title: The Viral Fever

text: "Kota Factory" is a TVF original released in 2019. The series moves around the IIT and Medical entrance coaching industry of Kota, a small town in Rajasthan state of India. It focuses on the life of Vaibhav, who leaves his home town and arrives in Kota to pursue coaching for the preparation of IIT Exam. The series portrays the life of an IIT aspirant during his preparation phase, and also focuses on the different sides of the 'Kota Coaching Industry'. It has been directed by Saurabh Khanna. "Kota Factory" is one of the first Indian black and white web series on YouTube.


title: The Viral Fever

text: Later, both TVF and Netflix announced the second season of Kota Factory which premiered on Netflix on 24 September 2021.


title: The Viral Fever

text: "Gullak" is a web series that revolves around the life stories of the "Mishra Family", talking tales relatable to a common man's everyday life. The series was created by Shreyansh Pandey. The first season, released on 27 June 2019 on TVF Play and SonyLIV was directed by the critically acclaimed director of many popular web stories, Amrit Raj Gupta. The second season was directed by Palash Vaswani and was aired on the OTT platform SonyLIV in 2021. This series features Jameel Khan, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Vaibhav Raj Gupta and Shivankit Singh Parihar.


title: The Viral Fever

text: "Cubicles" is centered around the life of Piyush, a fresh entrant into the corporate world. The show follows his work life and moments like his very first salary, working weekends, and failures and successes that are a part of anyone's corporate journey. Simultaneously, the series attempts to integrate fundamental concepts of investing and mutual funds into the story. Created by Amit Golani and directed by Chaitanya Kumbhakonum, the series stars Abhishek Chauhan, Nidhi Bisht, Arnav Bhasin, Shivankit Singh Parihar, and Badri Chavan, among others.


title: The Viral Fever

text: "Hostel Daze" was created by TVF, and is a compilation of stories depicting the lifestyle and fun of undergraduates who live in a hostel, along with the bullying of seniors being one of their many experiences with the hostel and its residents. The series was released on Amazon Prime Video on 13 December 2019. The entire series was shot in the campus and hostel of Symbiosis International University, Pune. The series was written and created by Saurabh Khanna and Abhishek Yadav, and was directed by Raghav Subbu, critically acclaimed for directing TVF's series Kota Factory. The series features Adarsh Gourav, Shubham Gaur and LUV in key roles of three freshers, and also casts Nikhil Vijay, Badri Chavan and Harsha Chemudu among many others.


title: The Viral Fever

text: "Panchayat" is a web series produced by TVF,released on Amazon Prime on 3 April 2020. This critically acclaimed web series revolves around the Panchayat of a village called Phulera in Ballia district of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, The series features Jitendra Kumar, who plays the role of a young graduate and the secretary of the Panchayat of the village, who is constantly at war with himself, trying to adapt himself to the lifestyle of the villagers, while keeping his dream of cracking the CAT, Common Admission Test. The series also casts veteran actors like Raghubir Yadav and Neena Gupta. The series marked the debut for Chandan Roy as an actor, playing the role of assistant secretary of the Panchayat. His work is being praised by many cinema critics.


title: The Viral Fever

text: On 28 April 2022, the second season was announced after the completion of the production. On 2 May 2022, it was announced that the second season will premiere on 20 May 2022. However, Prime Video released all the episodes on 18 May 2022, two days earlier than its actual premiere date.


title: The Viral Fever

text: "TVF Aspirants" is a web series that depicts the life of UPSC aspirants who are living in Rajender Nagar, Delhi. This series features Naveen Kasturia, Shivankit Parihar, Abhilash Thapliyal and Sunny Hinduja in the lead roles., along with Namita Dubey and Bijou Thaangjam.It is the most rated IMDB webseries of India The show was created by Arunabh Kumar and Shreyansh Pandey, written by Deepesh Sumitra Jagdish, and directed by Apoorv Singh Karki.


title: The Viral Fever

text: As of 2017, the TVF Group has a total team of more than 240 members in Mumbai and Delhi. However, per credible media reports, some of the key members from the core team of TVF walked out in August 2020. Some of the notable members are:


title: The Viral Fever

text: In March 2017, Arunabha Kumar found himself in the middle of a sexual harassment claim that was posted anonymously via Medium. Several women have come out with similar stories of harassment. TVF released a press release via Medium refuting the claims. A first information report (FIR) has been filed against Kumar in this case.


title: The Viral Fever

text: Mumbai's Versova Police registered a second FIR against Kumar after another woman filed a complaint against him over an incident she said took place in 2014. On 16 June 2017, Kumar stepped down as TVF CEO. Dhawal Gusain now leads the company as CEO, with Karan Chaudhry stepping in as COO and the creator of "Permanent Roommates" & "Tripling" Sameer Saxena appointed as CCO.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The Mississippi Legislature chartered the university on February 24, 1844, and four years later it admitted its first 80 students. During the Civil War, the university operated as a Confederate hospital and narrowly avoided destruction by Ulysses S. Grant's forces. In 1962, during the civil rights movement, a race riot occurred on campus when segregationists tried to prevent the enrollment of African American student James Meredith. The university has since taken measures to improve its image. The university is closely associated with writer William Faulkner, and owns and manages his former Oxford home Rowan Oak, which with other on-campus sites Barnard Observatory and Lyceum–The Circle Historic District, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Ole Miss is classified as "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". It is one of 33 institutions participating in the National Sea Grant Program, and also participates in the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program. Its research efforts include the National Center for Physics Acoustics, the National Center for Natural Products Research, and the Mississippi Center for Supercomputing Research. The university operates the country's only federally contracted Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved cannabis facility. It also operates interdisciplinary institutes such as the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Its athletic teams compete as the Ole Miss Rebels in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)'s Southeastern Conference Division I.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The university's alumni include 27 Rhodes Scholars, 10 governors, 5 US senators, a head of government, and a Nobel Prize Laureate. Other alumni have received honors such as Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, and Pulitzer Prizes. Its medical center performed the first human lung transplant and animal-to-human heart transplant.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The Mississippi Legislature chartered the University of Mississippi on February 24, 1844. Planners selected an isolated, rural site in Oxford as a "sylvan exile" that would foster academic studies. In 1845, residents of Lafayette County donated land west of Oxford for the campus and the following year, architect William Nichols oversaw construction of an academic building called the Lyceum, two dormitories, and faculty residences. On November 6, 1848, the university, offering a classical curriculum, opened to its first class of 80 students, most of whom were children of elite slaveholders, all of whom were white, and all but one of whom were from Mississippi. For 23 years, the university was Mississippi's only public institution of higher learning and for 110 years, its only comprehensive university. In 1854, the University of Mississippi School of Law was established, becoming the fourth state-supported law school in the United States.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Early president Frederick A. P. Barnard sought to increase the university's stature, placing him in conflict with the more-conservative board of trustees. The only result of Barnard's hundred-page 1858 report to the board was the university head's title being changed to "chancellor". Barnard was a Massachusetts-born graduate of Yale University; his northern background and Union sympathies made his position contentious—a student assaulted his slave and the state legislature investigated him. Following the election of US President Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Mississippi became the second state to secede; the university's mathematics professor Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar drafted the articles of secession. Students organized into a military company called "University Greys", which merged with the Confederate States Army. Within a month of the Civil War's outbreak, only five students remained at the university and by late 1861, it was closed. In its final action, the board of trustees awarded Barnard a doctorate of divinity.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Within six months, the campus had been converted into a Confederate hospital; the Lyceum was used as the hospital and a building that had stood on the modern-day site of Farley Hall operated as its morgue. In November 1862, the campus was evacuated as General Ulysses S. Grant's Union forces approached. Although Kansan troops destroyed much of the medical equipment, a lone remaining professor persuaded Grant against burning the campus. Grant's forces left after three weeks and the campus returned to being a Confederate hospital. Over the war's course, more than 700 soldiers were buried on campus.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The University of Mississippi reopened in October 1865. To avoid rejecting veterans, the university lowered admission standards and decreased costs by eliminating tuition and allowing students to live off-campus. In 1882, the university began admitting women but they were not permitted to live on campus or attend law school. In 1885, the University of Mississippi hired Sarah McGehee Isom, becoming the first southeastern US college to hire a female faculty member. Nearly 100 years later, the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies was established in her honor.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The university's byname "Ole Miss" was first used in 1897, when it won a contest of suggestions for a yearbook title. The term originated as a title domestic slaves used to distinguish the mistress of a plantation from "young misses". Fringe origin theories include it coming from a diminutive of "Old Mississippi" and from the name of the "Ole Miss" train that ran from Memphis to New Orleans. Within two years, students and alumni were using "Ole Miss" to refer to the university.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Between 1900 and 1930, the Mississippi Legislature introduced bills aiming to relocate, close, or merge the university with Mississippi State University. All such legislation failed. During the 1930s, Governor of Mississippi Theodore G. Bilbo was politically hostile toward the University of Mississippi, firing administrators and faculty, and replacing them with his friends in the "Bilbo purge". Bilbo's actions severely damaged the university's reputation, leading to the temporary loss of its accreditation. Consequently in 1944, the Constitution of Mississippi was amended to protect the university's Board of Trustees from political pressure. During World War II, the University of Mississippi was one of 131 colleges and universities that participated in the national V-12 Navy College Training Program, which offered students a path to a Navy commission.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in "Brown v. Board of Education" racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Eight years after the "Brown" decision, all attempts by African American applicants to enroll had failed. Shortly after the 1961 inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, James Meredith—an African American Air Force veteran and former student at Jackson State University—applied to the University of Mississippi. After months of obstruction by Mississippi officials, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Meredith's enrollment and the Department of Justice under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy entered the case on Meredith's behalf. On three occasions, either governor Ross R. Barnett or Lieutenant Governor Paul B. Johnson Jr. physically blocked Meredith's entry to the campus.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held both Barnett and Johnson, Jr. in contempt, and issued fines exceeding $10,000 for each day they refused to enroll Meredith. On September 30, 1962, President Kennedy dispatched 127 U.S. Marshals, 316 deputized U.S. Border Patrol agents, and 97 federalized Federal Bureau of Prisons personnel to escort Meredith. After nightfall, far-right former Major General Edwin Walker and outside agitators arrived, and a gathering of segregationist students before the Lyceum became a violent mob. Segregationist rioters threw Molotov cocktails and bottles of acid, and fired guns at federal marshals and reporters. Two civilians—French journalist Paul Guihard and Oxford repairman Ray Gunter—were killed by gunfire. Eventually, 13,000 soldiers arrived in Oxford and quashed the riot. One third of the federal officers—166 men—were injured, as were 40 federal soldiers and National Guardsmen. More than 30,000 personnel were deployed, alerted, and committed in Oxford—the most in American history for a single disturbance.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Meredith enrolled and attended class on October 1. By 1968, Ole Miss had around 100 African American students, and by the 2019–2020 academic year, African Americans constituted 12.5 percent of the student body.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In 1972, Ole Miss purchased Rowan Oak, the former home of Nobel Prize–winning writer William Faulkner. The building has been preserved as it was at Faulkner's death in 1962. Faulkner was the university's postmaster in the early 1920s and wrote "As I Lay Dying" (1930) at the university powerhouse. His Nobel Prize medallion is displayed in the university library. The university hosted the inaugural Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference in 1974. In 1980, Willie Morris became the university's first writer in residence.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In 2002, Ole Miss marked the 40th anniversary of integration with a yearlong series of events, including an oral history of the university, symposiums, a memorial, and a reunion of federal marshals who served at the campus. In 2006, the 44th anniversary of integration, a statue of Meredith was dedicated on campus. Two years later, the site of the 1962 riots was designated as a National Historic Landmark. The university also held a yearlong program to mark the 50th anniversary of integration in 2012. The university hosted the —the first presidential debate held in Mississippi—between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Ole Miss retired its mascot Colonel Reb in 2003, citing its Confederate imagery. Although a grass-roots movement to adopt "Star Wars" character Admiral Ackbar of the Rebel Alliance gained significant support, Rebel Black Bear, a reference to Faulkner's short story "The Bear", was selected in 2010. The Bear was replaced with another mascot, Tony the Landshark, in 2017. Beginning in 2022, football coach Lane Kiffin's dog Juice became the de facto mascot. In 2015, the university removed the Mississippi State Flag, which included the Confederate battle emblem, and in 2020, it relocated a prominent Confederate monument.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The University of Mississippi's Oxford campus is partially located in Oxford and partially in University, Mississippi, a census-designated place. The main campus is situated at an altitude of around , and has expanded from of land to around . The campus' buildings are largely designed in a Georgian architectural style; some of the newer buildings have a more contemporary architecture.


title: University of Mississippi

text: At the campus' center is "The Circle", which consists of eight academic buildings organized around an ovaloid common. The buildings include the Lyceum (1848), the "Y" Building (1853), and six later buildings constructed in a Neoclassical Revival style. The Lyceum was the first building on the campus and was expanded with two wings in 1903. According to the university, the Lyceum's bell is the oldest academic bell in the United States. Near the Circle is The Grove, a plot of land that was set aside by chancellor Robert Burwell Fulton , and hosts up to 100,000 tailgaters during home games. Barnard Observatory, which was constructed under Chancellor Barnard in 1859, was designed to house the world's largest telescope. Due to the Civil War's outbreak, however, the telescope was never delivered and was instead acquired by Northwestern University. The observatory was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The first major building built after the Civil War was Ventress Hall, which was constructed in a Victorian Romanesque style in 1889.


title: University of Mississippi

text: From 1929 to 1930, architect Frank P. Gates designed 18 buildings on campus, mostly in Georgian Revival architectural style, including (Old) University High School, Barr Hall, Bondurant Hall, Farley Hall (also known as Lamar Hall), Faulkner Hall, and Wesley Knight Field House. During the 1930s, the many building projects at the campus were largely funded by the Public Works Administration and other federal entities. Among the notable buildings built in this period is the dual-domed Kennon Observatory (1939).


title: University of Mississippi

text: Two large modern buildings—the Ole Miss Union (1976) and Lamar Hall (1977)—caused controversy by diverging from the university's traditional architecture. In 1998, the Gertrude C. Ford Foundation donated $20 million to establish the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts, which was the first building on campus to be solely dedicated to the performing arts. As of 2020, the university was constructing a STEM facility, the largest single construction project in the campus' history. The university owns and operates the University of Mississippi Museum, which comprises collections of American fine art, Classical antiquities, and Southern folk art, as well as historic properties in Oxford. Ole Miss also owns University-Oxford Airport, which is located north of the main campus.


title: University of Mississippi

text: North Mississippi Japanese Supplementary School, a Japanese weekend school, is operated in conjunction with Ole Miss, with classes held on campus. It opened in 2008 and was jointly established by several Japanese companies and the university. Many children have parents who are employees at Toyota facilities in Blue Springs.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In 1903, the University of Mississippi School of Medicine was established on the Oxford campus. It offered only two years of medical courses; students had to attend an out-of-state medical school to complete their degrees. This form of medical education continued until 1955, when the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) was established on a site in Jackson, Mississippi, and the School of Medicine was relocated there. A nursing school was established in 1956 and since then, other health-related schools have been added. , UMMC offers medical and graduate degrees. In addition to the medical center, the university has satellite campuses in Booneville, DeSoto, Grenada, Rankin, and Tupelo.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The University of Mississippi consists of 15 schools. The largest undergraduate school is the College of Liberal Arts. Graduate schools include a law school, a school of business administration, an engineering school, and a medical school.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The University of Mississippi's chief administrative officer is the chancellor, a position Glenn Boyce has held since 2019. The chancellor is supported by vice-chancellors who administer areas such as research and intercollegiate athletics. The provost oversees the university's academic affairs, and a dean oversees each school, as well as general studies and the honors college. A faculty senate advises the administration.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The Board of Trustees of the Mississippi State Institutions of Higher Learning is the constitutional governing body that is responsible for policy and financial oversight of the university of Mississippi and the state's other seven public secondary institutions. the board consists of 12 members, who serve staggered nine-year terms and represent the state's three Supreme Court Districts. The Board appoints the Commissioner of Higher Education, who administers its policies.


title: University of Mississippi

text: , the University of Mississippi's endowment was $775 million. The university's budget for fiscal year 2019 was over $540 million. Less than 13% of operating revenues are funded by the state of Mississippi, and the university relies heavily on private donations. The Ford Foundation has donated nearly $65 million to the Oxford campus and UMMC.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The University of Mississippi is the state's second-largest university by enrollment and is considered the state's flagship university. In 2015, the student-faculty ratio was 19:1. Of its classes, 47.4 percent have fewer than 20 students. The most popular subjects include marketing, education and teaching, accountancy, finance, pharmaceutical sciences, and administration. To receive a bachelor's degree, students must have at least 120 semester hours with passing grades and a cumulative 2.0 GPA.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The university also offers graduates degrees such as PhDs and masters of art, science, and fine arts. The university maintains the Mississippi Teacher Corps, a free graduate program that educates teachers for critical-needs public schools.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Taylor Medals, which were first awarded in 1905, are presented to exceptional students nominated by the faculty. The medals are named in honor of Marcus Elvis Taylor, who graduated in 1871, and are given to less than one percent of each class.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Ole Miss is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, the university spent $137 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 142nd in the nation. It is one of the 33 colleges and universities participating in the National Sea Grant Program and participates in the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program. Since 1948, the university has been a member of the Oak Ridge Associated Universities.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In 1963, University of Mississippi Medical Center surgeons, led by James Hardy, performed the world's first human lung transplant, and in 1964 the world's first animal-to-human heart transplant. Because of Hardy's research on transplantation, consisting of primate studies during the previous nine years, the heart of a chimpanzee was used for the transplant.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In 1965, the university established its Medicinal Plant Garden, which the School of Pharmacy uses for drug research. Since 1968, the school has operated the only legal marijuana farm and production facility in the United States. The National Institute on Drug Abuse contracts to the university production of cannabis for use in approved research studies and for distribution to the seven surviving medical marijuana patients grandfathered into the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program. The facility is the only source of marijuana medical researchers can use to conduct Food and Drug Administration-approved tests.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The National Center for Physics Acoustics (NCPA), which Congress established in 1986, is located on campus. In addition to conducting research, the NCPA houses the Acoustical Society of America's archives. The university also operates the University of Mississippi Field Station, which includes 223 research ponds and supports long-term ecological research, and hosts the Mississippi Center for Supercomputing Research and the Mississippi Law Research Institute. In 2012, the university completed Insight Park, a research park that "welcomes companies commercializing University of Mississippi research".


title: University of Mississippi

text: Honors education at the University of Mississippi, consisting of lectures by distinguished academics, began in 1953. In 1974, this program became the University Scholars Program, and in 1983, the University Honors Program was created and honors-core courses were offered. In 1997, Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale and wife Sally donated $5.4 million to establish the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College (SMBHC), which provides a capstone project—a senior thesis—and endowed scholarships.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In 1977, the university established its Center for the Study of Southern Culture with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which is housed in the College of Liberal Arts. The center provides for interdisciplinary studies of Southern history and culture. In 2000, the university established the Trent Lott Leadership Institute, which is named after alumnus and then-US Senate majority leader Trent Lott. The institute was funded with large corporate donations from MCI Inc., Lockheed Martin, and other companies. In addition to leadership initiatives, the institute offers a BA degree in Public Policy Leadership.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The Center for Intelligence and Security Studies (CISS) delivers academic programming on intelligence analysis, and engages in applied research and consortium building with government, private, and academic partners. In 2012, the United States Director of National Intelligence designated CISS as an Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (CAE), becoming one of 29 such college programs in the United States. Other special programs include the Haley Barbour Center for Manufacturing Excellence—established jointly by the university and Toyota in 2008—and the Chinese Language Flagship Program (


title: University of Mississippi

text: ). The Croft Institute for International Studies, which was founded in 1998, provides the only international studies undergraduate program in Mississippi.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The University of Mississippi is a member of the SEC Academic Consortium, which has since been renamed SECU. The collaborative initiative was designed to promote research, scholarship, and achievement among the member universities in the Southeastern Conference. In 2013, the university participated in the SEC Symposium on renewable energy in Atlanta, Georgia, which was organized and led by the University of Georgia and the UGA Bioenergy Systems Research Institute.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In 2021, actor Morgan Freeman and Professor Linda Keena donated $1 million to the University of Mississippi to create the Center for Evidence-Based Policing and Reform, which will provide law-enforcement training and seek to improve engagement between law enforcement and communities.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In "U.S. News & World Report"s 2022 rankings, the University of Mississippi was tied for 148th place among national universities and 67th among public universities. In 2018, "Bloomberg Businessweek" ranked the professional MBA program at the School of Business Administration in the top 50 among American public universities, and the online MBA program in the top 25. , all three degree programs at the Patterson School of Accountancy were among the top 10 accounting programs according to the "Public Accounting Report".


title: University of Mississippi

text: Since 2012, the "Chronicle of Higher Education" has named the University of Mississippi as one of the "Great Colleges to Work For". In the 2018 results, released in the "Chronicle"s annual report on "The Academic Workplace", the university was among 84 institutions honored from the 253 colleges and universities surveyed. In 2018, the university's campus was ranked the second-safest in the SEC and one of the safest in the U.S.


title: University of Mississippi

text: As of 2019, the university has had 27 Rhodes Scholars. Since 1998, it has 10 Goldwater Scholars, seven Truman Scholars, 18 Fulbright Scholars, one Marshall Scholar, three Udall Scholars, two Gates Cambridge Scholars, one Mitchell Scholar, 19 Boren Scholars, one Boren fellow, and one German Chancellor Fellowship.


title: University of Mississippi

text: As of the 2020–2021 academic year, the student body consisted of 15,546 undergraduates and 3,122 in graduate programs. Around 57 percent of the undergraduate student body were female. As of late 2020, minorities composed 24.3 percent of the body. The median family income of students is $116,600, and over half of students come from the top 20 percent. According to "The New York Times", the University of Mississippi has the seventh-highest share of students from the economic top-one percent among selective public schools. The median starting salary of a graduate is $47,700, according to "US News".


title: University of Mississippi

text: Although 54 percent of undergraduates are from Mississippi, the student body is geographically diverse. As of late 2020, the university's undergraduates represented all 82 counties in Mississippi, 49 states, the District of Columbia, and 86 countries. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student success and satisfaction, is 85.7 percent. In 2020, the student body included over 1,100 transfer students.


title: University of Mississippi

text: As of the 2020–2021 academic year, there were—excluding those of UMMC—1,092 professors, of whom 424 were tenured. At this time, there were 592 male and 500 female professors.


title: University of Mississippi

text: With the early emphasis on classical studies, multiple notable classicists including George Tucker Stainback, Wilson Gaines Richardson, and William Hailey Willis, have held teaching positions at the University of Mississippi. Archeologist David Moore Robinson, who is credited with discovering the ancient city Olynthus, also taught classics at the university. Former Mississippi Governor Ronnie Musgrove was a political science lecturer, and Kyle Duncan was an assistant law professor prior to his appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Landon Garland taught astronomy and philosophy before becoming the first president of Vanderbilt University. Actor James Best, who is best known for his work on "The Dukes of Hazzard", was an artist in residence. Robert Q. Marston, Director of the National Institutes of Health, served as the dean of the medical school, and Eugene W. Hilgard, considered the father of soil science, taught chemistry at Ole Miss. Other notable scientific faculty include psychologist David H. Barlow and physicist Mack A. Breazeale.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In addition to William Faulkner, notable writers who attended the University of Mississippi include Florence Mars, Patrick D. Smith, Stark Young, and John Grisham. Notable journalist graduates include "Boston Globe" correspondent Curtis Wilkie and broadcast journalist Shepard Smith. Alumni in film include Emmy Award-winning actor Gerald McRaney and Tate Taylor, director of "The Help". Musicians who studied at the university include Mose Allison and Grammy Award-winner Glen Ballard. Athlete graduates include 12-time Grand Slam tennis champion Mahesh Bhupathi, New York Yankees catcher Jake Gibbs, and Michael Oher, NFL offensive lineman and subject of the film "The Blind Side". Additionally, three Miss Americas and one Miss USA are among the alumni.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The University of Mississippi's alumni include five US senators and ten governors. Other public servant graduates include Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justices Sydney M. Smith and Bill Waller Jr., US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes, and Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit. Notable academics include Pomona College president E. Wilson Lyon, Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard professor Thomas K. McCraw, and Mercer University president James Bruton Gambrell. Notable physicians include Arthur Guyton, American Medical Association head Edward Hill, and Thomas F. Frist Sr., co-founder of Hospital Corporation of America. Alumnus William Parsons served as Director of NASA's Stennis Space Center and later that of Kennedy Space Center.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The University of Mississippi's athletic teams participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Southeastern Conference (SEC), Division I as Ole Miss Rebels. Women's varsity athletic teams at the University of Mississippi include basketball, cross country, golf, rifle, soccer, softball, tennis, track and field, and volleyball. Men's varsity teams are baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, tennis, and track and field.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In 1893, professor Alexander Bondurant organized the university's football team. As collegiate athletic teams began to receive names, a contest result selected the name "Mississippi Flood" in 1929. Due to the lasting harm of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, however, the name was changed to the "Rebels" in 1936. The first prime-time telecast of college football was of a 1969 Ole Miss game. The team has won six SEC championships. Major rivals include Louisiana State University and Mississippi State University, which Ole Miss plays against in the Magnolia Bowl and Egg Bowl, resectively. Other rivalries include Tulane and Vanderbilt. Football alumni Archie and Eli Manning, both quarterbacks, are honored on campus with speed limits set to 18 and 10 MPH; their respective jersey numbers.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Outside football, Ole Miss Baseball has won seven overall SEC championships and three SEC Tournaments. They have played in the College World Series six times, and won the 2022 series. The men's tennis team has won five overall SEC championships and has had one NCAA Singles Champion—Devin Britton.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The women's basketball team has won one overall SEC championship. Notable former players include Armintie Price, who holds the SEC record for steals in a game and was the third pick in the 2007 WNBA Draft, and Jennifer Gillom, 1986 SEC Female Athlete of the Year and 1988 Olympic Gold Medalist. The men's basketball has won two SEC Tournaments. In 2021, Ole Miss women's golf won its first NCAA Division I Women's Golf Championship.


title: University of Mississippi

text: A common greeting on campus is "Hotty Toddy!",which is also used in the school chant. The phrase has no explicit meaning and its origin is unknown. The chant was first published in 1926, but "Hotty Toddy" was spelled "Heighty Tighty"; this early spelling has led some to suggest it originated with Virginia Tech's regimental band, The Heighty Tighties. Other proposed origins are "hoity-toity", meaning snobbish, and the alcoholic drink hot toddy.


title: University of Mississippi

text: On football game days, the Grove, a plot of trees, hosts an elaborate tailgating tradition; according to "The New York Times", "Perhaps there isn't a word for the ritualized pregame revelry ... 'Tailgating' certainly does not do it justice". The tradition began in 1991, when cars were banned from the Grove. Prior to each game, over 2,000 red-and-blue barrels called "Dixie Cups" are placed throughout the Grove. This event is known as "Trash Can Friday". Each barrel marks a tailgating spot. The spots are claimed by tailgaters, who erect a "tent city" of 2,500 shelters. Many of the tents are extravagant, feature chandeliers and fine china, and typically host meals of Southern cuisine. To accommodate the crowds, the university maintains elaborate portable bathrooms on 18-wheeler platforms known as "Hotty Toddy Potties".


title: University of Mississippi

text: The University of Mississippi's first sanctioned student organizations, literary societies the Hermaean Society and the Phi Sigma Society, were established in 1849. Weekly meetings, of which attendance was mandatory, were held in the Lyceum until 1853 and then in the chapel. With the university's emphasis on rhetoric, student-organized public orations on the first Monday of every month were popular. Studies were sometimes canceled so students could attend speeches of visiting politicians such as Jefferson Davis and William L. Sharkey.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In the 1890s, extracurricular and nonintellectual activities proliferated on campus, and interest in oratory and the now-voluntary literary societies diminished. Turn-of-the-20th-century student organizations included Cotillion Club, the elite Stag Club, and German Club. In the 1890s, the local YMCA began publishing a list of the organizations in the "M-Book". As of 2021, the handbook was still provided to students.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The Associated Student Body (ASB), which was established in 1917, is the university's student government organization. Students are elected to the ASB Senate in the spring semester and leftover seats are voted on in open-seat elections in the fall. Senators can represent registered student organizations such as the Greek councils and sports clubs, or they can run to represent their academic school. The University of Mississippi's marching band The Pride of the South performs in-concert and at athletic events. The band was formally organized in 1928, but it existed prior to that date as a smaller organization led by a student director. A Phi Beta Kappa chapter was established in 2001.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Approximately 5,300 students live on campus in thirteen residence halls, two residential colleges, and two apartment complexes. Students are required to live on-campus during their first year. Within residence halls, students designated as community assistants provide information and resolve issues. In the early 20th century, the university provided cottages for married students. In 1947, Vet Village was constructed to room the surge in World War II veteran applicants.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The Universtity of Mississippi provides Oxford University Transit, a shuttle system that is free of charge for students, faculty, and staff. In early 2020, Starship Technologies introduced an automated food delivery consisting of a fleet of 30 robots on campus; it was the first-such system of any SEC school.


title: University of Mississippi

text: On-campus dining services Catering at UM and the Rebel Market are the only Certified Green restaurants in the state of Mississippi. In 2019, the university opened a recreation center containing a gym, indoor climbing wall, basketball courts, and other services.


title: University of Mississippi

text: Greek life at the University of Mississippi comprises 32 organizations and around 7,000 affiliated students. Greek societies at the University of Mississippi are housed along Fraternity Row and Sorority Row, which were constructed in the 1930s with federal funds.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The Rainbow Fraternity, which was founded at the University of Mississippi in 1848, was the first fraternity to be founded in the South. Other early fraternities established at the university include Delta Kappa Epsilon (1850), Delta Kappa (1853), Delta Psi (1854), and Epsilon Alpha (1855). By 1900, a majority of University of Mississippi students were members of a fraternity or a sorority. Non-member students felt excluded on campus and tensions between members and non-members escalated. "The University Magazine" denounced the Greek societies as "the most vicious institution that has grown up in any college". In 1902, Lee Russell, a poor student who was rejected by the fraternities, appeared before the board of trustees to criticize the Greek societies. In response, the board threatened to abolish Greek life if non-member students continued to be ostracized. In 1903, rumors Greek-life members and non-member students were preparing to "meet in combat" appeared. Multiple state-legislative investigations were held to address the issue. All Greek life at the university was suspended from 1912 to 1926 due to statewide anti-fraternity legislation.


title: University of Mississippi

text: As part of a larger crackdown on embarrassing fraternity incidents, Chancellor Gerald Turner ended the traditional Shrimp and Beer Festival in 1984. In 1988, Phi Beta Sigma, a black fraternity, was preparing to move into a house on the all-white Fraternity Row when arsonists burned their house. An alumnus helped purchase another house and Fraternity Row was integrated two months later. In a 1989 incident, fraternity members dropped naked students painted with racist slurs at the historically black Rust College. In 2014, three fraternity members placed a noose and a Confederate symbol on the Meredith statue, and in 2019, fraternity members posed with guns in front of an Emmett Till historical marker.


title: University of Mississippi

text: The first student publication at the University of Mississippi was "The University Magazine", which was founded in 1856 and published by the literary societies. The rivalry between the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State originated from an 1895 condemnation by "The University Magazine" of a Mississippi State publication which had written that the University of Mississippi "lacked dignity". The first student newspaper "The University Record" began publication in 1898; it and the "Magazine" suffered financially and were suspended in 1902.


title: University of Mississippi

text: In 1907, the YMCA and student athletic organization revived the university's newspaper as the "Varsity Voice". In 1911, this newspaper was superseded by another student-published newspaper, "The Daily Mississippian". The paper is editorially independent and is the only daily college newspaper in the state. The paper is also published online as "TheDMonline.com", with supplementary content.


title: University of Mississippi

text: "NewsWatch", which was established in 1980, is a student-produced, live newscast and the only local newscast in Lafayette County. The University of Mississippi owns and operates WUMS 92.1 Rebel Radio, which began broadcasting in 1989; it is one of a few university-operated commercial FM radio stations in the United States.


title: Guano

text: Guano (Spanish from ) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano was also, to a lesser extent, sought for the production of gunpowder and other explosive materials.


title: Guano

text: The 19th-century seabird guano trade played a pivotal role in the development of modern input-intensive farming. The demand for guano spurred the human colonization of remote bird islands in many parts of the world.


title: Guano

text: Unsustainable seabird guano mining processes can result in permanent habitat destruction and the loss of millions of seabirds.


title: Guano

text: Bat guano is found in caves throughout the world. Many cave ecosystems are wholly dependent on bats to provide nutrients via their guano which supports bacteria, fungi, invertebrates, and vertebrates. The loss of bats from a cave can result in the extinction of species that rely on their guano. Unsustainable harvesting of bat guano may cause bats to abandon their roost.


title: Guano

text: Demand for guano rapidly declined after 1910 with the development of the Haber–Bosch process for manufacturing synthetic nitrogen and phosphorus.


title: Guano

text: Seabird guano is the fecal excrement from marine birds and has an organic matter content greater than 40%, is a source of nitrogen (N) and available phosphate (PO).


title: Guano

text: Bat guano is partially decomposed bat excrement and has an organic matter content greater than 40%, is a source of nitrogen, and may contain up to 6% available phosphate (PO). The feces of insectivorous bats consists of fine particles of insect exoskeleton, which are largely composed of chitin. Elements found in large concentrations include nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and trace elements needed for plant growth. Bat guano is slightly alkaline with an average pH of 7.25.


title: Guano

text: Chitin from insect exoskeletons is an essential compound needed by soil fungi to grow and expand. Chitin is a major component of fungal cell wall membranes. The growth of beneficial fungi adds to soil fertility.


title: Guano

text: Bat guano composition varies between species with different diets. Insectivorous bats are the only species that congregate in large enough numbers to produce sufficient guano for sustainable harvesting.


title: Guano

text: The word "guano" originates from the Andean indigenous language Quechua, where it refers to any form of dung used as an agricultural fertilizer. Archaeological evidence suggests that Andean people collected seabird guano from small islands and points off the desert coast of Peru for use as a soil amendment for well over 1,500 years and perhaps as long as 5,000 years. Spanish colonial documents suggest that the rulers of the Inca Empire greatly valued guano, restricted access to it, and punished any disturbance of the birds with death. The Guanay cormorant is historically the most abundant and important producer of guano. Other important guano-producing bird species off the coast of Peru are the Peruvian pelican and the Peruvian booby.


title: Guano

text: Although the first shipments of guano reached Spain as early as 1700, it did not become a popular product in Europe until the 19th century.


title: Guano

text: In November 1802, Prussian geographer and explorer Alexander von Humboldt first encountered guano and began investigating its fertilizing properties at Callao in Peru, and his subsequent writings on this topic made the subject well known in Europe. Although Europeans knew of its fertilizing properties, guano was not widely used before this time. Cornish chemist Humphry Davy delivered a series of lectures which he compiled into an 1813 bestselling book about the role of nitrogenous manure as a fertilizer, "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry". It highlighted the special efficacy of Peruvian guano, noting that it made the "sterile plains" of Peru fruitful. Though Europe had marine seabird colonies and thus, guano, it was of poorer quality because its potency was leached by high levels of rainfall and humidity. "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry" was translated into German, Italian, and French; American historian Wyndham D. Miles said that it was likely "the most popular book ever written on the subject, outselling the works of Dundonald, Chaptal, Liebig..." He also said that "No other work on agricultural chemistry was read by as many English-speaking farmers."


title: Guano

text: The arrival of commercial whaling on the Pacific coast of South America contributed to scaling of its guano industry. Whaling vessels carried consumer goods to Peru such as textiles, flour, and lard; unequal trade meant that ships returning north were often half empty, leaving entrepreneurs in search of profitable goods that could be exported. In 1840, Peruvian politician and entrepreneur negotiated a deal to commercialize guano export among a merchant house in Liverpool, a group of French businessmen, and the Peruvian government. This agreement resulted in the abolition of all preexisting claims to Peruvian guano; thereafter, it was the exclusive resource of the State. By nationalizing its guano resources, the Peruvian government was able to collect royalties on its sale, becoming the country's largest source of revenue. Some of this income was used by the State to free its more than 25,000 black slaves. Peru also used guano revenue to abolish the head tax on its indigenous citizens. This export of guano from Peru to Europe has been suggested as the vehicle that brought a virulent strain of potato blight from the Andean highlands that began the Great Famine of Ireland.


title: Guano

text: Soon guano was sourced from regions besides Peru. By 1846, of guano had been exported from Ichaboe Island, off the coast of Namibia, and surrounding islands to Great Britain. Guano pirating took off in other regions as well, causing prices to plummet and more consumers to try it. The biggest markets for guano from 1840–1879 were in Great Britain, the Low Countries, Germany, and the United States.


title: Guano

text: By the late 1860s, it became apparent that Peru's most productive guano site, the Chincha Islands, was nearing depletion. This caused guano mining to shift to other islands north and south of the Chincha Islands. Despite this near exhaustion, Peru achieved its greatest ever export of guano in 1870 at more than . Concern of exhaustion was ameliorated by the discovery of a new Peruvian resource: sodium nitrate, also called Chile saltpetre. After 1870, the use of Peruvian guano as a fertilizer was eclipsed by Chile saltpetre in the form of caliche (a sedimentary rock) extraction from the interior of the Atacama Desert, close to the guano areas.


title: Guano

text: The Guano Age ended with the War of the Pacific (1879–1883), which saw Chilean marines invade coastal Bolivia to claim its guano and saltpetre resources. Knowing that Bolivia and Peru had a mutual defense agreement, Chile mounted a preemptive strike on Peru, resulting in its occupation of the Tarapacá, which included Peru's guano islands. With the Treaty of Ancón of 1884, the War of the Pacific ended. Bolivia ceded its entire coastline to Chile, which also gained half of Peru's guano income from the 1880s and its guano islands. The conflict ended with Chilean control over the most valuable nitrogen resources in the world. Chile's national treasury grew by 900% between 1879 and 1902 thanks to taxes coming from the newly acquired lands.


title: Guano

text: The demand for guano led the United States to pass the Guano Islands Act in 1856, which gave U.S. citizens discovering a source of guano on an unclaimed island exclusive rights to the deposits. In 1857, the U.S. began annexing uninhabited islands in the Pacific and Caribbean, totaling nearly 100, though some islands claimed under the Act did not end up having guano mining operations established on them. Several of these islands are still officially U.S. territories. Conditions on annexed guano islands were poor for workers, resulting in a rebellion on Navassa Island in 1889 where black workers killed their white overseers. In defending the workers, lawyer Everett J. Waring argued that the men could not be tried by U.S. law because the guano islands were not legally part of the country. The case went to the Supreme Court of the United States where it was decided in "Jones v. United States" (1890). The Court decided that Navassa Island and other guano islands were legally part of the U.S. American historian Daniel Immerwahr claimed that by establishing these land claims as constitutional, the Court laid the "basis for the legal foundation for the U.S. empire". The "Guano Islands Act" is now considered "America's first imperialist experiment".


title: Guano

text: Other countries also used their desire for guano as a reason to expand their empires. The United Kingdom claimed Kiritimati and Malden Island for the British Empire. Others nations that claimed guano islands included Australia, France, Germany, Hawaii, Japan, and Mexico.


title: Guano

text: In 1913, a factory in Germany began the first large-scale synthesis of ammonia using German chemist Fritz Haber's catalytic process. The scaling of this energy-intensive process meant that farmers could cease practices such as crop rotation with nitrogen-fixing legumes or the application of naturally derived fertilizers such as guano. The international trade of guano and nitrates such as Chile saltpetre declined as artificially synthesized fertilizers became more widely used. With the rising popularity of organic food in the twenty-first century, the demand for guano has started to rise again.


title: Guano

text: In the U.S., bat guano was harvested from caves as early as the 1780s to manufacture gunpowder. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Union's blockade of the southern Confederate States of America meant that the Confederacy resorted to mining guano from caves to produce saltpetre. One Confederate guano kiln in New Braunfels, Texas, had a daily output of of saltpetre, produced from of guano from two area caves.


title: Guano

text: From the 1930s, Bat Cave mine in Arizona was used for guano extraction, though it cost more to develop than it was worth. U.S. Guano Corporation bought the property in 1958 and invested 3.5 million dollars to make it operational; actual guano deposits in the cave were one percent of predicted and the mine was abandoned in 1960.


title: Guano

text: In Australia, the first documented claim on Naracoorte's Bat Cave guano deposits was in 1867. Guano mining in the country remained a localized and small industry. In modern times, bat guano is used in low levels in developed countries. It remains an important resource in developing countries, particularly in Asia.


title: Guano

text: Coring accumulations of bat guano can be useful in determining past climate conditions. The level of rainfall, for example, impacts the relative frequency of nitrogen isotopes. In times of higher rainfall, N is more common. Bat guano also contains pollen, which can be used to identify prior plant assemblages. A layer of charcoal recovered from a guano core in the U.S. state of Alabama was seen as evidence that a Woodlands tribe inhabited the cave for some time, leaving charcoal via the fires they lit. Stable isotope analysis of bat guano was also used to support that the climate of the Grand Canyon was cooler and wetter during the Pleistocene epoch than it is now in the Holocene. Additionally, the climatic conditions were more variable in the past.


title: Guano

text: Mining seabird guano from Peruvian islands has remained largely the same since the industry began, relying on manual labor. First, picks, brooms, and shovels are used to loosen the guano. The use of excavation machinery is not only impractical due to the terrain but also prohibited because it would frighten the seabirds. The guano is then placed in sacks and carried to sieves, where impurities are removed.


title: Guano

text: Similarly, harvesting bat guano in caves was and is manual. In Puerto Rico, cave entrances were enlarged to facilitate access and extraction. Guano was freed from the rocky substrate by explosives. Then, it was shoveled into carts and removed from the cave. From there, the guano was taken to kilns to dry. The dried guano would then be loaded into sacks, ready for transport via ship. Today, bat guano is usually harvested in the developing world, using "strong backs and shovels".


title: Guano

text: Peru's guano islands experienced severe ecological effects as a result of unsustainable mining. In the late 1800s, approximately 53 million seabirds lived on the twenty-two islands. As of 2011, only 4.2 million seabirds lived there. After realizing the depletion of guano in the Guano Age, the Peruvian government recognized that it needed to conserve the seabirds. In 1906, American zoologist Robert Ervin Coker was hired by the Peruvian government to create management plans for its marine species, including the seabirds. Specifically, he made five recommendations:


title: Guano

text: Despite these policies, the seabird population continued to decline, which was exacerbated by the 1911 El Niño–Southern Oscillation. In 1913, Scottish ornithologist Henry Ogg Forbes authored a report on behalf of the Peruvian Corporation focusing on how human actions harmed the birds and subsequent guano production. Forbes suggested additional policies to conserve the seabirds, including keeping unauthorized visitors a mile away from guano islands at all times, eliminating all the birds' natural predators, armed patrols of the islands, and decreasing the frequency of harvest on each island to once every three to four years. In 2009, these conservation efforts culminated into the establishment of the Guano Islands, Isles, and Capes National Reserve System, which consists of twenty-two islands and eleven capes. This Reserve System was the first marine protected area in South America, encompassing .


title: Guano

text: Unlike bird guano which is deposited on the surface of islands, bat guano can be deep within caves. Cave structure is often altered via explosives or excavation to facilitate extraction of the guano, which changes the cave's microclimate. Bats are sensitive to cave microclimate, and such changes can cause them to abandon the cave as a roost, as happened when Robertson Cave in Australia had a hole opened in its ceiling for guano harvesting. Guano harvesting may also introduce artificial light into caves; one cave in the U.S. state of New Mexico was abandoned by its bat colony after the installation of electric lights.


title: Guano

text: In addition to harming bats by necessitating they find another roost, guano harvesting techniques can ultimately harm human livelihood as well. Harming or killing bats means that less guano will be produced, resulting in unsustainable harvesting practices. In contrast, sustainable harvesting practices do not negatively impact bat colonies nor other cave fauna. The International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) 2014 recommendations for sustainable guano harvesting include extracting guano when the bats are not present, such as when migratory bats are gone for the season or when non-migratory bats are out foraging at night.


title: Guano

text: Guano mining in Peru was at first done with black slaves. After Peru formally ended slavery, it sought another source of cheap labor. In the 1840s and 1850s, thousands of men were blackbirded (coerced or kidnapped) from the Pacific islands and southern China. Thousands of coolies from South China worked as "virtual slaves" mining guano. By 1852, Chinese laborers comprised two-thirds of Peru's guano miners; others who mined guano included convicts and forced laborers paying off debts. Chinese laborers agreed to work for eight years in exchange for passage from China, though many were misled that they were headed to California's gold mines. Conditions on the guano islands were very poor, commonly resulting in floggings, unrest, and suicide. Workers experienced lung damage by inhaling guano dust, were buried alive by falling piles of guano, and risked falling into the ocean. After visiting the guano islands, U.S. politician George Washington Peck wrote:


title: Guano

text: Hundreds or thousands of Pacific Islanders, especially Native Hawaiians, traveled or were blackbirded to the U.S.-held and Peruvian guano islands for work, including Howland Island, Jarvis Island, and Baker Island. While most Hawaiians were literate, they could usually not read English; the contract they received in their own language lacked key amendments that the English version had. Because of this, the Hawaiian language contract was often missing key information, such as the departure date, the length of the contract, and the name of the company for which they would be working. When they arrived at their destination to begin mining, they learned that both contracts were largely meaningless in terms of work conditions. Instead, their overseer (commonly referred to as a "luna"), who was usually white, had nearly unlimited power over them. Wages varied from lows of $5/month to highs of $14/month. Native Hawaiian laborers of Jarvis Island referred to the island as "Paukeaho", meaning "out of breath" or "exhausted", due to the strain of loading heavy bags of guano onto ships. Pacific Islanders also risked death: one in thirty-six laborers from Honolulu died before completing their contract. Slaves blackbirded from Easter Island in 1862 were repatriated by the Peruvian government in 1863; only twelve of 800 slaves survived the journey.


title: Guano

text: On Navassa Island, the guano mining company switched from white convicts to largely black laborers after the American Civil War. Black laborers from Baltimore claimed that they were misled into signing contracts with stories of mostly fruit-picking, not guano mining, and "access to beautiful women". Instead, the work was exhausting and punishments were brutal. Laborers were frequently placed in stocks or tied up and dangled in the air. A labor revolt ensued, where the workers attacked their overseers with stones, axes, and even dynamite, killing five overseers.


title: Guano

text: Although the process for mining guano is mostly the same today, worker conditions have improved. As of 2018, guano miners in Peru made US$750 per month, which is more than twice the average national monthly income of $300. Workers also have health insurance, meals, and eight-hour shifts.


title: Guano

text: Guano is one of the habitats of the fungus "Histoplasma capsulatum", which can cause the disease histoplasmosis in humans, cats, and dogs. "H. capsulatum" grows best in the nitrogen-rich conditions present in guano. In the United States, histoplasmosis affects 3.4 adults per 100,000 over age 65, with higher rates in the Midwestern United States (6.1 cases per 100,000). In addition to the United States, "H. capsulatum" is found in Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Of 105 outbreaks in the U.S. from 1938–2013, seventeen occurred after exposure to a chicken coop while nine occurred after exposure to a cave. Birds or their droppings were present in 56% of outbreaks, while bats or their droppings were present in 23%. Developing any symptoms after exposure to "H. capsulatum" is very rare; less than 1% of those infected develop symptoms. Only patients with more severe cases require medical attention, and only about 1% of acute cases are fatal. It is a much more serious illness for the immunocompromised, however. Histoplasmosis is the first symptom of HIV/AIDS in 50–75% of patients, and results in death for 39–58% of those with HIV/AIDS. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that the immunocompromised avoid exploring caves or old buildings, cleaning chicken coops, or disturbing soil where guano is present.


title: Guano

text: Rabies, which can affect humans who have been bitten by infected mammals including bats, cannot be transmitted through bat guano. A 2011 study of bat guano viromes in the U.S. states of Texas and California recovered no viruses that are pathogenic to humans, nor any close relatives of pathogenic viruses. It is hypothesized that Egyptian fruit bats, which are native to Africa and the Middle East, can spread Marburg virus to each other through contact with infected secretions such as guano, but a 2018 review concluded that more studies are necessary to determine the specific mechanisms of exposure that cause Marburg virus disease in humans. Exposure to guano could be a route of transmission to humans.


title: Guano

text: As early as in the 18th century there are reports of travellers complaining about the unhealthy air of Arica and Iquique resulting from abundant bird spilling.


title: Guano

text: Colonial birds and their guano deposits have an outsize role on the surrounding ecosystem. Bird guano stimulates productivity, though species richness may be lower on guano islands than islands without the deposits. Guano islands have a greater abundance of detritivorous beetles than islands without guano. The intertidal zone is inundated by the guano's nutrients, causing algae to grow more rapidly and coalesce into algal mats. These algal mats are in turn colonized by invertebrates. The abundance of nutrients offshore of guano islands also supports coral reef ecosystems.


title: Guano

text: Cave ecosystems are often limited by nutrient availability. Bats bring nutrients into these ecosystems via their excretions, however, which are often the dominant energy resource of a cave. Many cave species depend on bat guano for sustenance, directly or indirectly. Because cave-roosting bats are often highly colonial, they can deposit substantial quantities of nutrients into caves. The largest colony of bats in the world at Bracken Cave (about 20 million individuals) deposit of guano into the cave every year. Even smaller colonies have relatively large impacts, with one colony of 3,000 gray bats annually depositing of guano into their cave.


title: Guano

text: Invertebrates inhabit guano piles, including fly larvae, nematodes, springtails, beetles, mites, pseudoscorpions, thrips, silverfish, moths, harvestmen, spiders, isopods, millipedes, centipedes, and barklice. The invertebrate communities associated with the guano depends on the bat species' feeding guild: frugivorous bat guano has the greatest invertebrate diversity. Some invertebrates feed directly on the guano, while others consume the fungi that use it as a growth medium. Predators such as spiders depend on guano to support their prey base. Vertebrates consume guano as well, including the bullhead catfish and larvae of the grotto salamander.


title: Guano

text: Bat guano is integral to the existence of endangered cave fauna. The critically endangered Shelta Cave crayfish feeds on guano and other detritus. The Ozark cavefish, a U.S. federally listed species, also consumes guano. The loss of bats from a cave can result in declines or extinctions of other species that rely on their guano. A 1987 cave flood resulted in the death of its bat colony; the Valdina Farms salamander is now likely extinct as a result.


title: Guano

text: Bat guano also has a role in shaping caves by making them larger. It has been estimated that 70–95% of the total volume of Gomantong cave in Borneo is due to biological processes such as guano excretion, as the acidity of the guano weathers the rocky substrate. The presence of high densities of bats in a cave is predicted to cause the erosion of of rock over 30,000 years.


title: Guano

text: There are several references to guano in the arts. In his 1845 poem "Guanosong", German author Joseph Victor von Scheffel used a humorous verse to take a position in the popular polemic against Hegel's "Naturphilosophie". The poem starts with an allusion to Heinrich Heine's "Lorelei" and may be sung to the same tune. The poem ends however with the blunt statement of a Swabian rapeseed farmer from Böblingen who praises the seagulls of Peru as providing better manure even than his fellow countryman Hegel. This refuted the widespread Enlightenment belief that nature in the New World was inferior to the Old World. The poem has been translated by, among others, Charles Godfrey Leland.


title: Guano

text: English author Robert Smith Surtees parodied the obsession of wealthy landowners with the "religion of progress" in 1843. In one of his works featuring the character John Jorrocks, Surtees has the character develop an obsession with trying all the latest farming experiments, including guano. In efforts to impress the upper-class around him and to disguise his low-class origins, Jorrocks makes references to guano in conversation at every chance he can. At one point, he exclaims "Guano!" along with two other varieties of fertilizer, to which the Duke replies, "I see you understand it all!"


title: Guano

text: Guano is also the namesake for one of the nucleobases that comprise RNA and DNA: guanine. Guanine was first obtained from guano by , who described it as xanthine in 1844. After he was corrected, Bodo Unger published it with the new name of "guanine" in 1846.


title: Treadstone

text: Treadstone is an American action drama television series, connected to and based on the "Bourne" film series. A "special preview" of the pilot aired on USA Network on September 24, 2019, ahead of its October 15, 2019, premiere. The series was created by Tim Kring, who is also the executive producer alongside Ramin Bahrani, Ben Smith, Jeffrey Weiner, Justin Levy, Bradley Thomas, and Dan Friedkin. In May 2020, the series was canceled after one season.


title: Treadstone

text: "Treadstone" explores the origin story and present-day actions of a fictional CIA black-ops program known as Operation Treadstone — a covert program that uses a behavior modification protocol to turn recruits into nearly-superhuman assassins. The series follows sleeper agents across the globe as they are mysteriously 'awakened' to resume their deadly missions. The program breaks down these assassins' personalities, erases their memories, and eliminates their moral code so they can effectively kill targets around the world.


title: Treadstone

text: The series explores Treadstone's legacy and begins with an incident in East Berlin in 1973. This involves John Randolph Bentley (Jeremy Irvine), one of the program's agents, who escapes his Soviet captors. The story then zooms to the present day, following a group of assets being "activated" by force or awakened after a moment of high tension.


title: Treadstone

text: On April 12, 2018, it was announced that USA Network had given the production a pilot order. The episode was written by Tim Kring and expected to be directed by Ramin Bahrani, both of whom were also set to act as executive producers alongside Ben Smith, Jeffrey Weiner, Justin Levy, and Bradley Thomas. Production companies involved with the pilot were slated to consist of Universal Cable Productions, Captivate Entertainment, and Imperative Entertainment. On August 16, 2018, it was reported that USA Network had decided to forego the pilot process and instead were issuing the production a straight-to-series order. Additionally, it was reported that Dan Friedkin was joining the series as an executive producer. On December 17, 2019, the series was canceled after one season.


title: Treadstone

text: On November 8, 2018, it was announced that Jeremy Irvine and Brian J. Smith had been cast in lead roles. On January 14, 2019, it was reported Omar Metwally, Tracy Ifeachor, Han Hyo-joo, Gabrielle Scharnitzky, and Emilia Schüle had joined the main cast. Michelle Forbes, Michael Gaston and Shruti Haasan were added to the cast, with Patrick Fugit and Tess Haubrich also appearing in a recurring capacity.


title: Treadstone

text: "Treadstone" received a metacritic score of 47 based on seven critics, indicating mixed or average reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave an approval rating of 44% based on 16 critics, its consensus reads: "While Treadstone is as action-packed and frenetically paced as you'd expect from the Bourne universe, it lacks the narrative momentum and cohesion necessary to set it apart."


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Beyoncé (often stylized in all caps) is the fifth studio album by American singer Beyoncé. The record was released on December 13, 2013, by Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records. Developed as a "visual album", its songs are accompanied by non-linear short films that illustrate the musical concepts conceived during production. Its dark, intimate subject material includes feminist themes of sex, monogamous love, and relationship issues, inspired by Beyoncé's desire to assert her full creative freedom.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: The album's initial recording began in New York City, where Beyoncé invited producers and songwriters to live with her for a month. During extensive touring the following year, the album changed as she conceived of creating a visual accompaniment to its songs and resumed recording sessions with electronic producer and rock musician Boots. Their collaboration led to more sonically experimental material, which combined contemporary R&B with electronic and soul music. Throughout this period, the album's songs and videos were composed in strict secrecy as Beyoncé devised an unexpected release.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: "Beyoncé" was released digitally on the iTunes Store without prior announcement or promotion, and debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200, earning Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album on the chart. The album sold over 617,000 copies in the United States and 828,773 copies worldwide in its first three days of sales, becoming the fastest-selling album in the history of the iTunes Store up to that point. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), "Beyoncé" was globally the tenth-best-selling album of 2013. The album was reissued in November 2014 as part of a , along with an extended play of new songs, and has sold over 5 million copies worldwide. Part of the album was promoted on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour during the 2014 legs.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: "Beyoncé" received widespread acclaim from critics upon release who praised its production, exploration of sexuality, vocal performance, as well as the album's surprise release strategy which was subsequently replicated by many artists. In 2020, "Beyoncé" was ranked 81st in "Rolling Stone"'s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Following the release of her fourth studio album "4" (2011), Beyoncé gave birth to her first child, Blue Ivy on January 7, 2012. Just four months after labor, she pursued a three-night residency at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall, entitled . The choice to hold concerts so soon was purposeful; Beyoncé intended to demonstrate to mothers that they need not halt their careers despite having had children. Most of the summer following the residency was spent in The Hamptons, New York, where she took time out from the public to spend time with her daughter and to begin sessions for her next album. She resumed work in early 2013, performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at President Barack Obama's second inauguration and headlining the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, where there were expectations she would debut new music, although these rumors never materialized. She also released a self-directed autobiographical documentary in February, entitled "Life Is But a Dream".


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: In March 2013, a two-part hip hop track entitled "Bow Down/I Been On" was released onto Beyoncé's SoundCloud account. "Bow Down", produced by Hit-Boy, was written after Beyoncé woke up one morning with a chant stuck in her head, feeling angry and defensive. This was melded with a Timbaland-produced second half "I Been On" that makes prominent use of a pitch-distorted vocal as a homage to the Houston hip hop scene. Michael Cragg of "The Guardian" described the song as "brilliantly odd", commending its loud, abrasive production, while "Pitchfork"s Lindsay Zoladz noted the song's assertiveness and believed it served as an introduction of what was to come. "Bow Down/I Been On" was perceived as a significant departure from Beyoncé's existing catalogue, particularly for its aggressive nature. The song's atmosphere and its controversial "Bow down, bitches" refrain drew a mixed reaction from those who questioned whether the lyric was aimed at women or merely a moment of braggadocio. Beyoncé clarified after the album's release, where elements of "Bow Down" appear on the track "Flawless", that the song and its refrain were intended as a statement of female empowerment.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Neither Beyoncé or her representatives commented on the release of "Bow Down/I Been On", and many journalists questioned the nature of its release in the context of the release of her upcoming album. Further confusion was created when portions of other tracks "Grown Woman" and "Standing on the Sun" were used for television advertising campaigns, with a similar lack of explanation as to their purpose. Through much of 2013, the media intermittently reported that the album was delayed or scrapped, with one story alleging Beyoncé had scrapped fifty songs in favor of starting again. In July 2013, a spokesperson for Beyoncé denied speculation that her album had been delayed, stating there was no official release date to begin with and that when a date is set, it would be announced via an official press release. There was considerable confusion among music journalists and fans as Beyoncé engaged in extensive touring, while not discussing the album or its release.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Recording sessions began in the summer of 2012 in the Hamptons, New York, where Beyoncé and her husband Jay-Z were living. She invited producers and songwriters to accompany them, including Sia, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and The-Dream. Beyoncé described the atmosphere as unconventional, saying, "we had dinners with the producers every day, like a family ... it was like a camp. Weekends off. You could go and jump in the pool and ride bikes ... the ocean and grass and sunshine ... it was really a safe place." She would spend the majority of her day with her newborn daughter, taking some hours out to record music. The album's opening track "Pretty Hurts", co-written by Sia, was completed during these sessions. The project was suspended until 2013 and relocated to Jungle City and Oven Studios in New York City, where most of the album was recorded. In an interview for "Vogue" in January 2013, Jason Gay described Beyoncé's attention to detail as "obsessive" when observing her studio, noting the vision boards she created for inspiration, which contained potential song titles, old album covers and pictures of performances.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: In mid-2013, a relatively unknown artist Boots, signed a publishing deal with Jay-Z's Roc Nation. In an interview for "Pitchfork" after the album's release, Boots was coy when answering questions about how Beyoncé discovered his demo or of his work previous to the project, only confirming his signing. In June 2013, they met in person for the first time and Boots presented Beyoncé with material he felt would resonate with her. However, Beyoncé was more interested in his experimental material, and he reluctantly played her his song "Haunted" on his cellphone. She refused to ignore its potential. At a later meeting, he played her a stream of consciousness rap called "Ghost", which he wrote after an exasperating meeting with a potential record label. Boots began by composing a melody that reminded him of a hypnotic state, then layering guitar arpeggios to resemble the work of English electronic musician Aphex Twin. Subsequently, "Ghost" became the first half of "Haunted"; he later described Beyoncé as the "only visionary in the room" for her ability to find potential in scraps of songs. Following these sessions, Boots would go on to work on eighty percent of "Beyoncé".


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: While recording in New York City, the previously released "Bow Down" was incorporated into a track that became "Flawless". During its composition, Beyoncé chose to interpolate a portion of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk "We Should All Be Feminists" into it as she identified with her interpretations of feminism. Organic approaches were taken when writing and recording "Drunk in Love" and "Partition". When working with Detail and Timbaland on a beat that became "Drunk in Love", she was inspired by what she described as pure enjoyment, as both she and Jay-Z free-styled their verses for the track in the studio. Similarly, the bassline of "Partition", which Beyoncé found reminiscent of hip hop music during her early romance with Jay-Z, influenced her to accompany the track with sexual lyrics. She took to a microphone without pen and paper and rapped the first verse, finding herself initially embarrassed by the explicitness of the lyrics. When composing "Partition", a rap known as "Yoncé" was used as the opening of the track, the beat of which was built by Justin Timberlake banging on buckets in the studio.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Only four songs were not recorded entirely in New York studios: "Superpower" and "Heaven", which were partially recorded in California, as well as "No Angel" which was composed in London and "XO" in Berlin and Sydney. Although the demo of "XO" was recorded when Beyoncé had contracted a sinus infection, the vocals were never re-recorded as she felt their imperfections fit more appropriately. In October, the album began taking shape and "Standing on the Sun" and "Grown Woman" were removed—songs which had been previewed in 2013 on television advertisements—from "Beyoncé" to fit in with its minimalist approach. During Thanksgiving week, the vocals on the album were edited and producers were notified to submit their final cuts. Beyoncé spent less time on vocal production than she had done with her previous projects, instead focusing on perfecting the album's music. "Beyoncé" was mastered at Sterling Sound in New York City. In total, eighty songs were recorded for the album.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Beyoncé first considered the idea of creating a "visual album" in June 2013, when only three or four songs had been completed. Explaining her motivation, she said she would often connect images, childhood memories, emotions and fantasies to songs she was in the midst of composing, and that she "wanted people to hear the songs with the story that's in my head as that's what makes it mine". She highlighted the immersive experience of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (1982) as the principal influence for creating a body of work that "people would hear things differently and ... actually be able to see the whole vision of the album".


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: The videos were filmed between June and November 2013 in various countries as the singer traveled on her world tour. Todd Tourso, who directed the videos for "Jealous" and "Heaven", served as the creative director for the entire project. Much of his role concerned liaising between Beyoncé, who for most videos already had concepts, and the respective directors who also had propositions. As most videos were shot outside of the US, the crew surrounding the videos was small, consisting only of Tourso, the director of photography and producer, as well as Beyoncé and her stylist, make-up artist and security. When filming in public, Beyoncé would wear in-ear headphones instead of having the music played out loud, in order to maintain the secrecy of the project and prevent any songs leaking. By the time of post-production, the songwriting process began to converge with the content of the visuals and Beyoncé would watch unedited footage to fit the music to them. "Flawless", "Rocket" and "Mine" were noted as having been changed by their visual counterparts, Tourso commenting that "she would rewrite some lines, or she would add certain audio, or she would add bridges" and believed that "it would complete the picture of where the audio needed to go".


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Several videos were intended to demonstrate the album's central theme of "finding the beauty in imperfection". While working on "Flawless", Beyoncé was reminded of her loss on television competition "Star Search" as a child, which she saw as a defining moment in her career, and believed that the competition had taught her how to embrace imperfection in the future. The theme was represented in the videos by the recurring use of trophies, which the singer saw as referencing "all of the sacrifice I have made as a kid, all of the time that I lost". It was also carried into how the visuals were created, with the videos for "Drunk in Love", "Yoncé", "No Angel", "XO" and "Blue" shot without prior preparation, as the singer found enjoyment in the spontaneity of the filming locations and in resisting the urge to perfect them. Noting some of the visuals' explicit content and exposure of her body, Beyoncé said she found shooting them liberating and expressed her intention to demonstrate sexuality as a power that women should have, and not lose after becoming a mother. She went on to say, "I know finding my sensuality, getting back into my body, being proud of growing up, it was important to me that I expressed that ... I know that there are so many women who feel the same way".


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: "Beyoncé" is a fourteen track set with seventeen short films: a video for each audio track, two extra videos to accompany the two-part tracks "Haunted" and "Partition", as well as a bonus video for "Grown Woman", which lacks an equivalent audio counterpart. Departing from the traditional R&B leanings of its predecessor, "4" (2011), "Beyoncé"s songs are predominantly alternative R&B. Hence, musically, the album may be located in the post-dubstep era, fusing electronic music with R&B and soul. The album's dark, moody production is more textured than previous releases and songs are characterized by heavy bass and loud hi-hats, as well as prominent synthesizers. A quality of restraint features among most songs "with subdued pulses, ambient effects and throbbing grooves that sneak up on you, threatening to explode but only occasionally transforming".


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: The album adopts unconventional song structure and as Evan Rytlewski of "The A.V. Club" notes, many songs "[emphasize] moody, shifting beats and drawn-out vibe sessions" and are left to slowly unfurl. This is particularly prominent on "Haunted" and "Partition" which function as two-part suites. The dream-like state created on "Haunted" is ushered in with a stream of consciousness rap entitled "Ghost" which transitions from "smoky ethereality to off-kilter club beat", amid a shifting bassline and ghostly keyboards. "Partition" begins with "Yoncé", a slick rap set over a simple Middle Eastern rhythm. The song is divided by a brief interlude of camera clicks and the whirring of a car window, before launching into a second-half that melds synthesizer pulses with finger snaps to create a Southern hip hop bassline. Over this, the song follows a candid narrative that describes sex in the back of a limousine when travelling to a nightclub.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Several critics noted the album's extensive exploration of sexuality. Having been a singer since the age of nine, Beyoncé felt "stifled" by the perception she was a role model for young children, and now into her thirties, believed she had "earned the right to ... express any and every side of [her]self". Addressing the album's sexual content specifically, Beyoncé said: "I don't at all have any shame about being sexual and I'm not embarrassed about it and I don't feel like I have to protect that side of me." Several critics described "Beyoncé"s sex songs as a celebration of monogamous love. "Drunk in Love" is a duet with her husband Jay-Z, and features lyrics heavily laden with double entendres that explore lust within their sexual relationship. It fuses intermittent trap beats with heavy bass, skittering synthesizers and drums, and Arabic-scale vocal arpeggios. Beyoncé's vocals are diverse, including a melodramatic chorus sung in her upper register and a half-rapped second verse. "Blow" veers from a thumping jazz beat created with sparse piano chords and guitars to a "swinging electro-funk groove" with elements of neo-disco. Its erotic, tongue-in-cheek lyrics include a running cunnilingus metaphor of "licking Skittles" in its chorus. The slow-jam "Rocket" is a homage to D'Angelo's soul-infused "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" (2000). Described by "Entertainment Weekly"s Nick Catucci as a "slippery, six-and-a-half-minute funk excursion", Beyoncé adopts a slow, harmonious vocal as she instructs her love interest to watch her perform a striptease.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Much like her previous albums, the record is feminist, with greater exploration of gender issues and conflated with "an unwavering look at black female sexual agency". Soraya McDonald of "The Washington Post" viewed "Beyoncé" as significant to black feminism as it celebrates black female sexuality in mainstream music and in the context of hip hop, where it is typically only shown through the male perspective. The album's most explicit commentary on gender is the three-part "Flawless". It opens with the earlier released "Bow Down", before seguing into an excerpt of a speech by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the socialization of girls. The final part uses a staccato, trap beat as Beyoncé reflects on her own feminist attitudes, encouraging self-acceptance among women and criticizing misogynist sentiments.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Other songs allude to darker themes of fear and personal insecurities. Beyoncé noted that the album displayed "sides of [her] that only a few people had seen", adding that "all of us want happiness ... sometimes you have to take the insecurities to get to the secure place. And all of those things I feel happy to express". Caitlin White of "The 405" believed the songs as "hold forth on the most important issues in a woman's life by delving into [the singer's] personal experience with them". "Jealous" addresses fidelity and features lyrics in which the protagonist experiences "promises, suspicion and potential revenge". It contains an "uncanny mix of tones and styles", most prominently a morose bassline replete with electronic yelps. "Mine", a futuristic R&B song with jazz elements, is self-reflective, with lyrics that reference marital strife and difficulties with postnatal depression. The neo soul song "Pretty Hurts" is a self-empowerment anthem that decries society's obsession with harmful and unattainable standards of beauty. The song uses audio snippets of beauty pageants which Beyoncé contested in to frame the song in the context of her childhood.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: "Beyoncé"s vocal production is diverse; several songs are half-rapped and half-sung with particular use of falsetto and head voice. "The Telegraph"s Neil McCormick notes that while the singer uses her expansive vocal range, unlike her previous releases, she restrains from belting and vocal runs as to increase tension in the music. "No Angel", a chillwave song with influences of minimalist hip hop music, is noted for its use of the falsetto vocal register, with a delivery that is "threatening to fray". The doo wop-inspired duet with Frank Ocean "Superpower" is sung in the lower register of both singers, while employing girl group harmonies similar to Beyoncé's work in Destiny's Child. The love song "XO" uses several vocal techniques to evoke a celebration of love and life, including echo and several hooks. Its ascending chorus lines use call and response, as well as backing vocals of a sing-along crowd, as Beyoncé sings of how her "darkest nights" are enlightened by her lover's face. The album's closing tracks are midtempo ballads "Heaven" and "Blue". "Heaven" is an emotive, piano-led hymn with gospel elements, while "Blue" is built on a piano melody over which Beyoncé sings of the love for her daughter, using her full vocal range.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Throughout 2013, Beyoncé worked on the project in strict secrecy, sharing details of the album with a small circle of people and continually shifting the deadline, which was only finalized a week before its release. She later explained that her intent was to reinstate the idea of an album release as a significant, exciting event that had lost meaning in the face of hype created around singles.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Tourso and his small team of designers were tasked with designing "Beyoncé"s album cover, which he found difficult considering it was a visual album and thus "inundated with imagery". Over three months he considered over a hundred options, only to proceed with his very first idea. He was inspired by the cover of Metallica's eponymous fifth studio album (1991) to create a bold statement, specifically to deviate from a "beauty shot" of Beyoncé which he felt would be expected. They used a font similar to placards used in boxing matches to represent abrasive masculinity, which was contrasted by the greyish-pink font which they described as "a subversion of femininity".


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: In early December 2013, Beyoncé and her management company Parkwood Entertainment held meetings concerning its release with executives from Columbia Records and the iTunes Store, using the code name "Lily" for the album. Meetings were also held with Facebook executives in regard to advertising that resulted in the album benefiting from the social network's then new "Auto Play" feature for videos. On December 9, 2013, Rob Stringer, Chairman of Columbia Records, knowingly told media that the album would be released at some point in 2014 and it would be "monumental". On December 13, 2013, the album was released in the early hours of the morning without any prior announcement or promotion exclusively on the iTunes Store. The singer commented that she was "bored" of her music being marketed as it had been done previously, and wanted its release to be a different experience for her fans. The album was available exclusively on iTunes Stores until December 20, 2013, when physical copies were distributed to other retailers. Parkwood Entertainment had a seventy-two-hour turnaround from the moment the album was released online to prepare its physical release.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: As soon as the album became exclusively available to iTunes Stores, Sony Music handed down an edict that forbade retailers to put the album up for pre-order, as to further protect the exclusivity with the iTunes Store. It was then reported that American retailers Target and Amazon Music refused to sell the physical copies of the album. According to a Target spokesperson, the store was only interested in retailing albums that were released digitally and physically simultaneously. On December 21, 2013, all the videos from the album were screened at the SVA Theater in New York City.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: After the album's release, Beyoncé performed "XO" during the remaining stops of the North American leg of The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour in December 2013. In early 2014, she performed "Drunk in Love" for the first time at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards on January 26. "XO"'s first televised performance was at the 2014 BRIT Awards on February 19, marking her first performance at the ceremony since the one held in 2004. Later that month, songs from the album were added to the set list of the second European leg of The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour. All the music videos from the album were screened at the 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival on June 13 along with commentary from three of the videos' directors who were present at the ceremony. To further promote the album, Beyoncé embarked on her first co-headlining stadium tour with Jay-Z. The On the Run Tour kicked off in Miami on June 25, 2014, and ended in Paris on September 13, 2014. A pre-recorded performance of "Partition" from the tour was broadcast at the 2014 BET Awards on June 29. Beyoncé performed a sixteen-minute medley of the album's songs at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards on August 24.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: On December 12, 2014, just about one year after the release of "Beyoncé", a short film entitled "Yours and Mine" was uploaded to Beyoncé's website and to YouTube. The entirely black and white spoken-word film, which features behind-the-scenes footage and repurposed imagery from the music videos of "Beyoncé", was described as "a retrospective short film celebrating the one-year anniversary of the self-titled visual album".


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Two lead singles were released from "Beyoncé". "XO" impacted contemporary hit radio in Italy and hot adult contemporary radio in the United States on December 16, 2013. The following day, it impacted urban contemporary, rhythmic contemporary and contemporary hit radio stations in the United States. "XO" peaked at number forty-five on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and reached the top twenty in charts around the world.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: Accompanying the release of "XO", the other lead single "Drunk in Love" was serviced to urban contemporary radio stations in the United States on December 17, 2013. It peaked at number two on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and number one on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Rhythmic charts. "Drunk in Love" also peaked at number seven in New Zealand and number nine in France and the United Kingdom. The song was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting sales of one million digital copies.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: "Partition" impacted urban contemporary radio in the United States on February 25, 2014, as the album's third single. It peaked at number twenty-three on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and number one on the US Dance Club Songs.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: On April 24, 2014, the music video for the fourth single "Pretty Hurts" was made available for streaming via "Time" magazine's official website to accompany Beyoncé's feature as one of the world's most influential people. The song impacted contemporary hit and rhythmic radio in the United States on June 10, 2014 and contemporary hit radio in the United Kingdom on June 23, 2014.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: "Flawless" was released as the fifth and final single from the album. Its remix, featuring Nicki Minaj, was released on August 12, 2014.


title: Beyoncé (album)

text: "Beyoncé" received widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received a high score of 85, based on 34 reviews. Critics generally commended the album as thematically and musically bold, as well as emphasizing its visual aspect and surprise release; many said it was her "magnum opus". Summarizing the album for "Pitchfork", Jillian Mapes calls "Beyoncé" "MJ-level talent met pop-perfectionism in a moment that defined album-cycle disruption [and] a victory lap Bey took as pop feminism's reigning goddess".