title: 1970s

text: Superpower tensions had cooled by the 1970s, with the bellicose US–Soviet confrontations of the 1950s–60s giving way to the policy of "détente", which promoted the idea that the world's problems could be resolved at the negotiating table. Détente was partially a reaction against the policies of the previous 25 years, which had brought the world dangerously close to nuclear war on several occasions, and because the US was in a weakened position following the failure of the Vietnam War. As part of détente, the US also restored ties with the People's Republic of China, partially as a counterweight against Soviet expansionism.


title: 1970s

text: The US–Soviet geopolitical rivalry nonetheless continued through the decade, although in a more indirect faction as the two superpowers jockeyed relentlessly for control of smaller countries. American and Soviet intelligence agencies gave funding, training, and material support to insurgent groups, governments, and armies across the globe, each seeking to gain a geopolitical advantage and install friendly governments. Coups, civil wars, and terrorism went on across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and also in Europe where a spate of Soviet-backed Marxist terrorist groups were active throughout the decade. Over half the world's population in the 1970s lived under a repressive dictatorship. In 1979, a new wrinkle appeared in the form of Islamic fundamentalism, as the Shia theocracy of Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah of Iran and declared itself hostile to both Western democracy and godless communism.


title: 1970s

text: People were deeply influenced by the rapid pace of societal change and the aspiration for a more egalitarian society in cultures that were long colonized and have an even longer history of hierarchical social structure.


title: 1970s

text: The Green Revolution of the late 1960s brought about self-sufficiency in food in many developing economies. At the same time an increasing number of people began to seek urban prosperity over agrarian life. This consequently saw the duality of transition of diverse interaction across social communities amid increasing information blockade across social class.


title: 1970s

text: Other common global ethos of the 1970s world included increasingly flexible and varied gender roles for women in industrialized societies. More women could enter the work force. However, the gender role of men remained as that of a breadwinner. The period also saw the socioeconomic effect of an ever-increasing number of women entering the non-agrarian economic workforce. The Iranian revolution also affected global attitudes to and among those of the Muslim faith toward the end of the 1970s.


title: 1970s

text: The global experience of the cultural transition of the 1970s and an experience of a global zeitgeist revealed the interdependence of economies since World War II, in a world increasingly polarized between the United States and the Soviet Union.


title: 1970s

text: The 1970s were perhaps the worst decade of most industrialized countries' economic performance since the Great Depression. Although there was no severe economic depression as witnessed in the 1930s, economic growth rates were considerably lower than previous decades. As a result, the 1970s adversely distinguished itself from the prosperous postwar period between 1945 and 1973. The oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 added to the existing ailments and conjured high inflation throughout much of the world for the rest of the decade. U.S. manufacturing industries began to decline as a result, with the United States running its last trade surplus () in 1975. In contrast, Japan and West Germany experienced economic booms and started overtaking the U.S. as the world's leading manufacturers. In 1970, Japan overtook West Germany to become the world's second-largest economy. Japan would rank as the world's second-largest economy until 1994 when the European Economic Area (18 countries under a single market) came into effect.


title: 1970s

text: In the US, the average annual inflation rate from 1900 to 1970 was approximately 2.5%. From 1970 to 1979, however, the average rate was 7.06%, and topped out at 13.29% in December 1979. This period is also known for "stagflation", a phenomenon in which inflation and unemployment steadily increased. It led to double-digit interest rates that rose to unprecedented levels (above 12% per year). The prime rate hit 21.5 in December 1980, the highest in history. A rising cost of housing was reflected in the average price of a new home in the U.S. The average price of a new home in the U.S. was $23,450 in 1970 up to $68,700 by 1980. By the time of 1980, when U.S. President Jimmy Carter was running for re-election against Ronald Reagan, the misery index (the sum of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate) had reached an all-time high of 21.98%. The economic problems of the 1970s would result in a sluggish cynicism replacing the optimistic attitudes of the 1950s and 1960s and a distrust of government and technology. Faith in government was at an all-time low in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, as exemplified by the low voter turnout in the 1976 United States presidential election.


title: 1970s

text: Great Britain also experienced considerable economic turmoil during the decade as outdated industries proved unable to compete with Japanese and German wares. Labor strikes happened with such frequency as to almost paralyze the country's infrastructure. Following the Winter of Discontent, Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister in 1979 with the purpose of implementing extreme economic reforms.


title: 1970s

text: In Eastern Europe, Soviet-style command economies began showing signs of stagnation, in which successes were persistently dogged by setbacks. The oil shock increased East European, particularly Soviet, exports, but a growing inability to increase agricultural output caused growing concern to the governments of the COMECON block, and a growing dependence on food imported from democratic nations.


title: 1970s

text: On the other hand, export-driven economic development in Asia, especially by the Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan), resulted in rapid economic transformation and industrialization. Their abundance of cheap labor, combined with educational and other policy reforms, set the foundation for development in the region during the 1970s and beyond.


title: 1970s

text: Economically, the 1970s were marked by the energy crisis which peaked in 1973 and 1979 (see 1973 oil crisis and 1979 oil crisis). After the first oil shock in 1973, gasoline was rationed in many countries. Europe particularly depended on the Middle East for oil; the United States was also affected even though it had its own oil reserves. Many European countries introduced car-free days and weekends. In the United States, customers with a license plate ending in an odd number were only allowed to buy gasoline on odd-numbered days, while even-numbered plate-holders could only purchase gasoline on even-numbered days. The realization that oil reserves were not endless and technological development was not sustainable without potentially harming the environment ended the belief in limitless progress that had existed since the 19th century. As a result, ecological awareness rose substantially, which had a major effect on the economy.


title: 1970s

text: The 1970s witnessed an explosion in the understanding of solid-state physics, driven by the development of the integrated circuit, and the laser. Stephen Hawking developed his theories of black holes and the boundary-condition of the universe at this period with his theory called Hawking radiation. The biological sciences greatly advanced, with molecular biology, bacteriology, virology, and genetics achieving their modern forms in this decade. Biodiversity became a cause of major concern as habitat destruction, and Stephen Jay Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium revolutionized evolutionary thought.


title: 1970s

text: As the 1960s ended, the United States had made two successful crewed lunar landings. Many Americans lost interest afterward, feeling that since the country had accomplished President John F. Kennedy's goal of landing on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, there was no need for further missions. There was also a growing sentiment that the billions of dollars spent on the space program should be put to other uses. The Moon landings continued through 1972, but the near loss of the Apollo 13 mission in April 1970 served to further anti-NASA feelings. Plans for missions up to Apollo 20 were canceled, and the remaining Apollo and Saturn hardware was used for the Skylab space station program in 1973–1974, and for the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), which was carried out in July 1975. Many of the ambitious projects NASA had planned for the 1970s were canceled amid heavy budget cutbacks, and instead it would devote most of the decade to the development of the Space Shuttle. ASTP was the last crewed American space flight for the next five years. The year 1979 witnessed the spectacular reentry of Skylab over Australia. NASA had planned for a Shuttle mission to the space station, but the shuttles were not ready to fly until 1981, too late to save it.


title: 1970s

text: Meanwhile, the Soviets, having failed in their attempt at crewed lunar landings, canceled the program in 1972. By then, however, they had already begun Salyut, the world's first space station program, which began in 1971. This would have problems of its own, especially the tragic loss of the Soyuz 11 crew in July 1971 and the near-loss of the Soyuz 18a crew during launch in April 1975. It eventually proved a success, with missions as long as six months being conducted by the end of the decade.


title: 1970s

text: In terms of unmanned missions, a variety of lunar and planetary probes were launched by the US and Soviet programs during the decade. The most successful of these include the Soviet Lunokhod program, a series of robotic lunar missions which included the first unmanned sample return from another world, and the American Voyagers, which took advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets to visit all of them except Pluto by the end of the 1980s.


title: 1970s

text: China entered the space race in 1970 with the launching of its first satellite, but technological backwardness and limited funds would prevent the country from becoming a significant force in space exploration. Japan launched a satellite for the first time in 1972. The European Space Agency was founded during the decade as well.


title: 1970s

text: Social science intersected with hard science in the works in natural language processing by Terry Winograd (1973) and the establishment of the first cognitive sciences department in the world at MIT in 1979. The fields of generative linguistics and cognitive psychology went through a renewed vigor with symbolic modeling of semantic knowledge while the final devastation of the long-standing tradition of behaviorism came about through the severe criticism of B. F. Skinner's work in 1971 by the cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky.


title: 1970s

text: British Rail introduced high-speed trains on InterCity services. The trains consisted of British Rail Class 43 diesel-electric locomotives at either end with British Rail Mark 3 carriages. The trains were built in the United Kingdom by British Rail Engineering Limited. The high speed trains ran at speeding up journeys between towns and cities and is still known as the "InterCity 125".


title: 1970s

text: Amtrak was formed in the United States in 1971, assuming responsibility for inter-city passenger operations throughout the country. In 1976, Conrail was formed to take over assets of six bankrupt freight railroads in the northeastern US.


title: 1970s

text: The 1970s was an era of fuel price increases, rising insurance rates, safety concerns, and emissions controls. The 1973 oil crisis caused a move towards smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles. Attempts were made to produce electric cars, but they were largely unsuccessful. In the United States, imported cars became a significant factor for the first time, and several domestic-built subcompact models entered the market. American-made cars such as the "quirky" AMC Gremlin, the jelly bean shaped AMC Pacer, and Pontiac Firebird's powerful Trans Am "sum up" the decade. Muscle cars and convertible models faded from favor during the early-1970s. It was believed that the 1976 Cadillac Eldorado would be the last American-built convertible; ending the open body style that once dominated the auto industry.


title: 1970s

text: Cars in the U.S. from the early 1970s are noted more for their power than their styling, but they even lost their power by "Malaise era" of the late-1970s. Styling on American cars became progressively more boxy and rectilinear during the 1970s, with coupes being the most popular body style. Wood paneling and shag carpets dominated the interiors. Many automobiles began to lose their character and looked the same across brands and automakers, as well as featuring "luxury" enhancements such as vinyl roofs and opera windows. Only a few had "real personalities" such as the AMC Gremlin, which was America's first modern subcompact, and the AMC Pacer. "These two cars embody a sense of artful desperation that made them stand out from the crowd and epitomize at once the best and worst of the seventies."


title: 1970s

text: Automobiles in the U.S. reached the largest sizes they would ever attain, but by 1977, General Motors managed to downsize its full-size models to more manageable dimensions. Ford followed suit two years later, with Chrysler offering new small front-wheel-drive models, but was suffering from a worsening financial situation caused by various factors. By 1979, the company was near bankruptcy, and under its new president Lee Iacocca (who had been fired from Ford the year before), asked for a government bailout. American Motors beat out the U.S. Big Three to subcompact sized model (the Gremlin) in 1970, but its fortunes declined throughout the decade, forcing it into a partnership with the French automaker Renault in 1979.


title: 1970s

text: European car design underwent major changes during the 1970s due to the need for performance with high fuel efficiency—designs such as the Volkswagen Golf and Passat, BMW 3, 5, and 7 series, and Mercedes-Benz S-Class appeared at the latter half of the decade. Ford Europe, specifically Ford Germany, also eclipsed the profits of its American parent company. The designs of Giorgetto Giugiaro became dominant, along with those of Marcello Gandini in Italy. The 1970s also saw the decline and practical failure of the British car industry—a combination of militant strikes and poor quality control effectively halted development at British Leyland, owner of all other British car companies during the 1970s.


title: 1970s

text: The Japanese automobile industry flourished during the 1970s, compared to other major auto markets. Japanese vehicles became internationally renowned for their affordability, reliability, and fuel-efficiency, which was very important to many customers after the oil crisis of 1973. Japanese car manufacturing focused on computerized robotic manufacturing techniques and lean manufacturing, contributing to high-efficiency and low production costs. The Honda Civic was introduced in 1973, and sold well due to its high fuel-efficiency. By 1975 Toyota overtook Volkswagen as the top-selling imported automobile brand in the U.S., with over a million cars sold per year by this point. Other popular compact cars included the Toyota Corolla and the Datsun Sunny, in addition to other cars from those companies and others such as Subaru, Mitsubishi, and Mazda.


title: 1970s

text: The role of women in society was profoundly altered with growing feminism across the world and with the presence and rise of a significant number of women as heads of state outside monarchies and heads of government in a number of countries across the world during the 1970s, many being the first women to hold such positions. Non-monarch women heads of state and heads of government in this period included Isabel Perón as the first woman President in Argentina and the first woman non-monarch head of state in the Western hemisphere in 1974 until being deposed in 1976, Elisabeth Domitien becomes the first woman Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, Indira Gandhi continuing as Prime Minister of India until 1977 (and taking office again in 1980), Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Prime minister of Sri Lanka (Former Ceylon) and first female head of government in the world, re-elected in 1970, Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel and acting Chairman Soong Ching-ling of the People's Republic of China continuing their leadership from the sixties, Lidia Gueiler Tejada becoming the interim President of Bolivia beginning from 1979 to 1980, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo becoming the first woman Prime Minister of Portugal in 1979, and Margaret Thatcher becoming the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1979. Both Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher would remain important political figures in the following decade in the 1980s.


title: 1970s

text: The opposition to the War in Vietnam that began in the 1960s grew exponentially during the early 1970s. One of the best-known anti-war demonstrations was the Kent State shootings. In 1970, university students were protesting the war and the draft. Riots ensued during the weekend and the National Guard was called in to maintain the peace. However, by 4 May 1970, tensions arose again, and as the crowd grew larger, the National Guard started shooting. Four students were killed and nine injured. This event caused disbelief and shock throughout the country and became a staple of anti-Vietnam demonstrations.


title: 1970s

text: The 1970s started a mainstream affirmation of the environmental issues early activists from the 1960s, such as Rachel Carson and Murray Bookchin, had warned of. The Apollo 11 mission, which had occurred at the end of the previous decade, had transmitted back concrete images of the Earth as an integrated, life-supporting system and shaped a public willingness to preserve nature. On April 22, 1970, the United States celebrated its first Earth Day, in which over two thousand colleges and universities and roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools participated.


title: 1970s

text: The 1960s counterculture movement had rapidly undone many existing social taboos, and divorce, extramarital sex, and homosexuality were increasingly accepted in the Western world. The event of legalized abortion and over-the-counter birth control pills also played a major factor. Western Europe was in some ways more progressive on sexual liberation than the United States, as nudity in film and on TV had been gradually accepted there from the mid-1960s, and many European countries during this time began allowing women to go topless in public places. Nudist culture was also popular during the decade, especially in Germany and Scandinavia. Child erotica found a niche market, but would eventually be banned under child pornography laws in the 1980s to 1990s.


title: 1970s

text: The market for adult entertainment in the 1970s was large, and driven in part by the sizable baby boomer population, and the 1972 movie "Behind the Green Door", an X-rated feature, became one of the top-grossing films of the year. "Playboy Magazine" appeared increasingly dull and old-fashioned next to new, more explicit sex-themed magazines such as "Penthouse Magazine" and "Hustler Magazine".


title: 1970s

text: By the end of the decade, there was an increasing backlash against libertine sexual attitudes, and the event of the AIDS epidemic helped bring about an end to the Sexual Revolution. Adult movie theaters, which had exploded in numbers during the 1970s and were widely seen as a symptom of urban decay in the US, declined as pornographic movies would largely shift to VHS tapes during the succeeding decade.


title: 1970s

text: Crime rates in the US had been low from the 1940s until the mid-1960s, but began to escalate after 1965 due to a complex of social, economic, and demographic factors. By the 1970s, crime and blighted urban areas were a serious cause of concern, New York City being particularly affected. In 1972, the US Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional, then reversed the ruling only four years later.


title: 1970s

text: The Second-Wave Feminist Movement in the United States, which had begun in the 1960s, carried over to the 1970s, and took a prominent role within society. The fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which legalized female suffrage) in 1970 was commemorated by the Women's Strike for Equality and other protests.


title: 1970s

text: 1971 saw Erin Pizzey establish the world's first domestic violence shelter in Chiswick, London and Pizzey and her colleagues opened further facilities throughout the next few years. This work inspired similar networks of safe houses for female victims of abuse in other countries, with the first shelter in continental Europe opening in Amsterdam in 1974.


title: 1970s

text: With the anthology "Sisterhood is Powerful" and other works, such as "Sexual Politics", being published at the start of the decade, feminism started to reach a larger audience than ever before. In addition, the Supreme Court's 1973 decision of "Roe v. Wade", which constitutionalized the right to an abortion, brought the women's rights movement into the national political spotlight.


title: 1970s

text: Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Betty Ford, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, Robin Morgan, Kate Millet and Elizabeth Holtzman, among many others, led the movement for women's equality.


title: 1970s

text: Even musically, the women's movement had its shining moment. Australian-American singer Helen Reddy, recorded the song "I Am Woman", which became an anthem for the women's liberation movement. "I Am Woman" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and even won Helen her one and only Grammy Award.


title: 1970s

text: Another movement to arise was the 1970s Goddess movement, which took place to combat patriarchal ideas of religion.


title: 1970s

text: Most efforts of the movement, especially aims at social equality and repeal of the remaining oppressive, sexist laws, were successful. Doors of opportunity were more numerous and much further open than before as women gained unheard of success in business, politics, education, science, the law, and even the home. Although most aims of the movement were successful, however, there were some significant failures, most notably the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution with only three more states needed to ratify it (efforts to ratify ERA in the unratified states continues to this day and twenty-two states have adopted state ERAs). Also, the wage gap failed to close, but it did become smaller.


title: 1970s

text: The second wave feminist movement in the United States largely ended in 1982 with the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment, and with new conservative leadership in Washington, D.C.. American women created a brief, but powerful, third-wave in the early 1990s which addressed sexual harassment (inspired by the Anita Hill–Clarence Thomas Senate Judiciary Committee hearings of 1991). The results of the movement included a new awareness of such issues among women, and unprecedented numbers of women elected to public office, particularly the United States Senate.


title: 1970s

text: The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s began to fracture in the 1970s, as social groups began defining themselves more by their differences than by their universalities. The Black Nationalist movement grew out of frustrations with the "non-violent" strategies of earlier Civil Rights Activists. With the April 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and June 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, many Black people were compelled to reject ideas of negotiation and instead embrace isolation. The feminist movement also splintered from a larger push for Civil Rights in the 1970s. The seventies were seen as the "woman's turn", though many feminists incorporated civil rights ideals into their movement. A feminist who had inherited the leadership position of the civil rights movement from her husband, Coretta Scott King, as leader of the black movement, called for an end to all discrimination, helping and encouraging the Woman's Liberation movement, and other movements as well. At the National Women's Conference in 1977 a minority women's resolution, promoted by King and others, passed to ensure racial equality in the movement's goals. Similarly, the gay movement made a huge step forward in the 1970s with the election of political figures such as Harvey Milk to public office and the advocating of anti-gay discrimination legislation passed and not passed during the decade. Many celebrities, including Freddie Mercury and Andy Warhol, also "came out" during this decade, bringing gay culture further into the limelight.


title: 1970s

text: The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on July 1, 1971, lowering the voting age for all federal and state elections from 21 years to 18 years. The primary impetus for this change was the fact that young men were being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War before they were old enough to vote.


title: 1970s

text: The most prominent events and trends in popular culture of the decade (particularly in the Anglosphere) include:


title: 1970s

text: During the early 1970s, popular music continued to be dominated by musicians who had achieved fame during the 1950s and the 1960s such as the Rolling Stones, The Who, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, and Eric Clapton. In addition, many newcomer rock groups such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin appeared. The Beatles disbanded in 1970, but each member of the band immediately released a highly successful solo album, and Paul McCartney especially would remain extremely popular throughout the decade. Singer-songwriters such as Elton John, James Taylor and Jackson Browne also came into vogue during the early 1970s.


title: 1970s

text: The 1970s saw the rapid commercialization of rock music, and by mid-decade there were a spate of bands derisively dubbed "corporate rock" due to the notion that they had been created by record labels to produce simplistic, radio-friendly songs that offered clichés rather than meaningful lyrics. Such bands included The Doobie Brothers, Bread, Styx, Kansas, and REO Speedwagon.


title: 1970s

text: Funk, an offshoot of soul music with a greater emphasis on beats, and influences from rhythm and blues, jazz, and psychedelic rock, was also very popular. The mid-1970s also saw the rise of disco music, which dominated during the last half of the decade with bands like the Bee Gees, Chic, ABBA, Village People, Boney M, Donna Summer, KC and the Sunshine Band, and others. In response to this, rock music became increasingly hard-edged, with early metal artists like Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple. Minimalism also emerged, led by composers such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Michael Nyman. This was a break from the intellectual serial music in the tradition of Schoenberg, which lasted from the early 1900s to 1960s.


title: 1970s

text: The 1970s also saw artists from Motown records become popular across the globe. Artists like the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye dominated the record charts across the world and had a significant influence on pop culture, including breaking down racial barriers.


title: 1970s

text: Experimental classical music influenced both art rock and progressive rock genres with bands such as Pink Floyd, Yes, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, Supertramp, Rush, Genesis, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, The Moody Blues and Soft Machine. Hard rock and Heavy metal also emerged among British bands Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Who, Black Sabbath, UFO, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and Judas Priest.


title: 1970s

text: Australian band AC/DC also found its hard-rock origins in the early 1970s and its breakthrough in 1979's "Highway to Hell", while popular American rock bands included Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd and shock rockers Alice Cooper, Blue Öyster Cult, and Kiss, and guitar-oriented Ted Nugent and Van Halen. In Europe, there was a surge of popularity in the early decade for glam rock.


title: 1970s

text: After a successful return to live performing in the late 60s with his TV special, Elvis Presley remained popular in Vegas and on concert tours throughout the United States until his death in 1977. His 1973 televised concert, "Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite", aired in over 40 countries in Europe and Asia, as well as the United States, making it one of the most popular concert events of the decade.


title: 1970s

text: The second half of the decade saw the rise of punk rock, when a spate of fresh, young rock groups playing stripped-down hard rock came to prominence at a time when most of the artists associated with the 1960s to early 1970s were in creative decline. Punk bands included The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, and more.


title: 1970s

text: The highest-selling album was Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" (1973). It remained on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart for 741 weeks. Electronic instrumental progressive rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can, and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy "krautrock", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music), would be a major influence on subsequent synthrock. The mid-1970s saw the rise of electronic art music musicians such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and Tomita, who with Brian Eno were a significant influence of the development of new-age music. Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra helped to pioneer synthpop, with their self-titled album (in 1978) setting a template with less minimalism and with a strong emphasis on melody, and drawing from a wider range of influences than had been employed by Kraftwerk. YMO also introduced the microprocessor-based Roland MC-8 sequencer and TR-808 rhythm machine to popular music.


title: 1970s

text: In the first half of the 1970s, many jazz musicians from the Miles Davis school achieved cross-over success through jazz-rock fusion with bands like Weather Report, Return to Forever, The Headhunters and The Mahavishnu Orchestra who also influenced this genre and many others. In Germany, Manfred Eicher started the ECM label, which quickly made a name for "chamber jazz". Towards the end of the decade, Jamaican reggae music, already popular in the Caribbean and Africa since the early 1970s, became very popular in the U.S. and in Europe, mostly because of reggae superstar and legend Bob Marley. The mid-1970s saw the reemergence of acoustic jazz with the return of artists like Dexter Gordon to the US music scene, who, along with a number of other artists, such as trumpet innovators like Don Ellis and Woody Shaw, who were among the last of the decade's traditionally-oriented acoustic jazz musicians to be signed to major record labels, to receive critical and widespread commercial recognition and multiple Grammy nominations.


title: 1970s

text: The late 1970s also saw the beginning of hip hop music with disc jockeys like DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa taking loops from funk and soul records and play them repeatedly at block parties and dance clubs. At the end of the 1970s, popular songs like "Rapper's Delight" by Sugarhill Gang gave hip hop a wider audience. Hip hop was also influenced by the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron.


title: 1970s

text: Country music also continued to increase in popularity in the 1970s. Between 1977 and 1979, it became more mainstream, particularly with the outlaw movement, led by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. The 70s also saw the rise of a country music subgenre, southern rock, led by the Allman Brothers Band. Other artists; such as Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Don Williams, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Ronnie Milsap, Crystal Gayle, and Barbara Mandrell; all scored hits throughout the 70s which reached both country and pop charts. The genre also saw its golden age of vocal duos and groups in this decade; with Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Jim Ed Brown and Helen Cornelius, the Bellamy Brothers, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Statler Brothers, Dave & Sugar, and The Kendalls. The genre also became more involved in Hollywood toward the end of the decade, with country-themed action films such as "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Every Which Way But Loose", a trend that continued into the early 80s with "Urban Cowboy" and "Bronco Billy".


title: 1970s

text: A major event in music in the early 1970s was the deaths of popular rock stars Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison, all at the age of 27. Two of popular music's most successful artists from other eras died within eight weeks of each other in 1977. Elvis Presley, the best-selling singer of all time, died on August 16, 1977. Presley's funeral was held at Graceland, on Thursday, August 18, 1977. Bing Crosby, who sold about 50 million records, died on October 14, 1977. His single, White Christmas, remains as the best selling single of all time, confirmed by the Guinness Records.


title: 1970s

text: In addition to the deaths in the 1970s, breakups of bands and duos; such as the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Everly Brothers, and others; occurred over the course of the decade.


title: 1970s

text: Statistically, Led Zeppelin and Elton John were the most successful musical acts of the 1970s, both having sold more than 300 million records since 1969.


title: 1970s

text: Oscar winners of the decade were "Patton" (1970), "The French Connection" (1971), "The Godfather" (1972), "The Sting" (1973), "The Godfather Part II" (1974), "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), "Rocky" (1976), "Annie Hall" (1977), "The Deer Hunter" (1978), and "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979).


title: 1970s

text: The top ten highest-grossing films of the decade are (in order from highest to lowest grossing): "Star Wars", "Jaws", "Grease", "The Exorcist", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Superman", "The Godfather", "Saturday Night Fever", "Rocky", and "Jaws 2". Two of these movies came out on the same day: June 16, 1978.


title: 1970s

text: In 1970s European cinema, the failure of the Prague Spring brought about nostalgic motion pictures such as István Szabó's "Szerelmesfilm" (1970). German New Wave and Rainer Fassbinder's existential movies characterized film-making in Germany. The movies of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman reached a new level of expression in motion pictures like "Cries and Whispers" (1973).


title: 1970s

text: "Airport" was released in 1970, spawning the air disaster film genre. Throughout the decade, the film inspired three sequels: "Airport 1975, Airport '77, and ". The genre also inspired a spoof film ("Airplane!") along with its two sequels in the early 1980s. A slew of other air disaster films followed suit throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s, primarily in made-for-TV movies.


title: 1970s

text: Car chase movies also became a popular film genre of the 1970s with such films as "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry" in 1974, and perhaps the genre's most popular film "Smokey and the Bandit" in 1977.


title: 1970s

text: Asian cinema of the 1970s catered to the rising middle class fantasies and struggles. In the Bollywood cinema of India, this was epitomized by the movies of Bollywood superhero Amitabh Bachchan. Another Asian touchstone beginning in the early 1970s was Hong Kong martial arts film which sparked a greater interest in Chinese martial arts around the world. Martial arts film reached the peak of its popularity largely in part due to its greatest icon, Bruce Lee.


title: 1970s

text: During the 1970s, Hollywood continued the New Hollywood revolution of the late-1960s with young film-makers. Top-grossing "Jaws" (1975) ushered in the blockbuster era of filmmaking, though it was eclipsed two years later by the science-fiction film "Star Wars" (1977). "Saturday Night Fever" (1977) single-handedly touched off disco mania in the U.S. "The Godfather" (1972) was also one of the decade's greatest successes and its first follow-up, "The Godfather Part II" (1974) was also successful for a sequel.


title: 1970s

text: "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" flopped in its 1975 debut, only to reappear as a more-popular midnight show later in the decade. Still in limited release decades after its premiere, it is the longest-running theatrical release in film history.


title: 1970s

text: "The Exorcist" (1973) was a box office success for the horror genre, inspiring many other so-called "devil (Satan)" films like "The Omen" and both of their own sequels. The release of the movie followed a general mood of paranoia on satanic themes in the United States; also the counterculture of the 1970s saw an increasing interest in occultism.


title: 1970s

text: "All That Jazz" (1979) gained high critical praise, winning four Oscars and several other awards. It was an inductee of the 2001 National Film Registry list.


title: 1970s

text: The Golden Age of Porn continued its reign throughout the 1970s, with one of its most popular films of the decade being "Debbie Does Dallas" in 1978.


title: 1970s

text: In the United Kingdom, colour channels were now available; three stations had begun broadcasting in colour between 1967 and 1969. However, many viewers continued to watch black-and-white television sets for most of the decade, which meant for example that televised snooker (in which the colour of balls is important) did not reach the heights of its popularity until the 1980s.


title: 1970s

text: Notable dramas included "Play for Today" and "Pennies from Heaven". In police dramas, there was a move towards increasing realism; popular shows included "Dixon of Dock Green", "Z-Cars", "Softly, Softly", and "The Sweeney".


title: 1970s

text: 1970s UK television featured a mix of traditional and more modern comedy. "Morecambe and Wise", "The Benny Hill Show", "Are You Being Served?" and "Dad's Army" had their origins in the variety show and radio comedy of the first half of the century. Many popular British situation comedies (sit-coms) were gentle, unchallenging comedies of middle-class life; typical examples were "Terry and June" and "Sykes". However, the middle-class settings of "The Good Life" and "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" contrasted with their anti-establishment theme of people rejecting traditional social norms. A harsher side of society was shown by comedy series like "Porridge" and "Rising Damp", while sitcoms such as "Mind Your Language", "Love Thy Neighbour" and "Till Death Us Do Part" reflected social unease brought about by post-war immigration. Spike Milligan's "Q" and the still-popular "Monty Python's Flying Circus" both used surreal comedy, originating from the 1950s "The Goon Show".


title: 1970s

text: The television information retrieval service Teletext was initially introduced when the BBC Ceefax system went live on 23 September 1974.


title: 1970s

text: In the late 1970s, BBC2's unveiled a new identity, a twin-striped "2", which was the first electronically generated symbol and scrolled on and off the screen.


title: 1970s

text: As the 1970s began, the Big Three TV networks were rapidly re-engineering their lineups, noting that existing programs were not attracting the youth audience. Most existing programs still operated on paradigms established in the 1950s, and some shows had literally been on the air since the dawn of TV broadcasting in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Shows that had low ratings or insufficient youth appeal were cancelled as networks scrambled to attract the large baby boomer audience.


title: 1970s

text: To reflect the new social trends, television changed dramatically with more urban and edgy settings, and replaced the popular rural/country wholesome look of the 1950s and 1960s, seen as outmoded and unable to connect with young, educated urban audiences. This particular trend was known as the rural purge. Television was transformed by what became termed as "social consciousness" programming, such as "All in the Family" and "Soap", which broke down television barriers. Many advertising trends of the 1970s also reflected this growing social consciousness trend, such as with Coca-Cola's "Give the World a Coke" and McDonalds "You Deserve a Break" campaigns.


title: 1970s

text: The women's movement ushered in a slew of programming featuring strong, independent females as central characters. Most notable was "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", which spawned the successful spin-offs "Rhoda" and "Phyllis", and also resulted in Mary Tyler Moore becoming the first female to head a television production company of her own, MTM Enterprises, which churned out groundbreaking programming in the late 1970s throughout the 1990s. Women were also established portraying action characters in programs like "Police Woman", "Wonder Woman", "The Bionic Woman", and others.


title: 1970s

text: Minority-centric television programming also featured prominently during the 1970s. Shows featuring African-Americans as main characters, such as "Sanford and Son", "Maude", "The Jeffersons", "Good Times", and "What's Happening!!" broke down barriers and became very popular. In addition, "Soul Train", the brainchild of Don Cornelius, premiered in 1971 as the African-American counterpart to "American Bandstand", giving a forum for soul, funk, jazz, R&B, disco, and future rap and hip hop artists to gain exposure to American audiences, consumers, music lovers, enthusiasts, and those keen on learning new dance moves.


title: 1970s

text: The television western, which had been very popular in the 1950s and 1960s, all but died out during the 1970s, with "Bonanza", "The Virginian", and "Gunsmoke" ending their runs. Replacing westerns were police and detective shows, a trend that would last through the 1980s.


title: 1970s

text: Television still had its medical shows of the 1970s, however, "Emergency!" was the first popular medical drama ever to feature both the paramedic program as well as the hospital emergency department, which also encouraged future people in the United States to develop their own paramedic program or hospital emergency department, and acted as an inspiration for many individuals. "Marcus Welby, M.D." and "Medical Center" were other long-running medical dramas popular during the 1970s.


title: 1970s

text: 1950s nostalgia became a theme in prime time sitcoms with the Garry Marshall-produced "Happy Days" and its two spin-offs "Laverne & Shirley" and "Mork & Mindy".


title: 1970s

text: By the mid-to-late 1970s, "jiggle television"—programs oriented toward sexual gratification and farce comedy and situations—became popular. Such programs included "Charlie's Angels", "The Love Boat", and perhaps the genre's most popular, "Three's Company".


title: 1970s

text: Soap operas expanded their audiences beyond housewives with the rise of "All My Children", "As the World Turns", "Somerset", and "The Young and the Restless"; with many extending their episodes from 30 minutes to an hour. The soap "Another World" began a 16-month experiment in March 1979 by screening 90-minute episodes, the only serial to do so.


title: 1970s

text: Game shows such as "Match Game", "The Hollywood Squares", "Family Feud", and many others saw its golden age on daytime television. The height of "Match Game"s popularity occurred between 1973 and 1977, before it was overtaken by "Family Feud" in 1978. Television's current longest-running game show, "The Price Is Right", began its run hosted by Bob Barker in 1972.


title: 1970s

text: Another influential genre was the television newscast, which built on its initial widespread success in the 1960s.


title: 1970s

text: The science fiction phenomenon of the late 1970s that began with "Star Wars" went to television with shows such as "Battlestar Galactica".


title: 1970s

text: Variety shows, a staple of TV programming since the beginning, were also re-engineered to appeal to young viewers. Old standbys such as "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "The Red Skelton Show" were canceled and replaced by hipper programming like "Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour" and "Donny & Marie". "The Carol Burnett Show" also ended its historic 11-year run in 1978. In the end, rising production costs largely did in variety shows. The exception was "Saturday Night Live" (then known as "NBC's Saturday Night"), which was created by Lorne Michaels and premiered in 1975, with an original cast of Laraine Newman, John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Garrett Morris, and Chevy Chase.


title: 1970s

text: As cable television became more affordable and accessible by U.S. consumers, the race to bring the silver screen to the small screen commenced with the launch of pay television services showing premium content.


title: 1970s

text: HBO launched on November 8, 1972, becoming the nation's first pay-television channel. On September 30, 1975, HBO became the first television network to continuously deliver signals via satellite when it showed the "Thrilla in Manila" boxing-match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.


title: 1970s

text: Star Channel launched their service offerings nationally in 1973 through the delivery of movies on video tapes for cable providers to broadcast. This proved problematic since the videotapes were often riddled with technical difficulties. Star Channel eventually was linked up to satellite in January 1978. Shortly after, Warner Communications acquired the channel and relaunched it on December 1, 1979, in its current form as The Movie Channel.


title: 1970s

text: Media giant Viacom launched their premium service, Showtime, nationally on July 1, 1976, after a brief, wildly successful test launch on their cable system in Dublin, California.


title: 1970s

text: In 1974, Australian TV tests color transmissions (full-time color comes in 1975). Popular shows during the decade include, "Young Talent Time", "Number 96", "The Aunty Jack Show", "Class of '74", "The Sullivans", "The Don Lane Show", "Cop Shop", "The Naked Vicar Show", "The Paul Hogan Show" and "Countdown".


title: 1970s

text: South Africa saw nationwide television service for the first time on January 5, 1976, although limited-view, locally available television began on May 5, 1975.


title: 1970s

text: The 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany saw swimmer Mark Spitz set seven World Records and won a record seven gold medals. The 1976 Summer Olympics were held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Brazil won the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, West Germany won the 1974 FIFA World Cup in West Germany, and Argentina won the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina. The 1970 FIFA World Cup was the first world cup to be televised in color.


title: 1970s

text: On April 9, 1975, Asia's first professional basketball league, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) were played first game at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines.


title: 1970s

text: The Cincinnati Reds go to the World Series in 1970, 1972, 1975, and 1976, led by the Big Red Machine winning two out of four.


title: 1970s

text: The Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers dominated the decade in the NFL. Steelers were led by Terry Bradshaw and Chuck Noll, and the Cowboys were led by Roger Staubach and Tom Landry, while the Miami Dolphins became the only team in NFL history to go "all the way," winning the Super Bowl with an undefeated record—a feat that remains unmatched to this day.


title: 1970s

text: The Philadelphia Flyers won the Stanley Cup in 1974 and 1975, a team best remembered as "The Broad Street Bullies".


title: 1970s

text: As numbers of young people became alienated from social norms, they resisted and looked for alternatives. They would form what would become known as the counterculture. The forms of escape and resistance would manifest in many ways including social activism, alternative lifestyles, experimental living through foods, dress, music and alternative recreational activities, including that of throwing a frisbee. What started with a few players like Victor Malafronte, Z Weyand and Ken Westerfield experimenting with new ways of throwing and catching a frisbee, later would become known as playing freestyle. Organized disc sports, in the 1970s, began with promotional efforts from Wham-O and Irwin Toy (Canada), a few tournaments and professionals using frisbee show tours to perform at universities, fairs and sporting events. Disc sports such as freestyle, double disc court, guts, disc ultimate and disc golf became this sports first events.


title: 1970s

text: Fiction in the early '70s brought a return to old-fashioned storytelling, especially with Erich Segal's "Love Story". The seventies also saw the decline of previously well-respected writers, such as Saul Bellow and Peter De Vries, who both released poorly received novels at the start of the decade. Racism remained a key literary subject. John Updike emerged as a major literary figure. Reflections of the 1960s experience also found roots in the literature of the decade through the works of Joyce Carol Oates and Wright Morris. With the rising cost of hard-cover books and the increasing readership of "genre fiction", the paperback became a popular medium. Criminal non-fiction also became a popular topic. Irreverence and satire, typified in Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions", were common literary elements. The horror genre also emerged, and by the late 1970s Stephen King had become one of the most popular genre novelists. The postmodern author Thomas Pynchon published his most famous work, "Gravity's Rainbow", in 1973.


title: 1970s

text: In non-fiction, several books related to Nixon and the Watergate scandal topped the best-selling lists. 1977 brought many high-profile biographical works of literary figures, such as those of Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie, and J. R. R. Tolkien.


title: 1970s

text: The fake memoir "Go Ask Alice" was released in 1971. Upon its initial release the book was marketed as a real diary of a teenage girl who overdosed in the 1960s. However, it was later revealed that the book was actually written by Beatrice Sparks.


title: 1970s

text: Architecture in the 1970s began as a continuation of styles created by such architects as Frank Lloyd Wright and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Early in the decade, several architects competed to build the tallest building in the world. Of these buildings, the most notable are the John Hancock Center and Sears Tower in Chicago, both designed by Bruce Graham and Fazlur Khan, and the World Trade Center towers in New York by American architect Minoru Yamasaki. The decade also brought experimentation in geometric design, pop-art, postmodernism, and early deconstructivism.


title: 1970s

text: Design trends in the 1970s were marked by a backlash against the bright colors and futurism of the 1950s and 1960s and a rise in popularity of dark, earthy tones with extensive use of brown, green, purple, and orange. Wood decor and paneling was integral to 1970s interior design as well, replacing the obsession of the 1950s and 1960s with chrome and aluminum. Darker colors not only reflected the back-to-nature mindset of the decade, but the sluggish world economy with its lowered optimism and expectations for the future.


title: 1970s

text: In 1974, Louis Kahn's last and arguably most famous building, the National Assembly Building of Dhaka, Bangladesh, was completed. The building's use of open spaces and groundbreaking geometry brought rare attention to the small South Asian country. Hugh Stubbins's Citicorp Center revolutionized the incorporation of solar panels in office buildings. The seventies brought further experimentation in glass and steel construction and geometric design. Chinese architect I. M. Pei's John Hancock Tower in Boston, Massachusetts, is an example, although like many buildings of the time, the experimentation was flawed and glass panes fell from the façade. In 1976, the completed CN Tower in Toronto became the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, an honor it held until 2007. The fact that no taller tower had been built between the construction of the CN Tower and the Burj Khalifa shows how innovative the architecture and engineering of the structure truly was.


title: 1970s

text: Modern architecture was increasingly criticized as the decade went on from the point of view of postmodern architects, such as Philip Johnson, Charles Moore, and Michael Graves, who advocated a return to pre-modern styles of architecture and the incorporation of pop elements as a means of communicating with a broader public. Other architects, such as Peter Eisenman of the New York Five, advocated the pursuit of form for the sake of form and drew on semiotics theory for support.


title: 1970s

text: "High Tech" architecture moved forward as Buckminster Fuller continued his experiments in geodesic domes, while the Georges Pompidou Center, designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, which opened in 1977, was a prominent example. As the decade drew to a close, Frank Gehry broke out in new direction with his own house in Santa Monica, a highly complex structure, half excavated out of an existing bungalow and half cheaply built construction using materials such as chicken wire fencing.


title: 1970s

text: Terracotta Army figures, dating from 210 BC, were discovered in 1974 by some local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China, near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (Chinese: 秦始皇陵; pinyin: Qín Shǐhuáng Ling). In 1978, electrical workers in Mexico City found the remains of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in the middle of the city.


title: 1970s

text: Clothing styles during the 1970s were influenced by outfits seen in popular music groups and in Hollywood films. In clothing, prints, especially from India and other parts of the world, were fashionable.


title: 1970s

text: Much of the 1970s fashion styles were influenced by the hippie movement. As well as the hippie look, the 70s also gave way to glam rock styles, started off by David Bowie who was named the King of Glam Rock. Glam was a genderbent and outlandish style.


title: Mysore Palace

text: The Mysore Palace, also known as Amba Vilas Palace, is a historical palace and a royal residence (house). It is located in Mysore, Karnataka. It used to be the official residence of the Wadiyar dynasty and the seat of the Kingdom of Mysore. The palace is in the centre of Mysore, and faces the Chamundi Hills eastward. Mysore is commonly described as the 'City of Palaces', and there are seven palaces including this one. However, the Mysore Palace refers specifically to the one within the new fort.


title: Mysore Palace

text: The land on which the palace now stands was originally known as "mysuru" (literally, "citadel"). Yaduraya built the first palace inside the Old Fort in the 14th century, which was set ablaze and reconstructed multiple times. The Old Fort was built of wood and thus easily caught fire, while the current fort was built of stone, bricks and wood. The current structure was constructed between 1897 and 1912, after the Old Palace burnt down, the current structure is also known as the New Fort. Mysore Palace is one of the most famous tourist attractions in India, after the Taj Mahal, with more than six million annual visitors.


title: Mysore Palace

text: The last palace, now known as the Old Palace or the Wooden Palace, burned to ashes during a wedding in 1896. Maharaja Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV and his mother Maharani Kempananjammanni Devi commissioned the British architect Henry Irwin to build a new palace. E.W. Fritchley worked as a consulting Engineer. Meanwhile, the royal family stayed in the nearby Jaganmohan Palace. Construction was overseen by an executive engineer in the Mysore Palace division. He conducted elaborate architectural studies during his visits to Delhi, Madras, and Calcutta, and these were used to plan the new palace. The construction cost was placed at Rs 41,47,913 (around $30 million adjusted to inflation) and the palace was completed in 1912.


title: Mysore Palace

text: The palace was further expanded in around 1930 (including the addition of the present Public Durbar Hall wing) during the reign of Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: Joshua Michael Widdicombe (; born 8 April 1983) is an English comedian, presenter and actor. He is best known for his appearances on "The Last Leg" (2012–present), "Fighting Talk" (2014–2016), "Insert Name Here" (2016–2019), "Mock the Week" (2012–2016) and his BBC Three sitcom "Josh" (2015–2017). He also won the first series of "Taskmaster" in 2015 and the show's first "Champion of Champions" special in 2017.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: During the 2020 Covid 19 lockdown, Widdicombe started the Lockdown Parenting hell podcast with fellow comedian "Rob Beckett".


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: Widdicombe was born on 8 April 1983 in Hammersmith, London, and grew up in Haytor Vale, near Widecombe-in-the-Moor in Devon. He attended Ilsington Church Of England Primary School and South Dartmoor Community College, later studying sociology and linguistics at the University of Manchester.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: Widdicombe began performing live in 2008 and made it to the final of "So You Think You're Funny" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe during the same year. In 2009 he co-wrote and performed in the sketch show "Superclump", and appeared with James Acaster and Nick Helm.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: In 2010, Widdicombe worked as a contributor for the "Dora the Explorer" magazine, and in 2011 he performed his debut solo show "If This Show Saves One Life..." at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and was subsequently nominated for Best Newcomer by the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards and for the Malcolm Hardee "Act Most Likely to Win a Million Quid" Award.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: In 2012, Widdicombe became a regular on "Stand Up for the Week". In July that year, he made his debut appearance on "Mock the Week". He was also a main contributor to Channel 4's daily alternative review of each day's events at the London 2012 Summer Paralympics, "The Last Leg with Adam Hills", alongside Adam and Alex Brooker. He also appeared on "The Last Leg of the Year", the show's end-of-year special. In September 2012, Widdicombe appeared on "The Million Pound Drop" with "The Last Leg" co-host Brooker. The pair won £100,000 for their selected charities. His chosen charity was Scope. He has pectus excavatum, which he discovered after mentioning it to Christian Jessen on season 11, episode 10 of "8 Out of 10 Cats".


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: In 2013, Widdicombe was again a regular on "The Last Leg", after Channel 4 renewed the show for nine further episodes, beginning on 25 January 2013. A third series started on 31 July 2013, a fourth on 31 January 2014 and a fifth on 1 August 2014. In May 2013 Widdicombe was a guest on the second series of "" with Marcus Brigstocke. Following this, he featured as a comedian on "The Apprentice" spin-off show, "" In June 2013 he again appeared as a panellist on "Mock the Week", featuring on several episodes of the show's 12th series. In 2014 Widdicombe appeared again on "Mock the Week" and on "QI" and also made his debut on "Have I Got News for You". Widdicombe won "Celebrity Mastermind" broadcast 31 December 2013 with a score of 24, on the specialist subject of his favourite band, Blur. His chosen charity was The Lily Foundation.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: On 1 July 2014, the BBC announced Widdicombe would be joining its Radio 5 Live team from August 2014 as the new host of "Fighting Talk" along with Georgie Thompson. Both hosts announced on 10 August 2016 that they would not be returning to the show for series 14 in September due to their "increasingly busy schedules."


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: In August 2014, Widdicombe starred in the BBC Three "Comedy Feeds" pilot "Josh", which he co-wrote with comedian Tom Craine and which was directed by David Schneider. A full six-episode series of "Josh", also directed by Schneider, ran on BBC Three from 11 November to 16 December 2015. BBC Three ordered a second full series of "Josh"; and third and final series followed in 2017.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: In 2015, Widdicombe was a contestant on the first series of the Dave game show "Taskmaster" and won the series. For one of the tasks, Widdicombe got a tattoo of host Greg Davies's name on his left foot. He then returned for a team task in series two where he was partnered with Richard Osman and Jon Richardson.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: Widdicombe has performed on radio on BBC Radio 4's "Arthur Smith's Balham Bash" and Absolute Radio's "The Frank Skinner Show", written for comedy panel shows "Mock the Week", "8 Out of 10 Cats" and BBC Radio 4's "Look Away Now", and supported stand-up comedians Russell Howard, Michael McIntyre, Alan Carr, Stephen Merchant and Shappi Khorsandi on their respective live tours.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: Widdicombe hosted a weekly radio show on XFM (now Radio X) with Neil "Producer Neil" Fearn from February 2013 to July 2015, which was broadcast initially on Saturdays but which moved to Sundays in August 2014 coinciding with his new role as "Fighting Talk" presenter (see above). The show regularly featured contributions from comedians James Acaster, Nish Kumar, Joe Lycett and several others along with occasional interjections and background laughter by XFM's "Intern Charles". The podcast of the show was named "iTunes Best New Audio Podcast" in 2013. The last edition of the show aired on 26 July 2015.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: Widdicombe has made four appearances on "Live at the Apollo". He was a featured performer on Episodes 7.8 (21 January 2012), 9.1 (22 November 2013) and 11.7 (AKA "Nöel at the Apollo"; 20 December 2015) and hosted on Episode 12.2 (14 November 2016).


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: In December 2015, Widdicombe announced that he was a team captain on the BBC Two comedy panel show "Insert Name Here", appearing alongside Richard Osman and host Sue Perkins. The show aired in January 2016 and returned for two more series in January 2017/2018.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: In December 2017, Widdicombe returned to "Taskmaster" for a two-part series alongside his fellow winners of previous series including Katherine Ryan, Bob Mortimer, Rob Beckett and Noel Fielding to compete in the "Taskmaster - Champion of Champions". He won the series.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: Widdicombe hosts 1990s football nostalgia podcast and live shows called ‘Quickly Kevin, Will He Score?’. Guests include footballers such as Iain Dowie, Darren Huckerby, Pat Nevin and Matthew Le Tissier as well as comedians such as Elis James, Tom Parry, Ivo Graham and Matt Forde. In 2019 Widdicombe began hosting panel show "Hypothetical" with James Acaster for UK television channel Dave. In 2020, Widdicombe started a parenting podcast with fellow comedian Rob Beckett, titled "Lockdown Parenting Hell". It was renamed "Parenting Hell" following the third national lockdown. It is a podcast about bringing up children, experiences, tips and face palm moments. In 2021 it was announced that Widdicombe had written a book: "Watching Neighbours Twice a Day… How '90s TV (Almost) Prepared Me For Life", published in September 2021. It made "The Sunday Times" bestsellers list.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: Before becoming a comedian, Widdicombe worked as a sports journalist, writing for "The Guardian". He supports Plymouth Argyle. He is a vegetarian. He is married to Rose Hanson, a television producer, with whom he has a daughter Pearl, born in October 2017, and a son Cassius, born in May 2021. The couple lived for a considerable amount of time in Shoreditch, East London before moving to a "sleepier" area of East London to raise their children.


title: Josh Widdicombe

text: He claims descent from Sabine Baring-Gould, which was confirmed by an episode of the genealogical television series "Who Do You Think You Are?". The programme traced his ancestry further back via the Barings family to the Knollys family, a noble family during the Tudor era; Lettice Knollys is a direct-line ancestor of Widdicombes, and as such he is related to Queen Elizabeth I through her mother, Anne Boleyn, who is Widdicombe's 14-times great aunt.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly known as the Special Operations Forces (SOF; ) are strategic-level special forces under the Special Operations Forces Command () of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. It is also a structural and an independent unit of the Armed Forces.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: The first units of what would become the Special Operations Forces were transferred from the GRU in 2009 as part of the continuing 2008 Russian military reform. The Special Operations Forces Command was established in 2012 and announced in March 2013 by the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. According to Gerasimov, the SOF was designed as a strategic-level asset, elite special operations force units of the KSSO whose primary missions would be foreign interventions including counter-proliferation, foreign internal defense operations and undertaking the most complex special operations and clandestine missions for protecting interests of the Russian Federation.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: SOF are distinct from the Spetsnaz GRU that until 2010 were under the Main Intelligence Directorate and whose subsequent subordination was left unclear until 2013 where the decision was reversed and GRU special forces units were reassigned to GRU divisions and placed under GRU authority again. Russia's SOF are manned exclusively by professional personnel hired on contract, of which all are full-time servicemen consisting of commissioned officers and regular soldiers.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: On 26 February 2015, President Vladimir Putin decreed that 27 February be the Day of the SOF, according to multiple Russian official news agencies (albeit not acknowledged formally), to mark the establishment of Russian control over the building of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Simferopol, Crimea on 27 February 2014.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: The Special Operations Forces are a highly mobile, well-trained and equipped, constant combat prepared special operations force of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Designed for performing specific tasks, the SOF have the ability to function both within the country and abroad, in peacetime and in wartime (with application of military force, by necessity).


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: The Russian Ministry of Defense defines the term "special operation" as "methods and ways of fighting not characteristic of conventional forces: reconnaissance and sabotage, subversion and sedition, counter-terrorism, counter-sabotage, counterintelligence, guerrilla, counter-guerrilla and other activities".


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: The SOF have been primarily involved in Syria, conducting target acquisition for Russian Air Force combat planes conducting airstrikes and Russian Navy sea-launched cruise missile strikes, serving as military advisors training Syrian government troops, seek and destroying critical enemy objects, disruption behind enemy lines through ambushes, high value targeted assassinations and retaliation strikes against select groups of fighters.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: In 2009, as a part of the comprehensive reform of the Russian Federation's Armed Forces, Special Operations Directorate, subordinate directly to the Chief of the General Staff, was created on the basis of the GRU's 322nd Specialist Training Center in the Moscow region (Military Unit 92154). The unit saw extensive action in the Caucasus region and earned the nickname "podsolnukhi" (sunflowers), a nickname given to the soldiers assigned to the unit while serving in Chechnya. It was reported that Colonel Oleg Martianov, who later became a member of the board of the Military-Industrial Commission, was one of the founders and first commander of the SOF from 2009 to 2013.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: In 2012, the Special Operations Directorate was reorganized as Special Operations Command, which was followed by plans to upscale the Forces manpower up to 9 special purpose brigades.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: On 6 March 2013, General Valery Gerasimov announced the creation of the Special Operations Forces. While speaking to foreign military attaches in Moscow, he said: "After reviewing the practice of the formation, training and the use of special operations forces in the leading countries of the world, Russia's Defense Ministry has also begun to create them... A corresponding command was created, which is engaged in planning work and implements plan of training of the Armed Forces... A set of documents has already been elaborated to determine the direction of development, methods of training and application of these forces".


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: On 15 March 2013, according to Russian media reports, creation of the Special Operations Center of the Ministry of Defense for around 500 professional soldiers began in the suburban village of Kubinka-2. Formation of the Center was scheduled to be completed by the end of 2013. The center would be directly subordinate to the Special Operations Forces Command of the Russian Ministry of Defense.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: At the end of April 2013, units of the Special Operations Forces conducted a special tactics exercise at Elbrus mountains at an altitude of 4,500 meters. The exercise was dedicated to practice transportation of one of the SOF units by military transport aviation and army aviation, as well as air insertion of personnel and cargo into target area.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: During peacetime, the SOF may also be called in to execute certain specialised homeland security operations. In May 2013, the General Staff said that the unit would be tasked with security of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and that the SOF now comprised air and naval components. Again, when Russia hosted the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the SOF and FSB special forces units took charge of ensuring the security.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: The SOF also conducted counter-terrorism and special operations during the insurgency in the North Caucasus region disguised as other Spetsnaz units.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: On 2 December 2017, an unnamed mountain with a height of 3,939 meters located on the Sudor ridge in the Irafsky District of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, was named "Mountain of Special Operations Forces".


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: The SOF has also taken part in anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, clashing with Somali pirates.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: In late February 2014, an unknown number of SOF operators alongside other Russian troops entered Crimea disguised as "little green men" and captured the Crimean Parliament and also began the blockading and capturing of other significant and strategic sites across the peninsula.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: SOF combat operations in Syria, which began covertly in late 2015 became more visible by January 2016 with the successful Latakia offensive. They played a crucial role in the Palmyra offensive, provided support to the Syrian Army attempting the recapturing of Raqqa, repelling the ISIL offensive on Palmyra and throughout the Syrian push for Aleppo in the same year.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: They returned during the Second battle of Palmyra in 2017 and saw action throughout the year in the Eastern Homs offensive, North Hama offensive, Operation Grand Dawn, the East Hama offensive, Operation Khuzam, rescuing a Russian Military Police unit in the Idlib de-escalation zone and the entirety of the Eastern Syria campaign. The SOF also contributed to the success of the Rif Dimashq Governorate campaign in 2018 and Operation Dawn of Idlib in 2019.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: On 11 December 2017, SOF units provided top-level security for the unannounced visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Syria at Khmeimim Air Base by covering the most dangerous directions from sea, air and land. Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu later personally thanked all the military personnel involved for their exemplary performance of the task.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: In February 2022, the SOF was involved in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, conducting covert operations targeting critical military infrastructure and support systems of Ukraine and reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: While official numbers are classified, between the Special Purpose Center "Senezh" and the headquarters at the Special Purpose Center "Kubinka-2", analysts believe the size is around 2,000 to 2,500 total personnel. The command has supporting elements providing combat support and combat service support functions. There is a dedicated special aviation brigade that directly controls combat aviation assets at Torzhok, and a squadron of Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft at the Migalovo airfield near Tver.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: The Special Operations Forces Command is similar in role to the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command and the German Kommando Spezialkräfte. The command reached full operational capability later in 2013 and also serves as the central command authority for the entire SOF structure of which is subordinate directly to the General Staff.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: The training of the officer recruit special operators is carried out in the Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne Command School – RVVDKU (department of special and military intelligence and the department of the use of special forces) and the Novosibirsk Higher Military Command School – NVVKU (department of special intelligence and the chair of the special reconnaissance and airborne training). At "Senezh", potential operators learn skydiving, mountaineering, swimming and military diving, and storming buildings and homes, while "Kubinka-2" focuses on maritime operations and reconnaissance and controls several naval special operations detachments.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: There is a cold weather/mountaineering training centre at Mount Elbrus codenamed "Terskol", in Kabardino-Balkaria and the 54th Special Reconnaissance Center in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia–Alania. Several more sensitive centers specialised for training SOF specialists also exist in military secrecy. Depending on the individual tasks the operatives are being prepared for or specialise in, the training varies.


title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)

text: According to the Russian Defence Ministry as of February 2019, there are ten cases among SOF personnel in Syria that have been confirmed to be killed in action. Four members whose status are presumed to have been killed still remains unclear as of September 2019.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is a medium-sized wild cat widely distributed from Northern, Central and Eastern Europe to Central Asia and Siberia, the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas. It inhabits temperate and boreal forests up to an elevation of . Despite its wide distribution, it is threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching and depletion of prey.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: "Felis lynx" was the scientific name used in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus in his work "Systema Naturae". In the 19th and 20th centuries, the following Eurasian lynx subspecies were proposed:


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The Eurasian lynx has a relatively short, reddish or brown coat that is marked with black spots; their number and pattern are highly variable. The underparts, neck and chin are whitish. The fur is more brightly coloured with more numerous spots in animals living at the southern end of its range. In winter, it is much thicker and varies from silver-grey to greyish brown. Some animals have dark brown stripes on the forehead and back. It has powerful, relatively long legs, with large webbed and furred paws that act like snowshoes. It also has a short "bobbed" tail with an all-black tip, black tufts of hair on its ears, and a long grey-and-white ruff.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: It is the largest of the four lynx species, ranging in body length from in males; in females; and standing at the shoulder. The tail is long, constituting a total length of up to in the largest males. Weights of both sexes in Russia range from , but more than is attained very rarely and is possibly exaggerated. A Eurasian lynx from the Altai Mountains weighed . Those inhabiting Fennoscandia and westwards are considerably smaller, with a range of just , though individuals in the Carpathian Mountains may rival those in the Altai in size.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The Eurasian lynx inhabits rugged country providing plenty of hideouts and stalking opportunities. Depending on the locality, this may include rocky-steppe, mixed forest-steppe, boreal forest, and montane forest ecosystems. In the more mountainous parts of its range, Eurasian lynx descends to the lowlands in winter, following prey species and avoiding deep snow. Despite its adaptations for moving in snow, it finds loose, deep snow difficult to deal with and cannot survive in areas with snow depths exceeding . It tends to be less common where the grey wolf ("Canis lupus") is abundant, and wolves have been reported to attack and even eat lynx.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The Eurasian lynx was once widespread throughout most of continental Europe. By the early 19th century, it was persecuted to local extinction in western and southern European lowlands, but survived only in mountainous areas and Scandinavian forests. By the 1950s, it had become extinct in most of Western and Central Europe, where only scattered and isolated populations exist today.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The Eurasian lynx was close to extinction in Scandinavia in the 1930s. Since the 1950s, the population slowly recovered and forms three subpopulations in northern, central and southern Scandinavia.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In Norway, the Eurasian lynx was subjected to an official bounty between 1846 and 1980 and could be hunted without license. In 1994, a compensation scheme for livestock killed by lynx was introduced. By 1996, the lynx population was estimated to comprise 410 Individuals, decreased to less than 260 individuals in 2004 and increased since 2005 to about 452 mature individuals by 2008.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In Sweden, the lynx population was estimated at about 1,400 individuals in 2006 and 1,250 in 2011. Hunting is controlled by government agencies.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In Finland, about 2,200–2,300 individuals were present according to a 2009 estimate. The lynx population in Finland has been increasing every year since 1991, and is estimated to be nowadays larger than ever before. Limited hunting is permitted. In 2009 the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry gave a permit for hunting of 340 lynx individuals.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In Great Britain, subfossil remains of Eurasian lynx have been dated to the early Middle Ages, though a breeding population in the Southern Uplands of Scotland was noted as late as 1760. Thus, it is possible that some Medieval and Early Modern references to "wild cats" and "cats of the mountain" actually refer to Eurasian lynx and not the Scottish wildcat as commonly assumed. It has been proposed to reintroduce the lynx to the Scottish Highlands and Kielder Forest in Northumberland.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: A large lynx that hunted deer and livestock, sometimes called "tiger" and "deer's wolf" ("llobu/lobo cerval"), was also reported in Green Spain until the 19th century. These accounts were traditionally regarded as references to Iberian lynx ("Lynx pardinus"), a smaller endemic species of the Iberian Peninsula. However, genetic testing of remains showed that the Eurasian and Iberian lynx coexisted into recent times in the Iberian Peninsula with little overlap, the Eurasian lynx being present in temperate broadleaf and mixed forests and the Iberian lynx in Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub. The Eurasian lynx of Spain was a unique, extinct lineage more related to the Carpathian and Baltic subspecies. It was genetically impoverished already in pre-Roman times, possibly because of founder effect, which made it even more vulnerable to human persecution. The government of Asturias studied the feasibility of Eurasian lynx reintroduction in 2019. In the Catalonian Pyrenees, the last Eurasian lynx was killed in the 1930s, though unconfirmed sightings continued until the 1990s. The Síndic d'Aran planned a reintroduction in 2016 but canceled it due to the opposition of hunters and livestock farmers.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In Germany, the Eurasian lynx was exterminated in 1850. It was reintroduced to the Bavarian Forest and the Harz in the 1990s; other areas were populated by lynxes migrating from France and the Czech Republic. In 2002, the first birth of wild lynx on German territory was announced, following a litter from a pair of lynx in the Harz National Park. Small populations exist also in Saxon Switzerland, Palatinate Forest, and Fichtelgebirge. Eurasian lynx also migrated to Austria, where they had also been exterminated. An episode of the PBS television series "Nature" featured the return of the lynx to Austria's Kalkalpen National Park after a 150-year absence. A higher proportion is killed by humans than by infectious diseases.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The Eurasian lynx was exterminated in the French Alps in the early 20th century. Following reintroduction of lynx in the Swiss Jura Mountains in the 1970s, lynxes were recorded again in the French Alps and Jura from the late 1970s onwards. It recolonised the Italian Alps since the 1980s, also from reintroduced populations in Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. By 2010, the Alpine lynx population comprised about 120–150 individuals ranging over in six sub-areas.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In the Netherlands, lynxes have been sighted sporadically since 1985 in the country's southern part. Since 2020, the presence of lynxes has been confirmed by camera trapping in the Ardennes region in southern Belgium, proving the presence of the species following more than 25 years of unconfirmed sightings in the region.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In the Anatolian part of Turkey, the Eurasian lynx is present in the Lesser Caucasus, Kaçkar Mountains and Artvin Province. In Ciglikara Nature Reserve located in the Taurus Mountains, 15 individuals were identified. More than 50 individuals were identified and monitored at a forest-steppe mixed ecosystem in northwestern Anatolia by camera traps, genetic material and radiotelemetry between 2009 and 2019. In Kars Province, a breeding population occurs in Sarıkamış-Allahuekber Mountains National Park.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In Central Asia, it is native to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and to the northern slopes of Iran's Alborz Mountains and Mongolia.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In Nepal, a Eurasian lynx was sighted in the western Dhaulagiri massif in 1975. It is also present above elevations of in Humla, Mustang and Dolpa Districts.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: Fossils of the Eurasian or a closely related "Lynx" species from the Late Pleistocene era and onward were excavated at various locations in the Japanese archipelago. Since no archaeological evidence after the Yayoi period was found, it was probably eradicated during the Jōmon period.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: Although they may hunt during the day when food is scarce, the Eurasian lynx is mainly nocturnal or crepuscular, and spends the day sleeping in dense thickets or other places of concealment. It lives solitarily as an adult. The hunting area of Eurasian lynx can be anything from , depending on the local availability of prey. Males tend to hunt over much larger areas than females, which tend to occupy exclusive, rather than overlapping, hunting ranges. The Eurasian lynx can travel up to during one night, although about half this distance is more typical. They patrol regularly throughout all parts of their hunting range, using scent marks to indicate their presence to other individuals. As with other cats, its scent marks may consist of faeces, urine, or scrape marks, with the former often being left in prominent locations along the boundary of the hunting territory. Eurasian lynx makes a range of vocalizations, but is generally silent outside of the breeding season. They have been observed to mew, hiss, growl, and purr, and, like domestic cats, will "chatter" at prey that is just out of reach. Mating calls are much louder, consisting of deep growls in the male, and loud "meow-like" sounds in the female. Eurasian lynx are secretive, and because the sounds they make are very quiet and seldom heard, their presence in an area may go unnoticed for years. Remnants of prey or tracks on snow are usually observed long before the animal is seen.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: Eurasian lynx in Europe prey largely on small to fairly large sized mammals and birds. Among the recorded prey items for the species are hares, rabbits, marmots, squirrels, dormice, other rodents, mustelids (such as martens), grouse, red foxes, wild boar, chamois, young moose, roe deer, red deer, reindeer and other ungulates. In keeping with its larger size, the Eurasian lynx is the only lynx species to preferentially take ungulates (the Iberian lynx and Canada lynx being specialists on lagomorph prey, while the bobcat is an opportunistic generalist). Although taking on larger prey presents a risk to the animal, the bounty provided by killing them can outweigh the risks. The Eurasian lynx thus prefers fairly large ungulate prey, especially during winter, when small prey is less abundant. Where common, roe deer appear to be the preferred prey species for the lynx.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In Estonia, a typical adult lynx kills about 60 roe deer a year; in the years when the roe deer population plummets, the lynx switch to beavers, hares, foxes, raccoon dogs, and birds. Even where roe deer are quite uncommon, the deer are still quantitatively the favored prey species, though in summer smaller prey and occasional domestic sheep are eaten more regularly. In parts of Finland, introduced white-tailed deer are eaten regularly. In some areas in Poland and Austria, red deer is the preferred prey, and in Switzerland, chamois is locally favored. Eurasian lynx also feeds on carrion when available. Adult lynx require of meat per day, and may take several days to fully consume some of their larger prey.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In the Mediterranean mixed forest-steppe and subalpine ecosystems of Anatolia the main and most preferred prey of the Eurasian lynx is European hare, forming 79% to 99% of prey biomass eaten. Although the lynx is in sympatry with wild ungulates, such as wild goat, chamois, red deer and wild boar in these ecosystems, ungulate biomass in lynx diet does not exceed 10%. In ten other study sites in the Black Sea region of northern Anatolia where roe deer can occur in high densities, lynx occurrence is positively correlated with European hare occurrence rather than roe deer. Lynx in Anatolia also has physiological requirements and morphological adjustments similar to other lagomorph specialists, with a daily prey intake of about . It is therefore classified as lagomorph specialist. Diet studies in central and northern Asia also indicate a diet mainly composed of lagomorphs and ungulate prey contributes in low amounts to lynx diet.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: Eurasian lynx scat found in Dolpa District in the Nepal Himalayas contained remains of woolly hare ("Lepus oiostolus"), pika ("Ochotona" sp.), mountain voles ("Alticola" sp.), Himalayan marmot ("Marmota himalayana") and domestic goat ("Capra hircus").


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The main method of hunting is stalking, sneaking and jumping on prey, although they are also ambush predators when conditions are suitable. In winter certain snow conditions make this harder and the animal may be forced to switch to larger prey in Europe. Eurasian lynx hunt using both vision and hearing, and often climb onto high rocks or fallen trees to scan the surrounding area. A very powerful predator, these lynxes have successfully killed adult deer weighing to at least .


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The mating season of the Eurasian lynx lasts from January to April. The female typically comes into oestrus only once during this period, lasting from four to seven days. If the first litter is lost, a second period of oestrus is common. It does not appear to be able to control its reproductive behaviour based on prey availability. Gestation lasts from 67 to 74 days. Pregnant females construct dens in secluded locations, often protected by overhanging branches or tree roots. The den is lined with feathers, deer hair, and dry grass to provide bedding for the young. At birth, Eurasian lynx kittens weigh and open their eyes after ten to twelve days. They initially have plain, greyish-brown fur, attaining the full adult colouration around eleven weeks of age. They begin to take solid food at six to seven weeks, when they begin to leave the den, but are not fully weaned for five or six months. The den is abandoned two to three months after the kittens are born, but the young typically remain with their mother until they are around ten months of age. Eurasian lynx reach sexual maturity at two or three years, and have lived for twenty one years in captivity.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The primary predators of the lynx are the gray wolf and the wolverine. In Russian forests, gray wolves kill and eat lynx that fail to escape into trees, as evidenced by examination of wolf and lynx trackways in the Central Forest Nature Reserve, and of lynx hair and bones found in wolf stomach contents in the Belovezh Forest. The lynx saves itself from its enemies by quickly climbing a tree or a cliff; it usually lives near a 'stronghold' place and eats its food in a high tree or cliff. Lynx populations decrease when wolves appear in a region such as observed in the Pritelsk region of the Altai Mountains, and lynx are likely to take smaller prey where wolves are active. In eastern Slovakia, after an increase of wolves after World War II, lynx were observed to move out.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: However, there is also a reported instance of a male lynx having expelled an adult and apparently healthy male wolf in Belarus in a fight. After the incident the wolf vanished from the record, suggesting that it might have succumbed to the wounds sustained during the fight. Moreover, recent population dynamics and a high mortality rate among wolf cubs in the Naliboki forest might be connected to an increasing lynx population. All in all this suggests that at least locally lynx may dominate wolves, since no signs for predation of wolves on lynx was found. In the Pechora-Ilych Nature Reserve in Russia wolverine predation and consumption of a lynx has been documented, and in the Altai Mountains, the lynx avoids wolverines.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The gray wolf, wolverine, as well as the red fox and the eagle owl, are also competitors of the Eurasian lynx for food in the taiga regions of Russia. In years of low hare populations, the competition becomes especially strong, and the lynx is at a disadvantage because its competitors are able to secure other prey more efficiently. This competition may be especially severe in the northern parts of the lynx's range where lynx populations are vastly outnumbered by red fox and even by wolverines. The presence of other large carnivores is one factor limiting their population.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In two ecosystems of Anatolia, cannibalism was common and lynx were found to form 5% to 8% of prey biomass in diet. Claws and bones analysed showed that sub-adult lynx were the victims of cannibalism during the mating and spring seasons. Lynx were not found in the sympatrically occurring wolves' diet, however, lynxes themselves were the predator of red foxes, martens, domestic cats and dogs, and golden jackal remains have been found in lynx fecal samples. Sometimes, Siberian tigers have also preyed on lynxes, as evidenced by examination of tiger stomach contents.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: In Sweden, out of 33 deaths of lynx of a population being observed, one was probably killed by a wolverine. Lynx compete for food with the predators described above, and also with the red fox, eagle owls, golden eagles, wild boar (which scavenge from lynx kills), and in the southern part of its range, the snow leopard and leopard as well. Brown bears, although not (so far as is known) a predator of Eurasian lynx, are in some areas a semi-habitual usurpers of ungulate kills by lynxes, not infrequently before the cat has had a chance to consume its kill itself.


title: Eurasian lynx

text: The Eurasian lynx is included on CITES Appendix II and listed as a protected species in the Berne Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, Appendix III. Hunting lynx is illegal in many range countries, with the exception of Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Armenia and Iraq. Since 2005, the Norwegian government sets national population goals, while a committee of representatives from county assemblies decide on hunting quotas.


title: Hatha yoga

text: Haṭha yoga is a branch of yoga which uses physical techniques to try to preserve and channel the vital force or energy. The Sanskrit word हठ "haṭha" literally means "force", alluding to a system of physical techniques. Some haṭha yoga style techniques can be traced back at least to the 1st-century CE, in texts such as the Hindu Sanskrit epics and Buddhism's Pali canon. The oldest dated text so far found to describe haṭha yoga, the 11th-century "Amṛtasiddhi", comes from a tantric Buddhist milieu. The oldest texts to use the terminology of "hatha" are also Vajrayana Buddhist. Hindu hatha yoga texts appear from the 11th century onwards.


title: Hatha yoga

text: Some of the early haṭha yoga texts (11th-13th c.) describe methods to raise and conserve bindu (vital force, that is, semen, and in women "rajas –" menstrual fluid). This was seen as the physical essence of life that was constantly dripping down from the head and being lost. Two early Haṭha yoga techniques sought to either physically reverse this process of dripping using gravity to trap the bindhu by inverted postures like "viparītakaraṇī", or force bindu upwards through the central channel by directing the breath flow into the centre channel using mudras (yogic seals, not to be confused with hand mudras, which are gestures).


title: Hatha yoga

text: Almost all hathayogic texts belong to the Nath siddhas, and the important early ones (12th-13th c.) are credited to Matsyendranath's disciple, Gorakhnath or Gorakshanath (11th c.). Early Nāth works teach a yoga based on raising kuṇḍalinī through energy channels and chakras, called Layayoga ("the yoga of dissolution"). However, other early Nāth texts like the "Vivekamārtaṇḍa" can be seen as co-opting the hatha yoga mudrās. Later Nāth as well as Śākta texts adopt the practices of haṭha yoga mudras into a Saiva system, melding it with Layayoga methods, without mentioning bindu. These later texts promote a universalist yoga, available to all, "without the need for priestly intermediaries, ritual paraphernalia or sectarian initiations."


title: Hatha yoga

text: In the 20th century, a development of haṭha yoga, focusing particularly on asanas (the physical postures), became popular throughout the world as a form of physical exercise. This modern form of yoga is now widely known simply as "yoga".


title: Hatha yoga

text: According to the Indologist James Mallinson, some haṭha yoga style techniques practised only by ascetics can be traced back at least to the 1st-century CE, in texts such as the Sanskrit epics (Hinduism) and the Pali canon (Buddhism). The Pali canon contains three passages in which the Buddha describes pressing the tongue against the palate for the purposes of controlling hunger or the mind, depending on the passage. However, there is no mention of the tongue being inserted further back into the nasopharynx as in true khecarī mudrā. The Buddha also used a posture where pressure is put on the perineum with the heel, similar to modern postures used to stimulate Kundalini. In the "Mahāsaccaka sutta" (MN 36), the Buddha mentions how physical practices such as various meditations on holding one's breath did not help him "attain to greater excellence in noble knowledge and insight which transcends the human condition." After trying these, he then sought another path to enlightenment. The term haṭha yoga was first used in the c. 3rd century "Bodhisattvabhūmi", the phrase "na haṭhayogena" seemingly meaning only that the bodhisattva would get his qualities "not by force".


title: Hatha yoga

text: The earliest mentions of haṭha yoga as a specific set of techniques are from some seventeen Vajrayana Buddhist texts, mainly tantric works from the 8th century onwards. In Puṇḍarīka's c. 1030 "Vimalaprabhā" commentary on the "Kālacakratantra", haṭha yoga is for the first time defined within the context of tantric sexual ritual:


title: Hatha yoga

text: While the actual means of practice are not specified, the forcing of the breath into the central channel and the restraining of ejaculation are central features of later haṭha yoga practice texts.