that older females tend to give birth to more male offspring as opposed to females under 8 years old. This pattern is likely to result from selective pressures on females to have males at a time when they can provision them most effectively, as male reproductive success probably varies more than that of females and depends more on the maternal role. Female western lowland gorillas living in a group led by a single male have been observed to display sexual behavior during all stages of their reproductive cycle and during times of non-fertility. Three out of four females have been observed to engage in sexual behavior while pregnant, and two out of three females have been observed to engage in sexual behavior while lactating. Females are significantly more likely to engage and participate in sexual behavior and activity on a day when another female is sexually active. It has been found that female western lowland gorillas participate in non-reproductive sexual behavior in order to increase their reproductive success through sexual competition. By increasing the female’s own reproductive success, she then decreases the reproductive success of other female gorillas, regardless of their reproductive state.

Infanticide by adult male gorillas has occasionally been observed in this subspecies. Victims are never related to the killer. A male does this in order to have the opportunity to mate with the mother, who otherwise would be unavailable while caring for her young offspring.

Use of tools
Their intelligence is displayed through their ability to fashion natural materials into tools that help them gather food more conveniently. While the use and manufacture of tools to extract ants and termites is a well-documented behavior in wild chimpanzees, it has never been observed in other great apes in their natural habitat and never seen in other primates in captivity. Western lowland gorillas can adapt tools to a particular use by selecting branches, removing projections such as leaves and bark, and adapting their length to the depth of the holes. It appears that they also plan the use of the tool, since they begin with one of the biggest sticks available and progressively modify it until it is the perfect fit for inserting into a hole that contains food. This demonstrates the gorillas' acquisition of high level sensorimotor intelligence, similar to that of young human children.

A gorilla has been observed to use a stick to measure the depth of water. In 2009, a western lowland gorilla at Buffalo Zoological Gardens used a bucket to collect water. In an experiment, one adult male gorilla and three adult female gorillas were given five-gallon buckets near a standing pool. Two of the younger females were able to fill the buckets with water. This is the first record of gorillas spontaneously using tools to drink in zoos.

Communication
Another example of gorillas' significant intelligence is their ability to comprehend simple sign language. In the mid-1970s, researchers turned their attention to communicating with gorillas via sign language. One gorilla, Koko, was born in San Francisco Zoo on July 4, 1971. Francine Patterson officially started working with Koko on July 12, 1972, with the goal of teaching her sign language. In the beginning, Patterson focused on teaching Koko only three basic signs: "food", "drink", and "more". Koko would learn signs through observation and from Patterson or one of her colleagues molding Koko's hands into the correct sign. On August 7, Patterson began a more formal routine of teaching Koko those three signs. In the couple of weeks before that, Koko had been using gestures that seemed like attempts at the signs taught, but were deemed as coincidental and random and not intended for the actual purpose. Only two days after they started the more formal routine, Koko started responding consistently with the sign "food" when prompted to do so. Within the first three months, Koko made 16 different combinations of signs and was also starting to form simple questions by using eye contact and different positioning of signs by the body. Koko mastered more than 1,000 signs and was said to be able to connect up to eight words together to form a statement expressing wants, needs, thoughts, or simple responses.

There has been a study examining the ability of western lowland gorillas to give to and exchange with humans. This involved humans holding objects such as fruit, leaves or peanuts in one hand. Once the gorillas had given twigs to the humans, they would receive one of these objects. If the gorillas did not give them a twig, they would not get their desired object. The gorillas were shown to quickly learn about receiving rewards, as mistakes made by the gorillas at the beginning of the experiments gradually decreased.

Habitat
Western lowland gorillas primarily live in rainforest, swamp forest, brush, secondary vegetation, clearing and forest edges, abandoned farming fields and riverine forest. They live in primary and secondary lowland tropical forest at elevations that extend from sea level up to 1,300 m. The average amount of rainfall in the areas where western lowland gorillas typically reside is about 1,500 mm a year, with the greatest rainfall between the months of August and November. Western lowland gorillas are not typically observed in areas that are close to human settlements and villages. They have been known to avoid areas with roads and farms that show signs of human activity. These gorillas favor areas where edible plants are more copious. Swamp forest is now considered an important food source and habitat for the western lowland gorilla. These areas support the gorillas in both wet and dry seasons. The forest of the Republic of the Congo is currently considered to host the majority of the western lowland gorilla population. The isolation of the large swampy forest areas protects the gorillas.

Diet
The western lowland gorilla is primarily herbivorous, and its main diet consists of roots, shoots, fruit, wild celery, tree bark and pulp, which are found in the thick forest of Central and West Africa. During the wet season, gorillas commonly consume fruits. In the dry season, they eat less fleshy fruits, but they continue to eat other kinds of fruits. The diversity of fruits consumed was higher in a poor fruit year, when favored fruit species failed to produce large crops. They may also eat insects from time to time. The common food item which provides fibers is herbaceous stems.

Important food species have been divided into three categories: staple foods which are eaten on a daily/weekly basis throughout the year; seasonal foods which are present in the majority of resources when available; and fallback foods which are always available, but eaten only or mainly during fruit-scarce months. The adult will eat around 18 kg of food per day. Gorillas will climb trees up to 15 meters in height in search of food. They never completely strip vegetation from a single area, since the rapid regrowth of the vegetation allows them to stay within a reasonably confined home range for extended periods of time.

They eat a combination of fruits and foliage, providing a balance of nutrients, depending on the time of year. However, when ripe fruit is available, they tend to eat more fruit as opposed to foliage. When ripe fruit is in scarce supply, they eat leaves, herbs and bark. During the rainy months of July and August, fruit is ripe; however, in the dry seasons, ripe fruit is scarce. Gorillas choose fruit that is high in sugar for energy, as well as fiber.

Relationship with humans
The presence of western lowland gorillas has allowed the study of how gorillas compare with humans in regard to human diseases, behavior, and linguistic and psychological aspects of their lives. They are hunted illegally for their skins and meat in Africa and captured to be sold to zoos. While defended as economically profitable for restaurants and local people, such hunting contributes greatly to the endangered status of the western lowland gorilla. They are also seen as a crop pest in western Africa, because they raid plantations, and so destroy valuable crops.

Hunting and logging
In tropical forest, gorillas are hunted to provide meat for the bushmeat trade. Logging also destroys gorilla habitats, although it may also provide increased herbaceous vegetation as a result of gaps in the tree cover. Destruction of gorilla habitat may harm the overall forest ecosystem. Western lowland gorillas are seed dispersers, which is beneficial to many of the animals in the forest, so their extinction could affect many other animals, which could over time destroy their current ecosystem.

Population decline and recovery
The western lowland gorilla population in the wild faces a number of threats to its survival. These include deforestation, farming, grazing and the expanding human settlements that cause forest loss. There is a correlation between human intervention in the wild with the destruction of habitats and an increase in bushmeat hunting. Another threat is infertility. Generally, female gorillas mature at 10–12 years of age (or earlier at 7–8 years). Males mature more slowly: they are rarely strong and dominant enough to reproduce before 15–20 years of age. The fecundity of females (their capacity to produce young in great numbers) appears to decline by the age of 18. Of one half of captive females of viable reproductive age, approximately 30% of those had only a single birth. However, those gorillas that do not reproduce may prove to be a valuable resource, since the use of assisted reproductive techniques helps to maintain genetic diversity in the limited populations in zoos.

Conservation
In the 1980s, a census of the gorilla populations in equatorial Africa was thought to be 100,000. Researchers later adjusted the figure to less than half because of poaching and diseases. Surveys conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society in 2006 and 2007 found about 125,000 previously unreported gorillas have been living in the swamp forests of Lake Télé Community Reserve and in neighboring Marantaceae (dryland) forests in the Republic of the Congo. However, gorillas remain vulnerable to Ebola, deforestation and poaching.

In 2002 and 2003, there was an Ebola outbreak in the Lossi sanctuary population, and in 2004, there was an Ebola outbreak in the Lokoué forest clearing in Odzala-Kokoua National Park, both in the Republic of the Congo. The Ebola outbreak in the Lokoué forest clearing negatively affected the individuals living in groups and the adult females more than the solitary males, resulting in an increase in the proportion of solitary males to those living in groups. This population decreased from 377 individuals to 38 individuals two years after the outbreak and to 40 individuals six years after the outbreak. The population is still slowly recovering, even today, it is hoped, towards a population that has the same demographic structure as an unaffected population, because of new births and breeding groups. This Ebola outbreak also affected the Maya Nord population (52 kilometres northwest from Lokoué) from 400 individuals to considerably fewer. Because of these outbreaks, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) updated the status of western lowland gorillas from "endangered" to "critically endangered".

In the northeastern part of the Republic of the Congo, western lowland gorillas are still being hunted for their bushmeat and the young for pets; five percent of the subspecies is killed each year because of this. Deforestation of this area allows for the trade of bushmeat and even more poaching. Commercial poaching of chimpanzees, forest elephants and western gorillas in the Republic of the Congo resulted from the increased amount of commercial logging and infrastructure. Deforestation and logging allowed for the creation of roads which allowed hunters to hunt deeper into the forest, increasing the amount of poaching and bushmeat trade in the area. The Republic of the Congo has put in place a conservation effort to conserve different species such as chimpanzees, forest elephants and western gorillas from poaching and deforestation. This conservation effort would allow these species to benefit from vegetation and ecologically important resources.

Bush meat hunting and timber harvesting in the western lowland gorilla’s habitat have negatively affected the probability of its survival. The western lowland gorilla is considered to be critically endangered by the IUCN. The western lowland gorillas, like many gorillas, are essential to the composition of the rainforest due to their seed distribution. The conservation of the western lowland gorilla has been made a priority by many organizations. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has been working with the local community in the Congo Basin to establish wildlife management programs. The WCS is also working in Congo and surrounding countries to limit the bush meat trade by enforcing laws and hunting restrictions and also helping the local people find new sources of protein.

Zoos worldwide have a population of 550 western lowland gorillas, and the Cincinnati Zoo leads the United States in western lowland gorilla births.

Stress
Stress has been known to cause both physiological and behavioral chronic issues for captive species including, but not limited to, altered reproductive cycling and behavior, reduced immune responses, disrupted hormone and growth levels, reduced body weight, heightened abnormal activities and aggression and decreased exploratory behavior with increased hiding behaviors. Such stress reactions could be caused by sounds, light conditions, odors, temperature and humidity conditions, material makeup of enclosures, habitat size constraints, lack of proper hiding areas, forced closeness to humans, routine husbandry and feeding conditions, or abnormal social groups to name a few. Use of both internal and external privacy screens on exhibit windows has been shown to alleviate stresses from visual effects of high crowd densities, leading to decreased stereotypic behaviors in the gorillas. Playing naturalistic auditory stimuli as opposed to classical music, rock music, or no auditory enrichment (which allows for crowd noise, machinery, etc. to be heard) has been noted to reduce stress behavior as well. Enrichment modifications to feed and foraging, where clover-hay is added to an exhibit floor, decrease stereotypic activities while simultaneously increasing positive food-related behaviors.

Stereotypic behaviors
Stereotypic behaviors are abnormal or compulsive behaviors. It is common for non-human primates kept in captivity to exhibit behaviors deviating from the normal behavior observed of them in the wilderness. In captive gorillas, such frequent aberrant behaviors include eating disorders—such as regurgitation, reingestion and coprophagy—self-injurious or conspecific aggression, pacing, rocking, sucking of fingers or lip smacking, and overgrooming. Negative vigilance of visitor behaviors have been identified as starting, posturing and charging at visitors. Groups of bachelor gorillas containing young silverbacks have significantly higher levels of aggression and wounding rates than mixed age and sex groups.

A particularly abnormal behavior is hair-plucking, which occurs across many species of mammals and birds. Studies made on the topic show that of all the western lowland gorillas housed in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) population, 15% of the surveyed population displayed hair-plucking behavior with 62% of all institutions housing a hair-plucker. Individual gorillas, particularly those of a more solitary nature, are more likely to self-pluck using their fingers and pick up this behavior if they were exposed to a group member that plucked their hair as a youngster and not yet mature gorilla.

Recent research on captive gorilla welfare emphasizes a need to shift to individual assessments instead of a one-size-fits-all group approach to understanding how welfare increases or decreases based on a variety of factors. Individual characteristics such as age, sex, personality and individual histories are essential in understanding that stressors will affect each individual gorilla and their welfare differently.

Genetics
The gorilla became the next-to-last great ape genus to have its genome sequenced. This was done in 2012. This has given scientists further insight into the evolution and origin of humans. Despite the chimpanzees being the closest extant relatives of humans, 15% of the human genome was found to be more like that of the gorilla. In addition, 30% of the gorilla genome "is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other; this is rarer around coding genes, indicating pervasive selection throughout great ape evolution, and has functional consequences in gene expression". Analysis of the gorilla genome has cast doubt on the idea that the rapid evolution of hearing genes gave rise to language in humans, as it also occurred in gorillas.

Furthermore, in 2013, a study was conducted in order to better understand the genetic variation in gorillas by using reduced representation sequencing. This study consisted of a sample of 12 western lowland gorillas and two eastern lowland gorillas, all in captivity. The study found that western lowland gorillas are more likely to be heterozygous than homozygous. Most pure (meaning they are not inbred) western lowland gorillas have a hom/het ratio that ranges from 0.5 to 0.7. Therefore, because of variation in these gorillas, it has been concluded that they display a moderate substructure within the western lowland population in general.

Finally, the study sought out to analyze the allele frequency spectrum (AFS) in western lowland gorillas. The reason why is that AFS knowledge can help give information regarding demographics and evolutionary processes. The AFS has determined that western lowland gorillas display a deficit of rare alleles.

Disease
Western lowland gorillas are believed to be one of the zoonotic origins of HIV/AIDS. The SIV or Simian immunodeficiency virus that infects them is similar to a certain strain of HIV-1. The HIV-1 virus exhibits phylogeographic clustering, which is due to large rivers. This clustering allows pinpointing the probable geographic origins of two of the human virus clades. In the southern part of Cameroon, the populations of western lowland gorillas have had examinations of their feces. Out of 2,934 gorilla samples, 70 reacted with at least one HIV-1 antigen. These samples came from four field sites, all located in southern Cameroon.

The origin of AIDS has been linked to a virus known to infect more than 40 species of nonhuman primates in Africa. HIV-1, is composed of four phylogenetic lineages, which at some point in time have independently gone through cross-species transmission of the SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus). The simian immunodeficiency virus infected various African primates such as gorillas and chimpanzees.

Disease has also been a factor in the survival of the western lowland gorilla. The Ebola epizootic in western and central Africa has caused more than 90% mortality rate in western lowland gorillas. From 2003–2004, two epizootics infected the western lowland gorilla, which caused two-thirds of their population to disappear. The outbreak was monitored in the Republic of Congo by Magdalena Bermejo and other field-based primatologists, as it also spread to humans through contact with bushmeat. The catastrophe led the World Conservation Union to designate the western lowland gorilla a critically endangered species. Malaria is also an issue that has been arising for the western lowland gorillas. Out of 51 faecal samples from habituated individuals, 25 were shown to have Plasmodium DNA. Laverania, which is a subgenus of the parasitic protozoan genus Plasmodium, was found in these studies. Varying exposure to different Anopheles mosquitoes transmitting Plasmodium species is known to be the origin of malaria in western lowland gorillas.

Wild western lowland gorillas are known to consume the seeds of the "grains of paradise" plant, apparently conferring healthy cardiovascular conditions from their consumption—the occasionally poor cardiovascular health of lowland gorillas in zoos has been postulated to be due to the lack of availability of the Aframomum seeds in zoo gorillas' diets. Adult male gorillas are prone to fibrosing cardiomyopathy, a degenerative heart disease.

title: Western lowland gorilla


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Titus Crow

Titus Crow is the main character in the eponymous series of horror fiction books by Brian Lumley. The books are based on H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

Description
In a departure from many Cthulhu Mythos stories, Lumley's characters are not helpless victims of unimaginable forces which can drive humans mad by merely manifesting themselves. Instead, Titus Crow, his friend Henri-Laurent de Marigny, and other Lumley characters confront Cthulhu's minions in a series of increasingly large-scale encounters, in which humans, although outmatched, try to fight back. In a letter to the journal Crypt of Cthulhu, Lumley wrote:

 * I have trouble relating to people who faint at the hint of a bad smell. A meep or glibber doesn't cut it with me. (I love meeps and glibbers, don't get me wrong, but I go looking for what made them!) That's the main difference between my stories...and HPL's. My guys fight back. Also, they like to have a laugh along the way.

Crow has been known to survive any number of encounters with monsters, although he may not always be able to defeat the creatures. For instance, he may fall unconscious upon running into a monster that kills anything that moves.

In The Transition of Titus Crow, Crow is almost totally destroyed when the Clock crashes while fleeing from the Hounds of Tindalos. (Pt.4 -Fragments). He is slowly recreated from surviving cells & his memories stored in the Clock, as a cyborg over many decades, by a robot who theorized that robots were originally created by organic beings. As a cyborg he now has powers that can better deal with the monsters of the mythos.

He is described as a man who spends most of his money on commodities and keeps the rest of it in the bank. Crow owns several Cthulhu Mythos objects, including the Clock of Dreams. The Clock is a time-space machine in the form of a coffin-shaped clock. It was previously owned by Randolph Carter and by de Marigny's father, and is referred to as "de Marigny's clock" in many of the early short stories.

Inspiration
In an interview with Lumley, Robert M. Price suggests various possible models for Crow, including Miro Hetzel, Jack Vance's futuristic detective, Doctor Who, Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan, August Derleth's Dr. Laban Shrewsbury, William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki and Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin. Lumley doesn't acknowledge any of these as conscious inspirations, saying that Crow's time-clock (which derives from Lovecraft's "Through the Gates of the Silver Key") long predates Who; that he's never read Peake's Gormenghast and that the similarity of names is coincidental; and that he "was never too keen on" Derleth's Shrewsbury. He does admit, however, to having "always had a soft spot" for Bram Stoker's Abraham Van Helsing.

Novels

 * The Burrowers Beneath (1974, ISBN 0-312-86867-7)
 * The Transition of Titus Crow (1975, ISBN 0-312-86299-7)
 * The Clock of Dreams (1978, ISBN 0-312-86868-5)
 * Spawn of the Winds (1978, ISBN 0-515-04571-3)
 * In the Moons of Borea (1979, ISBN 0-312-86866-9)
 * Elysia (1989, ISBN 0-932445-32-2), in which the characters of the Titus Crow series meet characters from Lumley's two other series, Dreamlands and Primal Land, for a grand confrontation with the Dark Forces.

Short stories
Collected in The Compleat Crow (1987 Hodder and Stoughton). (ISBN 0-340-69544-7)
 * "Inception" (1987)
 * "Lord of the Worms" (originally published in Weirdbook 17, 1983)
 * "The Caller of the Black" (originally published in The Caller of the Black, 1971 Arkham House)
 * "The Viking's Stone" (originally published in The Horror at Oakdeene & Others, 1977 Arkham House)
 * "The Mirror of Nitocris" (originally published in The Caller of the Black, 1971 Arkham House)
 * "An Item of Supporting Evidence" (originally published in Arkham Collector, Winter 1970)
 * "Billy's Oak" (originally published in Arkham Collector, Winter 1970)
 * "Darghud's Doll" (originally published in The Horror at Oakdeene & Others, 1977 Arkham House)
 * "De Marigny's Clock" (originally published in The Caller of the Black, 1971 Arkham House)
 * "Name and Number" (originally published in Kadath, July 1982)
 * "The Black Recalled" (1983, originally published in World Fantasy Convention 1983: Sixty Years of Weird Tales)

title: Titus Crow


text:
User talk:Halfpear~enwiki

Hi, welcome to Wikipedia. I've moved your "Andreas Xu" page to User:Halfpear, since we frown on autobiographies of Wikipedia users in the article space. RickK 09:37, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Halfpear. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Halfpear~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 00:25, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 13:35, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Halfpear~enwiki