title: Primogeniture

text: In 2006, King Juan Carlos I of Spain decreed a reform of the succession to noble titles from male-preference primogeniture to absolute primogeniture.


title: Primogeniture

text: A bill to reform hereditary peerage inheritance law was tabled in 2013 for absolute primogeniture. The Equality (Titles) Bill was socially dubbed the "Downton law/bill" in reference to the British television drama "Downton Abbey", in which the Earl's eldest daughter cannot inherit her father's estate as entrusted, unless all of the adult beneficiaries amend the trust (a legal position established in the 1841 case "Saunders v Vautier"). A Lords' Committee was chosen for Committee Stage, which rejected it.


title: A.P. Bio

text: A.P. Bio is an American comedy television series that premiered on February 1, 2018, on NBC as a mid-season replacement. It aired on NBC for two seasons until June 13, 2019, and moved to Peacock for its subsequent seasons. The series is focused on the everyday lives of the faculty and students of the fictitious Whitlock High School. Mike O'Brien created the series and is a recurring writer. O'Brien is also one of the executive producers alongside Seth Meyers, Lorne Michaels, Andrew Singer, and Michael Shoemaker. Although set in Toledo, Ohio, it is primarily filmed in Los Angeles, California.


title: A.P. Bio

text: The series is centered around Jack Griffin, played by Glenn Howerton. Griffin is a philosophy professor who, after being fired from his Harvard position, returns to his hometown and picks up teaching Advanced Placement Biology all while trying to find opportunities to move out. "A.P. Bio" also features a cast of Lyric Lewis, Mary Sohn, Jean Villepique, Paula Pell, and Patton Oswalt.


title: A.P. Bio

text: "A.P. Bio" was met with mixed reviews on its first season, however following seasons have garnered a much more positive reception. In December 2021, the series was canceled after four seasons.


title: A.P. Bio

text: When disgraced Harvard philosophy professor Jack Griffin (Glenn Howerton) loses his dream job to his rival Miles Leonard (Tom Bennett), he is forced to return to his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, to work as an advanced placement biology teacher at Whitlock High School and live in his late mother's home. He makes it clear to his class that he will not be teaching them any biology. Realizing he has a room full of honor-roll students at his disposal, he decides to use them to get revenge on Miles. Eager to prove that he is still king of the castle, Principal Durbin (Patton Oswalt) struggles to keep Jack under control. In the second season, Jack uses his students to find out how the people of Toledo find happiness in their daily lives, to gather information for what he believes will be a bestselling book.


title: A.P. Bio

text: The series was created by Mike O'Brien for NBC, to debut during the 2017–18 television season. On January 23, 2017, NBC officially ordered the pilot. The series was greenlit on May 11, 2017. It was announced the premiere of the series on February 1, 2018 at 8:30 p.m.


title: A.P. Bio

text: On May 8, 2018, NBC renewed the series for a second season, which premiered on March 7, 2019. On May 24, 2019, NBC canceled the series after two seasons. In July 2019, NBC reversed this decision and renewed the series for a third season, which premiered on NBCUniversal's streaming service, Peacock, on September 3, 2020. On December 17, 2020, Peacock renewed the series for a fourth season, which premiered on September 2, 2021. On December 6, 2021, Peacock canceled the series after four seasons.


title: A.P. Bio

text: In February 2017, it was announced that Mary Sohn and Lyric Lewis had joined the pilot's main cast. In March 2017, it was reported that Aparna Brielle, Glenn Howerton, Patton Oswalt, Nick Peine and Jacob McCarthy had joined the cast in their main roles. On June 12, 2017, it was announced that Tom Bennett had joined as a series regular. On August 1, 2017, it was announced that Jean Villepique had joined as a series regular.


title: A.P. Bio

text: The first season holds a score of 66% with an average rating of 6.34/10 on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 32 reviews. The site's critical consensus states, ""A.P. Bio" has some genuine laughs, but audiences have already seen plenty of authority figures behaving badly—and have a right to expect more from this promising premise and talented cast." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the series a score of 59 out of 100 based on 17 critics.


title: A.P. Bio

text: Writing in "The Hollywood Reporter", Daniel Fienberg commented that "A.P. Bio" had a good cast and "the only thing holding it back is the small quibble that it's not actually all that funny." Margaret Lyons of "The New York Times" called "A.P. Bio" "an abrasive sitcom that isn't merely unfunny, it's also deeply unpleasant." Jen Chaney of Vulture said the series had bright spots but was "conceptually played-out" overall.


title: A.P. Bio

text: The first season of "A.P. Bio" was released on DVD in the United States on August 14, 2018 and in Australia on June 6, 2019


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Russians are the largest ethnic minority in Ukraine. This community forms the largest single Russian community outside of Russia in the world. In the 2001 Ukrainian census, 8,334,100 identified as ethnic Russians (17.3% of the population of Ukraine); this is the combined figure for persons originating from outside of Ukraine and the Ukrainian-born population declaring Russian ethnicity.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Ethnic Russians live throughout Ukraine. They comprise a notable fraction of the overall population in the east and south, a significant minority in the center, and a smaller minority in the west.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The west and the center of the country feature a higher percentage of Russians in cities and industrial centers and much smaller percentage in the overwhelmingly Ukrainophone rural areas. Due to the concentration of the Russians in the cities, as well as for historic reasons, most of the largest cities in the center and the south-east of the country (including Kyiv where Russians amount to 13.1% of the population) remained largely Russophone .


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Russians constitute the majority in Crimea (71.7% in Sevastopol and 58.5% in the Autonomous republic of Crimea), the southern peninsula which the Soviet government transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Outside of Crimea, Russians are the largest ethnic group in Donetsk (48.2%) and Makiyivka (50.8%) in Donetsk Oblast, Ternivka (52.9%) in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Krasnodon (63.3%) and Sverdlovsk (58.7%) and Krasnodonskyi raion (51.7%) and Stanychno-Luhanskyi (61.1%) raion in Luhansk Oblast, Reni (70.54%) and Izmail (43.7%) in Odessa oblast, Putyvl Raion (51.6%) in Sumy Oblast.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: One of the most prominent Russians in Medieval Ukraine (at that time the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) was Ivan Fyodorov, who published the Ostrog Bible and called himself a Muscovite.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In 1599, Tsar Boris Godunov ordered the construction of Tsareborisov on the banks of Oskol River, the first city and the first fortress in Eastern Ukraine. To defend the territory from Tatar raids the Russians built the Belgorod defensive line (1635–1658), and Ukrainians started fleeing to be under its defense.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: More Russian speakers appeared in northern, central and eastern Ukrainian territories during the late 17th century, following the Cossack Rebellion led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky. The Uprising led to a massive movement of Ukrainian settlers to the Sloboda Ukraine region, which converted it from a sparsely inhabited frontier area to one of the major populated regions of the Tsardom of Russia. Following the Treaty of Pereyaslav, Ukrainian Cossacks lands, including the modern northern and eastern parts of Ukraine, became a protectorate of the Tsardom of Russia. This brought the first significant, but still small, wave of Russian settlers into central Ukraine (primarily several thousand soldiers stationed in garrisons, out of a population of approximately 1.2 million non-Russians).


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: At the end of the 18th century, the Russian Empire captured large uninhabited steppe territories from the former Crimean Khanate. The systematic colonization of lands in what became known as Novorossiya (mainly Crimea, Taurida and around Odessa) began. Migrants from many ethnic groups (predominantly Ukrainians and Russians from Russia proper) came to the area. At the same time, the discovery of coal in the Donets Basin also marked the commencement of a large-scale industrialization and an influx of workers from other parts of the Russian Empire.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Nearly all of the major cities of southern and eastern Ukraine were established in this period: Aleksandrovsk (now Zaporizhia; 1770), Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro; 1776), Kherson and Mariupol (1778), Sevastopol (1783), Simferopol and Novoaleksandrovka (Melitopol) (1784), Nikolayev (Mykolaiv; 1789), Odessa (1794), Lugansk (Luhansk; foundation of Luhansk plant in 1795).


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Both Russians and Ukrainians made up the bulk of the migrants – 31.8% and 42.0% respectively. The population of Novorossiya eventually became intermixed, and with Russification being the state policy, the Russian identity dominated in mixed families and communities. The Russian Empire officially regarded Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians as Little, Great and White Russians, which, according to the theory officially accepted in the Imperial Russia, belonged to a single Russian nation, the descendants of the people of Kievan Rus.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In the beginning of the 20th century, Russians were the largest ethnic group in the following cities: Kiev (54.2%), Kharkov (63.1%), Odessa (49.09%), Mykolaiv (66.33%), Mariupol (63.22%), Lugansk (68.16%), Berdyansk (66.05%), Kherson (47.21%), Melitopol (42.8%), Yekaterinoslav (41.78%), Kropyvnytskyi (34.64%), Pavlohrad (34.36%), Simferopol (45.64%), Feodosiya (46.84%), Yalta (66.17%), Kerch (57.8%), Sevastopol (63.46%), Chuhuiv (86%).


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The first Russian Empire Census, conducted in 1897, showed extensive usage (and in some cases dominance) of the Little Russian, a contemporary term for the Ukrainian language, in the nine south-western Governorates and Kuban. Thus, when the Central Rada officials were outlining the future borders of the new Ukrainian state they took the results of the census in regards to the language and religion as determining factors. The ethnographic borders of Ukraine thus turned out to be almost twice as large as the original Bohdan Khmelnytsky State incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 17-18th centuries.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: During World War I, a strong national movement managed to obtain some autonomous rights from the Russian government in Saint Petersburg. However, the October Revolution brought big changes for the new Russian Republic. Ukraine became a battleground between the two main Russian war factions during the Russian Civil War (1918–1922), the Communist Reds (Red Army) and the Anti-Bolshevik Whites (Volunteer Army).


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The October Revolution also found its echo amongst the extensive working class, and several Soviet Republics were formed by the Bolsheviks in Ukraine: the Ukrainian People's Socialist Republic, Soviet Socialist Republic of Taurida, Odessa Soviet Republic and the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The Russian SFSR government supported military intervention against the Ukrainian People's Republic, which at different periods controlled most of the territory of present-day Ukraine with the exception of Crimea and Western Ukraine. Although there were differences between Ukrainian Bolsheviks initially, which resulted in the proclamation of several Soviet Republics in 1917, later, due in large part to pressure from Vladimir Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders, one Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The Ukrainian SSR was "de jure" a separate state until the formation of the USSR in 1922 and survived until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Lenin insisted that ignoring the national question in Ukraine would endanger the support of the Revolution among the Ukrainian population and thus new borders of Soviet Ukraine were established to the extent that the Ukrainian People's Republic was claiming in 1918. The new borders completely included Novorossiya (including the short-lived Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic) and other neighboring provinces, which contained a substantial number of ethnic Russians.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In his 1923 speech devoted to the national and ethnic issues in the party and state affairs, Joseph Stalin identified several obstacles in implementing the national program of the party. Those were the "dominant-nation chauvinism", "economic and cultural inequality" of the nationalities and the "survivals of nationalism among a number of nations which have borne the heavy yoke of national oppression".


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In Ukraine's case, both threats came, respectfully, from the south and the east: Novorossiya with its historically strong Russian cultural influence, and the traditional Ukrainian center and west. These considerations brought about a policy of Ukrainization, to simultaneously break the remains of the Great Russian attitude and to gain popularity among the Ukrainian population, thus recognizing their dominance of the republic. The Ukrainian language was mandatory for most jobs, and its teaching became compulsory in all schools.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: By the early 1930s attitudes towards the policy of Ukrainization had changed within the Soviet leadership. In 1933 Stalin declared that local nationalism was the main threat to Soviet unity. Consequently, many changes introduced during the Ukrainization period were reversed: Russian language schools, libraries and newspapers were restored and even increased in number. Changes were brought territorially as well, forcing the Ukrainian SSR to cede some territories to the RSFSR. Thousands of ethnic Ukrainians were deported to the far east of the Soviet Union, numerous villages with Ukrainian majority were eliminated with Holodomor, while remaining Ukrainians were subjected to discrimination. During this period parents in the Ukrainian SSR could choose to send their children whose native language was not Ukrainian to schools with Russian as the primary language of instruction.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The territory of Ukraine was one of the main battlefields during World War II, and its population, including Russians, significantly decreased. The infrastructure was heavily damaged and it required human and capital resources to be rebuilt. This compounded with depopulation caused by two famines of 1931–1932 and a third in 1947 to leave the territory with a greatly reduced population. A large portion of the wave of new migrants to industrialize, integrate and Sovietize the recently acquired western Ukrainian territories were ethnic Russians who mostly settled around industrial centers and military garrisons. This increased the proportion of the Russian speaking population.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Near the end of the War, the entire population of Crimean Tatars (numbering up to a quarter of a million) was expelled from their homeland in Crimea to Central Asia, under accusations of collaborations with Germans. The Crimea was repopulated by the new wave of Russian and Ukrainian settlers and the Russian proportion of the population of Crimea went up significantly (from 47.7% in 1937 to 61.6% in 1993) and the Ukrainian proportion doubled (12.8% in 1937 and 23.6% in 1993).


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The Ukrainian language remained a mandatory subject of study in all Russian schools, but in many government offices preference was given to the Russian language that gave an additional impetus to the advancement of Russification. The 1979 census showed that only one third of ethnic Russians spoke the Ukrainian language fluently.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued the decree on the transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. This action increased the ethnic Russian population of Ukraine by almost a million people. Many Russian politicians considered the transfer to be controversial. Controversies and legality of the transfer remained a sore point in relations between Ukraine and Russia for a few years, and in particular in the internal politics in Crimea. However, in a 1997 treaty between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, Russia recognized Ukraine's borders and accepted Ukraine's sovereignty over Crimea.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became an independent state. This independence was supported by the referendum in all regions of Ukrainian SSR, including those with large Russian populations. A study of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine found that in 1991, 75% of ethnic Russians in Ukraine no longer identified themselves with the Russian nation. In the December 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum 55% of the ethnic Russians in Ukraine voted for independence.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The return of Crimean Tatars has resulted in several high-profile clashes over land ownership and employment rights.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In 1994 a referendum took place in the Donetsk Oblast and the Luhansk Oblast, with around 90% supporting the Russian language gaining status of an official language alongside Ukrainian, and for the Russian language to be an official language on a regional level; however, the referendum was annulled by the Kyiv government.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Much controversy has surrounded the reduction of schools with Russian as their main language of instruction. In 1989, there were 4,633 schools with Russian as the main instruction language, and by 2001 this number fell to 2,001 schools or 11.8% of the total in the country. A significant number of these Russian schools were converted into schools in with both Russian and Ukrainian language classes. By 2007, 20% of pupils in public schools studied in Russian classes.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Some regions such as Rivne Oblast have no schools with Russian only instruction left, but only Russian classes provided in the mixed Russian-Ukrainian schools. As of May, 2007, only seven schools with Russian as the main language of instruction are left in Kyiv, with 17 more mixed language schools totaling 8,000 pupils, with the rest of the pupils attending the schools with Ukrainian being the only language of instruction. Among the latter pupils, 45,700 (or 18% of the total) study the Russian language as a separate subject in the largely Russophone Ukrainian capital, although an estimated 70 percent of Ukraine's population nationwide consider that Russian should be taught at secondary schools along with Ukrainian.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The Russian Cultural Center in Lviv has been attacked and vandalized on several occasions. On January 22, 1992, it was raided by UNA-UNSO led by the member of Lviv Oblast Council. UNA-UNSO members searched the building, partially destroyed archives and pushed people out from the building. Their attackers declared that everything in Ukraine belonged to the Ukrainians, so the Moskals and the kikes were not allowed to reside or have property there. The building was vandalized during the Papal Visit to Lviv in 2001, then in 2003 (5 times), 2004 (during the Orange Revolution), 2005, 2006.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: After the Euromaidan events, regions with a large ethnic Russian population have seen the start of Anti-Maidan protests and separatist activity. After being seized by Russian unmarked troops, the Supreme Council of Crimea announced the 2014 Crimean referendum, and sent a request to Russia to send military forces into the Crimea to "protect" the local population from the right-wing Euromaidan protesters, which marked the beginning of the Russian annexation of Crimea. Major Anti-Maidan protests took place in other Russian speaking major cities like Donetsk, Odessa, and Kharkiv. The council of the Donetsk Oblast voted to have a referendum to decide the future of the oblast.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: On 3 March, a number of people started storming Donetsk Oblast administrative building, waving Russian flags and shouting ″Russia!″ and ″Berkut are heroes!″. The police did not offer resistance. The Luhansk Regional Council voted to demand giving Russian language the status of second official language, stopping ″persecution of Berkut fighters″, disarming Maidan self-defense units and banning a number far-right political organizations like Svoboda and UNA-UNSO. If the authorities failed to comply with the demands, the Oblast council reserved itself the ″right to ask for help from the brotherly people of the Russian Federation.″


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The pro-Russian protests in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of the 2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine escalated into an armed separatist insurgency. This led the Ukrainian government to launch a military counter-offensive against the insurgents in April 2014. During this war Luhansk and Donetsk, cities with a large ethnic Russian population, have seen heavy shelling. According to the United Nations, 730,000 refugees from the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts have fled to Russia since the beginning of 2014. Approximately 14,200 people, including 3,404 civilians, have died in 2014-2022 because of the war.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In total, according to a 2007 country-wide survey by the Institute of Sociology, only 0.5% of the respondents describe as belonging to a group that faces discrimination by language. Furthermore, in a poll held October 2008, 42.8% of the Ukrainian respondents said they regard Russia as “very good” while 44.9% said their attitude was “good" (87% positive).


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: According to the Institute of Sociology surveys conducted yearly between 1995 and 2005, the percentage of respondents who have encountered cases of ethnic-based discrimination against Russians during the preceding year has consistently been low (mostly in single digits), with no noticeable difference when compared with the number of incidents directed against any other nation, including the Ukrainians and the Jews. According to the 2007 Comparative Survey of Ukraine and Europe only 0.1% of Ukrainian residents consider themselves belonging to a group which is discriminated by nationality. However, by April 2017 in a public opinion survey conducted by Rating Group Ukraine, 57 percent of Ukrainians polled expressed a very cold or cold attitude toward Russia, as opposed to only 17 percent who expressed a very warm or warm attitude.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Some surveys indicate that Russians are not socially distanced in Ukraine. The indicator of the willingness of Ukraine's residents to participate in social contacts of varying degrees of closeness with different ethnic groups (the Bogardus Social Distance Scale) calculated based on the yearly sociological surveys has been consistently showing that Russians are, on the average, least socially distanced within Ukraine except the Ukrainians themselves. The same survey has shown that, in fact, that Ukrainian people are slightly more comfortable accepting Russians into their families than they are accepting Ukrainians living abroad. Such social attitude correlates with the political one as the surveys taken yearly between 1997 and 2005 consistently indicated that the attitude to the idea of Ukraine joining the union of Russia and Belarus is more positive (slightly over 50%) than negative (slightly under 30%).


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Since Dignity Revolution the Russian government dramatically increased the anti-opposition campaign which resulted in politically motivated cases against Russian liberal opposition. As a result, many notable Russians moved to Ukraine to avoid political prosecution in Russia.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Notable examples are Ilya Ponomaryov (the only member of parliament who voted against the annexation of Crimea), journalists Matvey Ganapolsky, Arkadiy Babchenko, Evgeny Kiselyov and others.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: According to the statistics presented by the United Nation's Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in 2014 approximately 140 Russians applied for political asylum in Ukraine. In the first six months of 2015 this number grew by fifty people more.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In the same time Ukrainian migration policies are complicated and limit the number of Russians who can successfully apply for a refugee status.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The ultra-nationalist political party "Svoboda" has invoked radical Russophobic rhetoric and has electoral support enough to garner majority support in local councils, as seen in the Ternopil regional council in Western Ukraine. In 2004 Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the "Svoboda" party, urged his party to fight "the Moscow-Jewish mafia" ruling Ukraine. "Svoboda" members held senior positions in Ukraine's government in 2014. But the party lost 30 seats of the 37 seats (its first seats in the Ukrainian Parliament it had won in the 2012 parliamentary election) in the late October 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election and did not return to Ukraine's government.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: According to 2006 survey by Research & Branding Group (Donetsk) 39% of Ukrainian citizens think that the rights of the Russophones are violated because the Russian language is not official in the country, whereas 38% of the citizens have the opposite position. According to annual surveys by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences 43.9% to 52.0% of the total population of Ukraine supports the idea of granting the status of state language to Russian. At the same time, this is not viewed as an important issue by most of Ukraine's citizens. On a cross-national survey involving ranking the 30 important political issues, the legal status of the Russian language was ranked 26th, with only 8% of respondents (concentrated primarily in Crimea and Donetsk) feeling that this was an important issue.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Russian continues to dominate in several regions and in Ukrainian businesses, in leading Ukrainian magazines, and other printed media. Russian language in Ukraine still dominates the everyday life in some areas of the country.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: On February 23, 2014, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a bill to repeal the 2012 law on minority languages, which—if signed by the Ukrainian President—would have established Ukrainian as the sole official state language of all Ukraine, including Crimea which is populated by a Russian-speaking majority. Repeal of the law was met with great disdain in Southern and Eastern Ukraine. "The Christian Science Monitor" reported: "The [adoption of this bill] only served to infuriate Russian-speaking regions, [who] saw the move as more evidence that the antigovernment protests in Kiev that toppled Yanukovich's government were intent on pressing for a nationalistic agenda." A proposal to repeal the law was vetoed on 28 February 2014 by acting President Oleksandr Turchynov. On 28 February 2018 the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled the 2012 law on minority languages unconstitutional.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: On September 25, 2017, a new law on education was signed by President Petro Poroshenko (draft approved by Rada on September 5, 2017) which says that Ukrainian language is the language of education at all levels except for one or more subjects that are allowed to be taught in two or more languages, namely English or one of the other official languages of the European Union. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. According to the "New Europe":


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The "Unian" reported that "A ban on the use of cultural products, namely movies, books, songs, etc., in the Russian language in the public has been introduced" in the Lviv Oblast in September 2018.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Some authors born in Ukraine who write in the Russian language, notably Marina and Sergey Dyachenko and Vera Kamsha, were born in Ukraine, but moved to Russia at some point. Marina and Sergey Dyachenko moved to California.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In general the population of ethnic Russians in Ukraine increased due to assimilation and in-migration between 1897 and 1939 despite the famine, war and Revolution. Since 1991 it has decreased drastically in all regions, both quantitatively and proportionally. Ukraine in general lost 3 million Russians, or a little over one-quarter of all Russians living there in the 10-year period between 1991 and 2001, dropping from over 22% of the population of Ukraine to just over 17%. In the past 15 years since 2001, a further drop of Russian numbers has continued.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Several factors have affected this – most Russians lived in urban centres in Soviet times and thus were hit the hardest by the economic hardships of the 1990s. Some chose to emigrate from Ukraine to (mostly) Russia or to the West. Finally some of those who were counted as Russians in Soviet times declared themselves Ukrainian during the last census.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The Russian population is also hit by the factors that affected all the population of Ukraine, such as low birth rate and high death rate.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: 2001 census showed that 95.9% of Russians in Ukraine consider the Russian language to be native for them, 3.9% named Ukrainian to be their native language. The majority, 59.6% of Ukrainian Russians were born in Ukraine. They constitute 22.4% of all urban population and 6.9% of rural population in the country.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Women make up 55.1% of Russians, men are 44.9%. The average age of Russians in Ukraine is 41.9 years. The imbalance in sexual and age structure intensifies in western and central regions. In these regions the Russians are concentrated in the industrial centers, particularly the oblast centres.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The majority of the Russians are Christians of the Eastern Orthodox Faith and predominantly belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a former Ukrainian exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, which received an ecclesiastical Autonomy from the latter on October 27, 1990.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: There are small minorities of Old Believers, notably Lipovans, as well as Protestants, indigenous Spiritual Christians, and Catholics among Russians. In addition, there is a sizable portion of those who consider themselves atheists.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Political parties whose electoral platforms are crafted specifically to cater to the Russian voters' sentiments fared exceptionally well. Until the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election several of Ukraine's elections, political parties that call for closer ties with Russia received a higher percentage of votes in the areas where Russian-speaking population predominate.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Parties like the Party of Regions, Communist Party of Ukraine and the Progressive Socialist Party were particularly popular in Crimea, Southern and Southeastern regions of Ukraine. In the 2002 parliamentary election, the mainstream Party of Regions, with a stronghold based on Eastern and Southern Ukraine came first with 32.14%, ahead of its two nationally conscious main rivals, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (22.29%) and Our Ukraine Bloc (13.95%), while also Russophile Communist Party of Ukraine collected 3.66% and the radically pro-Russian Nataliya Vitrenko Bloc 2.93% coming closest of the small parties to overcoming the 3% barrier.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In the 2007 parliamentary election, the Party of Regions came first with 34.37% (losing 130,000 votes), the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc second with 31.71% (winning 1.5 million votes), the Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc third with 14.15% (losing 238,000 votes), the Communist Party of Ukraine fourth with 5.39% (winning 327,000 votes) while the Nataliya Vitrenko Bloc dropped to 1.32%. Although the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc attracted most of its voters from Western Ukrainian, Ukrainian-speaking provinces (Oblasts), it had in recent years recruited several politicians from Russian-speaking provinces like Crimea (Lyudmyla Denisova) and Luhansk Oblast (Natalia Korolevska). In the 2012 parliamentary election Party of Regions again won 30% and the largest number of seats while Fatherland (successor to Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc) came second with 25.54%. The Communist Party of Ukraine raised its percentage of the votes in this election to 13.18%.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In the 2014 parliamentary election the Party of Regions successor Opposition Bloc was overrun by the non-pro-Russian Petro Poroshenko Bloc in southern regions. In the election Opposition Bloc scored 9.43%, finishing fourth. Opposition Bloc gained most votes East Ukraine, but scored second best in former Party of Regions stronghold South Ukraine (trailing behind Petro Poroshenko Bloc). The Communist Party of Ukraine was eliminated from representation in the election because it failed to overcome the 5% election threshold with its 3.87% of the votes. Because of the war in Donbas and the unilateral annexation of Crimea by Russia elections were not held in Crimea and also not in large parts of Donbas, both were before stronghold of the Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Whereas there are several political parties and movements in Ukraine that advocate a moderate pro-Russian policy, there are also a few pro-Russian political organizations that are considered radical by observers. Many of them state their agenda as an opposition to Ukrainian independence and openly advocate for the restoration of the Russian Empire. These movements are numerically small, but their impact on the society is easy to overestimate due to their vocal activity that generates much media coverage and commentary from politicians at the highest levels.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: The actions organized by these organizations are most visible in the Ukrainian part of historic Novorossiya ("New Russia") in the south of Ukraine and in the Crimea, a region in which in some areas Russians are the largest ethnic group. As ethnic Russians constitute a significant part of the population in these largely Russophone parts of southern Ukraine (and a majority in the Crimea), these territories maintain particularly strong historic ties with Russia on the human level. Thus, a stronger than elsewhere in the country pro-Russian political sentiment makes the area a more fertile ground for the radical pro-Russian movements that are not as common elsewhere in the country.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: As of December 2009 clashes between Ukrainian nationalists and pro-Russian organisations do sometimes take place.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Among such movements are the youth organizations, the Proryv (literally the "Breakthrough") and the Eurasian Youth Movement (ESM). Both movements' registration and legal status have been challenged in courts; and the leader of Proryv, a Russian citizen, was expelled from Ukraine, declared "persona non grata" and barred from entering the country again. Alexander Dugin, the Moscow-based leader of the ESM and his associate Pavel Zariffulin have also been barred from travelling to Ukraine because of their involvement in the activities of these organizations, although bans have been later lifted and reinstated again.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: These movements openly state their mission as the disintegration of Ukraine and restoration of Russia within the borders of the former Russian Empire and, reportedly, have received regular encouragement and monetary support from Russia's politically connected businessmen. These organizations have been known not only for their pro-Russian activities, but have been also accused of organising massive acts of protest.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Some observers point out the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church's support of these movements and parties in Ukraine, especially in Crimea. The publications and protest actions of these organizations feature strongly pro-Russian and radically anti-NATO messages, invoking the rhetoric of "Ukrainian-Russian historic unity", "NATO criminality", and other similar claims.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: Some observers link the resurgence of radical Russian organizations in Ukraine with Kremlin's fear that the Orange Revolution in Ukraine could be exported to Russia, and addressing that possibility has been at the forefront of these movements' activities.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: As a branch of a similar Russian organization the Eurasian Youth Union (ESM) has been organizing annual Russian Marches. The November 2006 "Russian march" in Kyiv, the capital, gathered 40 participants, but after the participants attacked the riot police, it was forced to interfere and several participants from were arrested.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In Odessa and Crimean cities the November 2006 "Russian marches" drew more participants, with 150–200 participants in Odessa, and 500 in Simferopol and went more peacefully. The marchers were calling for the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox Church unity as well as the national unity between Russia and Ukraine. In Odessa the march of about 200 people carried anti-Western, pro-Russian slogans and religious symbols.


title: Russians in Ukraine

text: In March 2022, a week after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 82% of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine said they did not believe that any part of Ukraine was rightfully part of Russia, according to Lord Ashcroft's polls which did not include Crimea and the separatist-controlled part of Donbas. 65% of Ukrainians – including 88% of those of Russian ethnicity – agreed that "despite our differences there is more that unites ethnic Russians living in Ukraine and Ukrainians than divides us."


title: Butter chicken

text: Butter chicken, traditionally known as murgh makhani (), is an Indian dish originating in New Delhi. It is a type of curry made from chicken with a spiced tomato and butter ("makhan") sauce. Its sauce is known for its rich texture. It is similar to chicken tikka masala, which uses a tomato paste.


title: Butter chicken

text: The curry was developed in New Delhi in the 1950s after the Partition of India by Kundan Lal Jaggi and Kundan Lal Gujral, who were both Punjabi Hindu migrants from Peshawar, as well as the founders of the Moti Mahal restaurant in the Daryaganj neighbourhood of Old Delhi. The curry was made "by chance" by mixing leftover tandoori chicken in a tomato gravy, rich in butter ("makhan"). In 1974, a recipe was published for "Murgh makhanii (Tandoori chicken cooked in butter and tomato sauce)". In 1975, the English phrase "butter chicken" curry first appeared in print, as a specialty of the house at Gaylord Indian restaurant in Manhattan. In Toronto and the Caribbean, it can be found as a filling in pizza, poutine, wraps, roti, or rolls, while in Australia, and New Zealand, it is also eaten as a pie filling. The curry is common in India, Pakistan and many other countries where a South Asian diaspora is present.


title: Butter chicken

text: Chicken is marinated for several hours in a mixture of lemon juice, dahi (yogurt), Kashmiri red chili, salt, garam masala, ginger paste, and garlic paste.


title: Butter chicken

text: The marinated chicken is cooked in a tandoor (traditional clay oven), but may be grilled, oven-roasted, or pan-fried. It is served in a mild curry sauce that includes butter. The sauce is a tomato, garlic, and ginger-based sauce that is simmered until smooth and much of the water has evaporated. There are many variations on the composition and spicing of the sauce, which is sieved so that it is velvety smooth. Spices may include cardamom, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, pepper, garam masala, and fenugreek (Punjabi/Hindi: kasuri methi). Cashew paste may be used as a thickener and it is finally garnished with coriander.


title: Alex Kurtzman

text: Alexander Hilary Kurtzman (born September 7, 1973) is an American filmmaker. He is best known for his work on the "Star Trek" franchise since 2009, co-writing the scripts to "Transformers" (2007), "" and "Star Trek" (2009), "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013), and "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (2014) with his writing and producing partner Roberto Orci, and directing and co-writing "The Mummy" (2017). He'd made his directorial debut with "People Like Us" (2012), co-written by him, Orci, and Jody Lambert from a story by him.


title: Alex Kurtzman

text: Kurtzman is known, alongside Orci, for frequently collaborating with Michael Bay and J.J. Abrams, as well as co-creating the more recent "Star Trek" shows, including "", "", and "".


title: Alex Kurtzman

text: Kurtzman was born into a Jewish family and raised in Los Angeles, California. His longtime screenwriting partner Roberto Orci was his best friend in high school.


title: Alex Kurtzman

text: Kurtzman first teamed with Orci on the syndicated series "," for the television unit of Pacific Renaissance Pictures, then operating out of Universal International. After they produced several storylines to cope with the absence of lead actor Kevin Sorbo following a stroke that Sorbo had suffered during the fourth season, Kurtzman and Orci, both aged 24, were placed in charge of the show. They moved into films after they were asked to rewrite Michael Bay's "The Island." The film earned nearly $163 million at the worldwide box office, on a budget of $126 million, which was enough of a success that they were brought in to write Bay's "Transformers," which earned $710 million. Though "The Island," "Transformers" and "" were not particularly well received by critics, the three films earned a combined $1.7 billion. They co-created the Fox TV series "Fringe" in 2008 along with J. J. Abrams. After the pilot, Kurtzman served as consulting producer on the show for the remainder of its run. They then co-wrote the 2009 film "Star Trek".


title: Alex Kurtzman

text: In 2011, "Forbes" magazine described Orci and Kurtzman as "Hollywood's Secret Weapons" as, over the course of the previous six years, their films had grossed a combined total of over $3 billion at the box office. The partnership also wrote "People Like Us," originally known as "Welcome to People", which was Kurtzman's theatrical directorial debut.


title: Alex Kurtzman

text: Kurtzman has frequently worked with a tight-knit group of film professionals which include J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Adam Horowitz, Roberto Orci, Edward Kitsis, Andre Nemec, Josh Appelbaum, Jeff Pinkner, and Bryan Burk. In April 2014, both Orci and Kurtzman confirmed to "Variety" that they would no longer work together on film projects; they added that they would still work together—but only on television projects.


title: Alex Kurtzman

text: In 2018, Kurtzman signed a new five-year deal with CBS Television Studios to oversee and expand the "Star Trek" franchise on television, including serving as executive producer on "" (which he also co-showruns with Michelle Paradise), "", "", and "".


title: Alex Kurtzman

text: In August 2021, Kurtzman and his production company Secret Hideout extended their overall deal with CBS Studios through 2026.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Renny Harlin (born 15 March 1959) is a Finnish film director, producer, and screenwriter who has made his career in Hollywood and China. His best-known films include "", "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane", "Die Hard 2", "Cliffhanger", "The Long Kiss Goodnight", and "Deep Blue Sea".


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin's films have grossed over $520 million in the United States and over $1.2 billion in the worldwide aggregate box office, making him the 151st highest-grossing director in the global film market , and the most internationally successful Finnish filmmaker in terms of revenue. His 1993 film "Cliffhanger" is in the "Guinness Book of World Records" for the costliest aerial stunt ever performed. His 1995 film "Cutthroat Island" held the Guinness World Record for the former category "Largest box office loss".


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin was born Renny Lauri Mauritz Harjola in Riihimäki, Finland. His father was Oiva Harjola (formerly Harlin), a chief physician at Riihimäki Hospital, and his mother was Liisa Koskiluoma, a nurse. Since 1987, Renny's surname has been Harlin, his father's original surname. Renny has a half-brother, Veli-Pekka Harjola, who competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics in sprint canoeing.


title: Renny Harlin

text: After studying at the University of Art and Design Helsinki, Harlin started his career in the film business in the beginning of the 1980s, directing commercials and company films for companies like Shell. Later, he worked as a buyer for a Finnish film distributor and met fellow Finn Markus Selin in Los Angeles in 1982. They became friends and started writing a screenplay called "Arctic Heat", which later evolved into "Born American", with Mike Norris in the leading role. They secured financing from the U.S., and in 1986, "Born American" became the most expensive Finnish film ever. It opened in the U.S. in over 1,000 theaters. By July 9, 1986, he set up his own production company with partner Markus Selin, Larmark Productions, with the first two projects went low-budget, and it was a Los Angeles-based production company.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin moved to Los Angeles and got a job from Irwin Yablans, who offered him a script of "Prison" to film. The film was made with a low budget and distributed with only 42 copies. In the same year, 1988, he got a job from New Line Cinema to direct "" (1988) after meeting producer Robert Shaye, who at first did not want Harlin to direct the film. It became the highest-grossing film in the series until the 2003 release of "Freddy vs. Jason", and its budget was seven times greater than the original "A Nightmare on Elm Street".


title: Renny Harlin

text: After the success of "", Harlin was set to direct the science-fiction thriller "Alien 3". He was attached to the project for a little over a year, but he left due to creative differences with the producers.


title: Renny Harlin

text: The comedy "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane" and the action thriller "Die Hard 2" were edited simultaneously and released a week apart in 1990. The former flopped, but the latter was a commercial success. Harlin achieved critical acclaim the following year when he produced "Rambling Rose" through his own Midnight Sun Pictures for director Martha Coolidge. The film won Best Feature at the 1992 Independent Spirit Awards and earned its star and Harlin's then-partner Laura Dern a Best Actress Oscar nomination at the 1992 Academy Awards.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin, Markus Selin and a number of other businessmen founded the indoor amusement park Planet FunFun in Kerava, Finland, in 1992, which included everything from a tropical park to a cinema park, the latter of which Harlin also gave his own special stamp to by loaning his film sets and props to special theme rooms. The park also hosted sports competitions and filmed television series. However Planet FunFun was short-lived, closing in 1995.


title: Renny Harlin

text: 1993's action thriller "Cliffhanger" was Harlin's first film with Sylvester Stallone. Harlin's career suffered a blow with the pirate adventure film "Cutthroat Island" in 1995, which starred Harlin's then-wife, Geena Davis. "Cutthroat Island" was one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time, losing $147 million and leading to the bankruptcy of Carolco Pictures. Harlin did go on to have moderate success with "Long Kiss Goodnight", starring Samuel L. Jackson and Davis in 1996, and the science fiction horror film "Deep Blue Sea" in 1999.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin wanted to direct a movie based on Formula One, but unable to secure the rights, he instead produced the film "Driven" in 2001, based on the American Champ Car series.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin took over directing the action mystery film "Mindhunters" when the original director Peter Howitt dropped out, but the release was delayed by studio conflicts. Harlin went on to re-shoot a more traditional horror version of "" (2004), after the studio was unhappy with the version cut by director Paul Schrader, which was more of a psychological drama. "Mindhunters" was released in the US in 2005.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin directed the WWE Studios action movie "12 Rounds", starring John Cena. It was released in March 2009. In 2009, Harlin directed an independent war film in Georgia. The film, "5 Days of War", was a story about the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia in the region of South Ossetia. The film included real-life figures, including Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, played by Andy García.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin next directed the 2013 film "Devil's Pass", set in Russia's Ural Mountains and loosely based on the Dyatlov Pass incident in 1959, when nine experienced hikers were found dead. Harlin then directed "The Legend of Hercules", which opened in theatres on 10 January 2014. One of two Hercules movies released in 2014 – the other being "Hercules", starring Dwayne Johnson – it was critically panned and was a box-office bomb.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin directed the 2016 action comedy film "Skiptrace", which starred Jackie Chan alongside Johnny Knoxville and Fan Bingbing. He then directed the 2018 film "Legend of the Ancient Sword" for Alibaba Pictures, based on a Chinese role-playing video game. The film was a box-office bomb, grossing only $1.25 million against a budget of $11 million. More recently, his film "The Misfits" received U.S. and international deals.


title: Renny Harlin

text: In 2021, he was selected as jury member at 11th Beijing International Film Festival for Tiantan Awards.


title: Renny Harlin

text: In 1999, Harlin began developing the action-comedy "Nosebleed" at New Line Cinema"," starring Jackie Chan as a window washer who foils a terrorist attack to destroy the World Trade Center. The film was delayed after changing studios to MGM in May 2001. After the September 11 attacks the plot was drastically rewritten ultimately before being completely shelved. Chan later told "Oriental Daily News" that the film was scheduled to begin filming at the North Tower less than two hours before it was hit by American Airlines Flight 11, and that he only escaped the attack because he made a last-minute decision to travel to Toronto to begin filming "The Tuxedo" instead. However, Chan's claim has been criticized as improbable since the production was delayed after the change in studios and since he was contracted for the production of "The Tuxedo" in Toronto months before the attacks.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin's next project after "Driven" was to be a movie adaptation of the Ray Bradbury short story "A Sound of Thunder", but Harlin left the project after a disagreement with Bradbury. Although the director was changed, Harlin was credited as a producer when the finished film was released in 2005.


title: Renny Harlin

text: In 2006, Harlin collaborated with Markus Selin to direct a biopic of the Finnish President and Marshal of Finland Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, but budget constraints put the project on hold. Instead, Harlin made another foray into low-budget horror with "The Covenant", which was another moderate commercial success. In 2007 the Mannerheim film project resumed temporarily and Harlin returned to Finland. The screenplay was written by Heikki Vihinen and Marko Leino, and was scheduled to be the largest film production in Finnish history. Production began in 2008 with Mikko Nousiainen starring as Mannerheim, and the film was to premiere in Helsinki on January 15, 2010. However, 30% of the funding was cut by one of the financiers due to the Great Recession, and the delay meant that the time window for shooting the winter scenes during the spring of 2009 passed. Pre-production finally commenced in 2010, and the project was assigned to Dome Karukoski in August 2011.


title: Renny Harlin

text: In 2007, it was announced that Harlin would direct an adaptation of the comic-book series "Brodie's Law".


title: Renny Harlin

text: On 16 June 2017 it was announced Harlin will direct "Hanging Coffins" for Shanghai Film Group and Shanghai New Wave Films. On 18 June 2017, it was announced Harlin will direct "Operation Somalia". The film's story, based on true events, revolves around a rescue operation against Somali pirates mounted by Chinese Special Operations Forces.


title: Renny Harlin

text: On 8 May 2018, it was announced Harlin will direct "Solara", a Chinese sci-fi epic revolving around an international team that must work together to save Earth from a global catastrophe. On 18 June 2018 it was announced Harlin will direct "Operation Wild".


title: Renny Harlin

text: On January 19, 2021, it was announced that Harlin will direct the new "Inspector Palmu" film, based on a character created by Finnish writer Mika Waltari.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin was married to actress Geena Davis from 1993 to 1998. Harlin was unfaithful to Davis and she filed for divorce shortly after her personal secretary, Tiffany Bowne, gave birth to Harlin's first child, Luukas "Luke" Harlin, in August 1997. Since September 2021, Harlin has been married to fitness athlete and school teacher Johanna Harlin née Kokkila. They have a baby girl who was born in Miami, Florida, in July 2022.


title: Renny Harlin

text: Harlin lived in the United States from the mid-1980s until 2014, when he moved to China. After Harlin finished the shooting of the Finnish film "" in 2020, he moved to Sofia, Bulgaria.


title: Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States

text: In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws (also known as miscegenation laws) were laws passed by most states that prohibited interracial marriage, and in some cases also prohibited interracial sexual relations. Some such laws predate the establishment of the United States, some dating to the later 17th or early 18th century, a century or more after the complete racialization of slavery. Nine states never enacted such laws; 25 states had repealed their laws by 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in "Loving v. Virginia" that such laws were unconstitutional (via the 14th Amendment adopted in 1868) in the remaining 16 states. The term miscegenation was first used in 1863, during the American Civil War, by journalists to discredit the abolitionist movement by stirring up debate over the prospect of interracial marriage after the abolition of slavery.


text: Typically defining mixed-race marriages or sexual relations as a felony, these laws also prohibited the issuance of marriage licenses and the solemnization of weddings between mixed-race couples and prohibited the officiation of such ceremonies. Sometimes, the individuals attempting to marry would not be held guilty of miscegenation itself, but felony charges of adultery or fornication would be brought against them instead. All anti-miscegenation laws banned marriage between Whites and non-White groups, primarily Black people, but often also Native Americans and Asian Americans.


text: In many states, anti-miscegenation laws also criminalized cohabitation and sex between Whites and non-Whites. In addition, Oklahoma in 1908 banned marriage "between a person of African descent" and "any person not of African descent"; Louisiana in 1920 banned marriage between Native Americans and African Americans (and from 1920 to 1942, concubinage as well); and Maryland in 1935 banned marriages between Black people and Filipinos. While anti-miscegenation laws are often regarded as a Southern phenomenon, most states of the Western United States and the Great Plains also enacted them.


text: Although anti-miscegenation amendments were proposed in United States Congress in 1871, 1912–1913 and 1928, a nationwide law against mixed-race marriages was never enacted. Prior to the California Supreme Court's ruling in "Perez v. Sharp" (1948), no court in the United States had ever struck down a ban on interracial marriage. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court (the Warren Court) unanimously ruled in "Loving v. Virginia" that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional. After "Loving", the remaining state anti-miscegenation laws were repealed; the last state to repeal its laws against interracial marriage was Alabama in 2000.


text: The first laws criminalizing marriage and sex between Whites and non-Whites were enacted in the colonial era in the colonies of Virginia and Maryland, which depended economically on slavery.


text: At first, in the 1660s, the first laws in Virginia and Maryland regulating marriage between Whites and Black people only pertained to the marriages of Whites to Black (and mulatto) enslaved people and indentured servants. In 1664, Maryland criminalized such marriages—the 1681 marriage of Irish-born Nell Butler to an enslaved African man was an early example of the application of this law. The Virginian House of Burgesses passed a law in 1691 forbidding free Black people and Whites to intermarry, followed by Maryland in 1692. This was the first time in American history that a law was invented that restricted access to marriage partners solely on the basis of "race", not class or condition of servitude. Later these laws also spread to colonies with fewer enslaved and free Black people, such as Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Moreover, after the independence of the United States had been established, similar laws were enacted in territories and states which outlawed slavery.


text: A sizable number of the indentured servants in the Thirteen Colonies were brought over from the Indian subcontinent by the East India Company. Anti-miscegenation laws discouraging interracial marriage between White Americans and non-Whites affected South Asian immigrants as early as the 17th century. For example, a Eurasian daughter born to an Indian father and Irish mother in Maryland in 1680 was classified as a "mulatto" and sold into slavery. Anti-miscegenation laws there continued into the early 20th century. For example, the Bengali revolutionary Tarak Nath Das's White American wife, Mary Keatinge Morse, was stripped of her American citizenship for her marriage to an "alien ineligible for citizenship." In 1918, there was considerable controversy in Arizona when an Indian farmer B. K. Singh married the sixteen-year-old daughter of one of his White tenants.


text: In 1685, the French government issued a special Code Noir restricted to colonial Louisiana, which forbade marriage between Catholics and non-Catholics in that colony. However, interracial cohabitation and interracial sex were never prohibited in French Louisiana (see plaçage). The situation of the children (free or enslaved) followed the situation of the mother. Under Spanish rule, interracial marriage was possible with parental consent under the age of 25 and without it when the partners were older. In 1806, three years after the U.S. gained control over the state, interracial marriage was once again banned.


text: Jacqueline Battalora argues that the first laws banning all marriage between Whites and Black people, enacted in Virginia and Maryland, were a response by the planter elite to the problems they were facing due to the socio-economic dynamics of the plantation system in the Southern colonies. The bans in Virginia and Maryland were established at a time when slavery was not yet fully institutionalized. At the time, most forced laborers on the plantations were indentured servants, and they were mostly European. Some historians have suggested that the at-the-time unprecedented laws banning "interracial" marriage were originally invented by planters as a divide-and-rule tactic after the uprising of European and African indentured servants in cases such as Bacon's Rebellion. According to this theory, the ban on interracial marriage was issued to split up the ethnically mixed, increasingly "mixed-race" labor force into "Whites," who were given their freedom, and "blacks," who were later treated as slaves rather than as indentured servants. By outlawing "interracial" marriage, it became possible to keep these two new groups separated and prevent a new rebellion.


text: In 1776, seven of the Thirteen Colonies enforced laws against interracial marriage. Although slavery was gradually abolished in the North after independence, this at first had little impact on the enforcement of anti-miscegenation laws. An exception was Pennsylvania, which repealed its anti-miscegenation law in 1780, together with some of the other restrictions placed on free Black people, when it enacted a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the state.


text: The Quaker planter and slave trader Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr. publicly advocated, and personally practiced, racial mixing as a way toward ending slavery, as well as a way to produce healthier and more beautiful offspring. These views were tolerated in Spanish Florida, where free people of color had rights and could own and inherit property. After Florida became a U.S. territory in 1821, he moved with his multiple "wives", children, and the people he enslaved, to Haiti.


text: Another case of interracial marriage was Andrea Dimitry and Marianne Céleste Dragon a free woman of African and European ancestry. Such marriages gave rise to a large creole community in New Orleans. She was listed as white on her marriage certificate. Marianne's father Don Miguel Dragon and mother Marie Françoise Chauvin Beaulieu de Monpliaisir also married in New Orleans Louisiana around 1815. Marie Françoise was a woman of African ancestry. Marie Françoise Chauvin de Beaulieu de Montplaisir was originally a slave of Mr. Charles Daprémont de La Lande, a member of the Superior Council.


text: For the radical abolitionists who organized to oppose slavery in the 1830s, laws banning interracial marriage embodied the same racial prejudice that they saw at the root of slavery. Abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison took aim at Massachusetts' legal ban on interracial marriage as early as 1831. Anti-abolitionists defended the measure as necessary to prevent racial amalgamation and to maintain the Bay State's proper racial and moral order. Abolitionists, however, objected that the law, because it "distinguished between 'citizens on account of complexion,'" violated the broad egalitarian tenets of Christianity and republicanism as well as the state constitution's promise of equality. Beginning in the late 1830s, abolitionists began a several-year petition campaign that prompted the legislature to repeal the measure in 1843. Their efforts—both tactically and intellectually—constituted a foundational moment in the era's burgeoning minority-rights politics, which would continue to expand into the twentieth century. As the US expanded, however, all the new slave states as well as many new free states such as Illinois and California enacted such laws.


text: While opposed to slavery, in a speech in Charleston, Illinois in 1858, Abraham Lincoln stated, "I am not, nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people".


text: Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, South Carolina and Alabama legalized interracial marriage for some years during the Reconstruction period. Anti-miscegenation laws rested unenforced, were overturned by courts or repealed by the state government (in Arkansas and Louisiana). However, after white Democrats took power in the South during "Redemption", anti-miscegenation laws were re-enacted and once more enforced, and in addition Jim Crow laws were enacted in the South which also enforced other forms of racial segregation. In Florida, the new Constitution of 1888 prohibited marriage between "a white person and a person of negro descent" (Article XVI, Section 24).


text: A number of northern and western states permanently repealed their anti-miscegenation laws during the 19th century. This, however, did little to halt anti-miscegenation sentiments in the rest of the country. Newly established western states continued to enact laws banning interracial marriage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Between 1913 and 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced anti-miscegenation laws. Only Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia never enacted them.


text: The constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1883 case "Pace v. Alabama" (106 U.S. 583). The Supreme Court ruled that the Alabama anti-miscegenation statute did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. According to the court, both races were treated equally, because whites and Black people were punished in equal measure for breaking the law against interracial marriage and interracial sex. This judgment was overturned in 1967 in the "Loving v. Virginia" case, where the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren declared anti-miscegenation laws a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional.


text: In State v. Pass, the Supreme Court of Arizona, interpreting the state's anti-miscegenation statute, ruled that persons of mixed racial heritage could not legally marry anyone. The court recognized that the result was absurd and expressed the hope that the legislature would amend the statute.


text: In 1948, the California Supreme Court ruled in "Perez v. Sharp" (1948) that the Californian anti-miscegenation laws violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the first time since Reconstruction that a state court declared such laws unconstitutional, and making California the first state since Ohio in 1887 to overturn its anti-miscegenation law.


text: The case raised constitutional questions in states which had similar laws, which led to the repeal or overturning of such laws in fourteen states by 1967. Sixteen states, mainly Southern states, were the exception. In any case, in the 1950s, the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws was still a controversial issue in the U.S., even among supporters of racial integration.


text: In 1958, the political theorist Hannah Arendt, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, who escaped from Europe during the Holocaust, wrote in an essay in response to the Little Rock Crisis, the Civil Rights struggle for the racial integration of public schools which took place in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, that anti-miscegenation laws were an even deeper injustice than the racial segregation of public schools. The free choice of a spouse, she argued in "Reflections on Little Rock", was "an elementary human right": "Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs." Arendt was severely criticized by fellow liberals, who feared that her essay would arouse the racist fears common among whites and thus hinder the struggle of African Americans for civil rights and racial integration. Commenting on the Supreme Court's ruling in "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka" against "de jure" racial segregation in education, Arendt argued that anti-miscegenation laws were more basic to racial segregation than racial segregation in education.


text: Arendt's analysis of the centrality of laws against interracial marriage to white supremacy echoed the conclusions of Gunnar Myrdal. In his essay "Social Trends in America and Strategic Approaches to the Negro Problem" (1948), Myrdal ranked the social areas where restrictions were imposed by Southern whites on the freedom of African-Americans through racial segregation from the least to the most important: jobs, courts and police, politics, basic public facilities, "social equality" including dancing and handshaking, and most importantly, marriage. This ranking was indeed reflective of the way in which the barriers against desegregation fell under the pressure of the protests of the emerging Civil Rights Movement. First, legal segregation in the army, in education and in basic public services fell, then restrictions on the voting rights of African-Americans were lifted. These victories were ensured by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But the bans on interracial marriage were the last to go, in 1967.


text: Most Americans in the 1950s were opposed to interracial marriage and did not see laws banning interracial marriage as an affront to the principles of American democracy. A 1958 Gallup poll showed that 94% of Americans disapproved of interracial marriage. However, attitudes towards bans on interracial marriage quickly changed in the 1960s.


text: By the 1960s, civil rights organizations were helping interracial couples who were being penalized for their relationships to take their cases to the Supreme Court. Since "Pace v. Alabama" (1883), the Supreme Court had declined to make a judgment in such cases. But in 1964, the Warren Court decided to issue a ruling in the case of an interracial couple from Florida who had been convicted because they had been cohabiting. In "McLaughlin v. Florida", the Supreme Court ruled that the Florida state law which prohibited cohabitation between whites and non-whites was unconstitutional and based solely on a policy of racial discrimination. However, the court did not rule on Florida's ban on marriage between whites and non-whites, despite the appeal of the plaintiffs to do so and the argument made by the state of Florida that its ban on cohabitation between whites and blacks was ancillary to its ban on marriage between whites and blacks. However, in 1967, the court did decide to rule on the remaining anti-miscegenation laws when it was presented with the case of "Loving v. Virginia".


text: In 1967, an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving, successfully challenged the constitutionality of the ban on interracial marriage in Virginia. Their case reached the US Supreme Court as "Loving v. Virginia".


text: In 1958, the Lovings married in Washington, D.C. to evade Virginia's anti-miscegenation law (the Racial Integrity Act). On their return to Virginia, they were arrested in their bedroom for living together as an interracial couple. The judge suspended their sentence on the condition that the Lovings leave Virginia and not return for 25 years. In 1963, the Lovings, who had moved to Washington, D.C, decided to appeal this judgment. In 1965, Virginia trial court Judge Leon Bazile, who heard their original case, refused to reconsider his decision. Instead, he defended racial segregation, writing:


text: The Lovings then took their case to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which invalidated the original sentence but upheld the state's Racial Integrity Act.


text: Finally, the Lovings turned to the U.S Supreme Court. The court, which had previously avoided taking miscegenation cases, agreed to hear an appeal. In 1967, 84 years after "Pace v. Alabama" in 1883, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. Chief Justice Warren wrote in the court majority opinion that:


text: The Supreme Court condemned Virginia's anti-miscegenation law as "designed to maintain White Supremacy".


text: In 1967, 17 Southern states plus Oklahoma still enforced laws prohibiting marriage between whites and non-whites. Maryland repealed its law at the start of "Loving v. Virginia" in the Supreme Court.


text: After the Supreme Court ruling declaring such laws to be unconstitutional, the laws in the remaining 16 states ceased to be enforceable. Even so, it was necessary for the Supreme Court of Florida to issue a Writ Of Mandamus compel a Dade County judge to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple. Two Justices of the court dissented from the issuance of the writ. Besides removing such laws from their statute books, a number of state constitutions were also amended to remove language prohibiting miscegenation: Florida in 1969, Mississippi in 1987, South Carolina in 1998, and Alabama in 2000. In the respective referendums, 52% of voters in Mississippi, 62% of voters in South Carolina and 59% of voters in Alabama voted in favor of the amendments. In Alabama, nearly 526,000 people voted against the amendment, including a majority of voters in some rural counties.


text: Three months after "Loving v. Virginia", "Storybook Children" sung by Billy Vera and Judy Clay became the first romantic interracial duet to chart in the US.


text: In 2009, Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace in Robert, Louisiana, refused to officiate a civil wedding for an interracial couple. A nearby justice of the peace, on Bardwell's referral, officiated the wedding; the interracial couple sued Keith Bardwell and his wife Beth Bardwell in federal court. After facing wide criticism for his actions, including from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Bardwell resigned on November 3, 2009.


text: , seven states still required couples to declare their racial background when applying for a marriage license, without which they cannot marry. The states are Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota (since 1977), New Hampshire, and Alabama. In 2019 in Virginia, a law that required partners to declare their race on marriage applications was challenged in court. Within a week the state's Attorney-General directed that the question is to become optional, and in October 2019, a U.S. District judge ruled the practice unconstitutional and barred Virginia from enforcing the requirement.


text: In 2016, Mississippi passed a law to protect "sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions". In September 2019, an owner of a wedding venue in Mississippi refused to allow a mixed race wedding to take place in the venue, claiming the refusal was based on her Christian beliefs. After an outcry on social media and after consulting with her pastor, the owner apologized to the couple.


text: At least three attempts have been made to amend the US constitution to bar interracial marriage in the United States.


title: Rúben Neves

text: Rúben Diogo da Silva Neves (; born 13 March 1997) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for the Portugal national team and is the captain of Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers.


title: Rúben Neves

text: Formed at Porto, where he made his first-team debut at the age of 17, he joined Wolverhampton Wanderers for a reported £15.8 million in 2017. He has made over 200 appearances in England, winning the EFL Championship in his first season.


title: Rúben Neves

text: Neves made more than 60 appearances for Portugal's youth national teams. He made his senior international debut for Portugal at the age of 18 in 2015, and was part of their squad at Euro 2020 and the 2022 World Cup.


title: Rúben Neves

text: Born in Mozelos (Santa Maria da Feira), Aveiro District, Neves grew up supporting FC Porto and joined the club's youth system at the age of eight. During his time with the academy, he also spent a season on loan at Padroense which acted as the under-16 team; on his time in the youth structures, reserve team manager Luís Castro described him as a player with "extraordinary mental qualities, to go along with technical and tactical skills".


title: Rúben Neves

text: Ahead of the 2014–15 season, Neves was earmarked to bypass Porto's under-19s and play with the reserves instead. Following an injury to teammate Mikel Agu, however, he was called by Julen Lopetegui to be part of the main squad's pre-season preparations. On 15 August 2014, aged 17 years and five months, he made his Primeira Liga debut where he started and scored in a 2–0 home win against Marítimo – in doing so, he became the youngest player in the club's history to score a goal in the competition. He played his first match in the UEFA Champions League five days later in a 1–0 win over Lille, and broke another record, previously held by Cristiano Ronaldo, by being the youngest Portuguese to appear in the tournament.


title: Rúben Neves

text: On 10 December 2014, during a Champions League group stage fixture against Shakhtar Donetsk, Neves suffered an injury to his right knee following a collision in midfield with Alex Teixeira. At the end of the game, the club explained that he suffered a sprain, with apparent damage to the internal lateral ligament. After spending nearly a month on the sidelines, he returned to the pitch in a 3–1 home win over União da Madeira in the Taça da Liga. Following his injury, his role in midfield was filled by Casemiro and he spent the majority of the remainder of the season behind the Brazilian in the pecking order.


title: Rúben Neves

text: On 20 October 2015, aged 18 years and 221 days, Neves became the youngest player to start as captain in the Champions League, helping Porto to a 2–0 win against Maccabi Tel Aviv in the group stage and surpassing previous record holder Rafael van der Vaart, who held it since 16 September 2003. On 5 December, in a 2–1 win over Paços de Ferreira also at the Estádio do Dragão, he broke another record by becoming the youngest player to make 50 appearances for the club, surpassing players like Fernando Gomes and Jaime Magalhães.


title: Rúben Neves

text: On 8 July 2017, Neves signed for EFL Championship club Wolverhampton Wanderers for an undisclosed fee, believed to be in the region of £15.8 million – a club and league record fee. Upon joining, he was reunited with former Porto manager Nuno Espírito Santo. He scored his first goal on 15 August, in a 3–2 away win over Hull City. In April 2018, Neves was nominated for the EFL Championship Player of the Season and Young Player of the Season awards, and was also included in the Team of the Season along with teammates Conor Coady and John Ruddy. His team was ultimately promoted as champions with the player scoring 6 goals in 42 appearances, all of which were scored from outside of the box. At the conclusion of the season, he claimed a hat-trick of club awards as he walked away with the Player of the Season, Player's Player of the Season and Goal of the Season accolades. He was also awarded the EFL Goal of the Year award for 2018 for his goal against Derby County at Molineux on 11 April 2018.


title: Rúben Neves

text: Wolves announced that Neves had signed a new contract in July 2018, extending until June 2023. In the first match of the new season, he scored his first Premier League goal and assisted Raúl Jiménez in the latter's competitive debut, as his team twice came from behind to draw 2–2 against Everton. His appearance in the match, alongside compatriots Rui Patrício, João Moutinho, Diogo Jota and Hélder Costa, also saw the club break the league record for the most Portuguese players named in a starting line-up.


title: Rúben Neves

text: On 6 October 2018, Neves made his 50th appearance for Wolves and marked the occasion by contributing in the build-up for Matt Doherty's winning goal in a 1–0 victory over Crystal Palace. The following January, his 55th-minute winning goal against Liverpool at Molineux in the FA Cup, "a venomous dipping shot from that beat Simon Mignolet at his near post", was voted the best goal of the third round by visitors to BBC Sport's website.


title: Rúben Neves

text: On 25 September 2019, Neves was made Wolves' club captain for the first time, when he led the team in the absence of regular captain Conor Coady as Wolves secured progression to the 2019–20 EFL Cup fourth round with a penalty shoot-out victory over Reading at Molineux in the third round. He made his 100th appearance in the Premier League in a goalless draw at Aston Villa on 6 March 2021. That May, it was revealed that his contract was in fact running until 2024.


title: Rúben Neves

text: Neves made his 200th competitive appearance for Wolves in all competitions in 2–0 win away to Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League on 13 February 2022. On 13 March, his 25th birthday, he assisted the only goal by Coady in a victory at Everton that constituted Wolves's 1,000th win in top-flight football (over 67 seasons dating back to 1888) and also sealed the club's first league double over that opponent since 1972–73. Days later, his knee injury from the first half of a home game against Leeds United ruled him out for a month. He returned on 30 April against Brighton & Hove Albion, but was substituted at half-time.


title: Rúben Neves

text: In the first game of the 2022–23 season against Leeds United on 6 August 2022, Neves took the captain’s armband as Conor Coady was kept on the substitutes' bench. He was made Wolves’ captain on a full-time basis after the defender departed on loan to Everton. Neves scored his first goal of the season, and his twenty-fifth in a Wolves shirt, in a 1–1 Premier League draw with Newcastle United at Molineux on 28 August.


title: Rúben Neves

text: Neves represented Portugal at the 2014 UEFA European Under-17 Championship, helping the country reach the semi-finals as captain. For his performances, he was named among the top ten talents of the tournament by a selection of UEFA reporters.


title: Rúben Neves

text: On 29 August 2014, still aged 17, Neves was called by coach Rui Jorge to be part of the under-21 team. He scored his first goal on 14 October in a 5–4 home win against the Netherlands in the play-off round of the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship.


title: Rúben Neves

text: When the finals began in the Czech Republic, Neves broke a new record by becoming the youngest player to debut for the Portuguese under-21s in the tournament, aged 18 years and 3 months, playing five minutes to help beat England 1–0 in the group stage opener. It was his only appearance, as Portugal reached the final, which they lost to Sweden in a penalty shoot-out.


title: Rúben Neves

text: Neves was first called up to the senior team on 10 November 2015, ahead of friendlies against Russia and Luxembourg as an injury replacement for João Moutinho. He made his debut in the former match, featuring 17 minutes in the 1–0 loss in Krasnodar, before playing the entire 2–0 win against the latter at the Stade Josy Barthel, sharing the midfield with Porto teammates Danilo Pereira and André André.


title: Rúben Neves

text: Neves was selected by manager Fernando Santos for a preliminary 35-man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, but did not make the final 23-man squad.


title: Rúben Neves

text: At the 2019 UEFA Nations League Finals on home soil, Neves played in the 3–1 semi-final win over Switzerland, but was dropped from the starting eleven for the final against the Netherlands for the more defensive Danilo. In that match at his former club ground the "Dragão", he came on in added time for William Carvalho as the Portuguese won 1–0.


title: Rúben Neves

text: Neves was one of four Wolves players included in the Portugal squad for UEFA Euro 2020. He made his sole appearance in the delayed competition on 23 June, as a substitute in a 2–2 group draw with France in Budapest.


title: Rúben Neves

text: An article on UEFA's website described Neves as a defensive midfielder who is not afraid to go forward and prompt attacks, showing great maturity combined with an accurate passing skill, great vision and an astute sense of positioning. His playing attributes also granted him comparisons to Portuguese international teammate João Moutinho for his fine first touch, similar desire to press his opponents and excellent distribution. Neves also drew praise in the media for his technical, tactical and mental qualities, as well as his intelligence and long-range shooting ability.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, consisting of the Kantō region of Japan (including Tokyo Metropolis and the prefectures of Chiba, Gunma, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Tochigi) as well as the prefecture of Yamanashi of the neighboring Chūbu region. In Japanese, it is referred to by various terms, one of the most common being .


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: As of 2016, the United Nations estimates the total population at 38,140,000. It covers an area of approximately 13,500 km (5,200 mi), giving it a population density of 2,642 people/km. It is the second largest single metropolitan area in the world in terms of built-up or urban function landmass at 8,547 km (3,300 mi), behind only the New York City metropolitan area at 11,642 km (4,495 mi).


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: There are various definitions of the Greater Tokyo Area, each of which tries to incorporate different aspects. Some definitions are clearly defined by law or government regulation, some are based coarsely on administrative areas, while others are for research purposes such as commuting patterns or distance from Central Tokyo. Each definition has a different population figure, granularity, methodology, and spatial association.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: The of Japan refers to the Greater Tokyo Area as defined by the of 1956, which defines it as "Tokyo and its surrounding area declared by government ordinance." The government ordinance defined it as Tokyo and all six prefectures in the Kantō region plus Yamanashi Prefecture. While this includes all of Greater Tokyo, it also includes sparsely populated mountain areas as well as the far-flung Bonin Islands which are administered under Tokyo.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: Using the "One Metropolis Three Prefectures" definition, Tokyo is , a similar size to that of Los Angeles County, and almost two-thirds smaller than the combined statistical area of New York City, at and 21.9 million people. Other metropolitan areas such as Greater Jakarta are considerably more compact as well as more densely populated than Greater Tokyo.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: Tokyo is legally classified as a , which translates as "metropolis", and is treated as one of the forty-seven prefectures of Japan. The metropolis is administered by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government as a whole.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: Central Tokyo, situated in the eastern portion of Tokyo Metropolis, was once incorporated as Tokyo City, which was dismantled during World War II. Its subdivisions have been reclassified as . The twenty three special wards currently have the legal status of cities, with individual mayors and city councils, and they call themselves "cities" in English. However, when listing Japan's largest cities, Tokyo's twenty three wards are often counted as a single city.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: Western Tokyo, known as the Tama Area ("Tama-chiiki" 多摩地域) comprises a number of municipalities, including these suburban cities:


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: In the major metropolitan area (MMA) definition used by the Japanese Statistics Bureau, the following cities in Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Yamanashi, and Shizuoka Prefectures are included:


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: Tighter definitions for Greater Tokyo do not include adjacent metropolitan areas of Numazu-Mishima (approx. 450,000) to the southwest, Maebashi-Takasaki-Ōta-Ashikaga (approx. 1,500,000 people) on the northwest, and (approx. 1,000,000) to the north. If they are included, Greater Tokyo's population would be around 39 million.Takasaki-Maebashi is included as part of the Tokyo-Yokohama area in the definition of urban areas by Demographia.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: At the centre of the main urban area (approximately the first from Tokyo Station) are the 23 special wards, formerly treated as a single city but now governed as separate municipalities, and containing many major commercial centres such as Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro and Ginza. Around the 23 special wards are a multitude of suburban cities which merge seamlessly into each other to form a continuous built up area, circumnavigated by the heavily travelled Route 16 which forms a (broken) loop about from central Tokyo. Situated along the loop are the major cities of Yokohama (to the south of Tokyo), Hachiōji (to the west), Ōmiya (now part of Saitama City, to the north), and Chiba (to the east). Within the Route 16 loop, the coastline of Tokyo Bay is heavily industrialised, with the Keihin Industrial Area stretching from Tokyo down to Yokohama, and the Keiyō Industrial Zone from Tokyo eastwards to Chiba. Along the periphery of the main urban area are numerous new suburban housing developments such as the Tama New Town. The landscape is relatively flat compared to most of Japan, most of it comprising low hills.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: Outside the Route 16 loop the landscape becomes more rural. To the southwest is an area known as Shōnan, which contains various cities and towns along the coast of Sagami Bay, and to the west the area is mountainous.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: Tokyo metropolitan area has the largest city economy in the world and is one of the major global centers of trade and commerce along with New York City and London.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: The agglomeration of Tokyo is the world's largest economy, with the largest gross metropolitan product at over $2 Trillion purchasing power parity (PPP) in the world according to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: The Greater Tokyo Area has two major airports, Tokyo International Airport, commonly known as Haneda Airport (once chiefly domestic, now turning international) and Narita International Airport (chiefly international as well). Minor facilities include the Chōfu, Ibaraki Airport, and Honda Airport. Tokyo Heliport serves helicopter traffic, including police, fire, and news. Various military facilities handle air traffic: Naval Air Facility Atsugi (United States Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force), Yokota Air Base (United States Air Force), and Camp Zama (United States Army).


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: Greater Tokyo has an extensive railway network comprising high-speed rail, commuter rails, subways, monorails, private lines, trams and others. There are around 136 individual rail lines in the Greater Tokyo Area, and between 1,000 and 1,200 railway stations depending on one's definition of the area, most designed for heavy use, usually long enough to accommodate 10-car ( long) trains. Stations are designed to accommodate hundreds of thousands of passengers at any given time, with miles of connecting tunnels linking vast department stores and corporate offices. Tokyo Station has underground connections that stretch well over , and Shinjuku Station has well over 200 exits. Greater Tokyo's Railway Network is easily considered the world's largest in terms of both daily passenger throughput with a daily trips of over 40 million (20 million different passengers) as well as physical extent with approximately of track. Shinjuku station is used by an average of 3.34 million people per day, making it the world's busiest train station. Some 57 percent of all Greater Tokyo residents used rail as their primary means of transport in 2001.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: JR East and many other carriers crisscross the region with a network of rail lines. The most important carriers include Keihin Kyūkō Electric Railway ("Keikyū"), Keisei Electric Railway, Keiō Electric Railway, Odakyū Electric Railway, Seibu Railway, Tōbu Railway, and Tōkyū Corporation. In addition to Tokyo's two subway systems — Tokyo Metro and Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation ("Toei" and "Toden" lines), Yokohama also has two subway lines.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: The Tokyo Monorail provides an important shuttle service between Haneda Airport and Hammatsucho station on the Yamanote line.


title: Greater Tokyo Area

text: Tokyo and Yokohama are major commercial seaports, and both the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and United States Navy maintain naval bases at Yokosuka.


title: The Rev

text: James Owen Sullivan (February 9, 1981 – December 28, 2009), also known by his stage name the Rev (shortened version of "the Reverend Tholomew Plague"), was an American musician, best known as a member of the heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold, where he played drums and provided backing and co-lead vocals. He was also the lead vocalist/pianist in the avant-garde metal band Pinkly Smooth and drummed for the ska punk band Suburban Legends from 1998 to 1999.


title: The Rev

text: Sullivan was born on February 9, 1981, of Irish descent and raised Roman Catholic. He received his first pair of drumsticks at the age of five and his own drum set at the age of twelve. In high school, he started playing in bands. Before leaving to join Avenged Sevenfold as one of the band's founding members, Sullivan was the drummer for the third wave ska band Suburban Legends. At the age of 19, he recorded his first album with Avenged Sevenfold titled "Sounding the Seventh Trumpet". His early influences included Frank Zappa and King Crimson. The Rev stated in an interview with "Modern Drummer" that he "was raised on that stuff as much as rock and metal."


title: The Rev

text: Later in life, he was influenced by drummers Vinnie Paul, Mike Portnoy (who would later be his fill-in with Avenged Sevenfold), Dave Lombardo, Lars Ulrich, and Terry Bozzio, stating "It's funny [...], of all my influences, Tommy Lee is a visual influence. I never thought I'd have one of those." Sullivan had a signature ability called "the double-ride thing" or "the Double Octopus", as the Rev called it, "just for lack of a better definition." "The double-ride thing" is a technique that can be heard on tracks such as "Almost Easy", "Critical Acclaim", "Crossroads", and "Dancing Dead", in which Sullivan doubles up at a fast tempo between the double bass and ride cymbals.


title: The Rev

text: The Rev was the drummer, composer, songwriter, vocalist, and pianist for the band. His vocals are featured in several Avenged Sevenfold songs, including "Strength of the World", "Afterlife", "A Little Piece of Heaven", "Almost Easy", "Scream", "Critical Acclaim", "Lost", "Brompton Cocktail", "Crossroads", "Flash of the Blade" (Iron Maiden cover), "Art of Subconscious Illusion", "Save Me", and "Fiction".


title: The Rev

text: He also wrote and composed several songs for Avenged Sevenfold including "A Little Piece of Heaven", "Afterlife", "Almost Easy", "Unbound (The Wild Ride)", "Buried Alive", "Fiction", "Brompton Cocktail", "Welcome to the Family", "Save Me", among others. Avenged Sevenfold released a demo version of "Nightmare" featuring the Rev on an electronic drumset and providing some vocals.


title: The Rev

text: At the second annual Revolver Golden God Awards, the Rev won the award for "Best Drummer". His family members, and Avenged Sevenfold, received the posthumous honor on his behalf.


title: The Rev

text: In an Ultimate Guitar online readers' poll of the "Top Ten Greatest Drummers of All Time", the Rev appeared at No. 8, placing higher than Bill Ward of Black Sabbath and lower than Keith Moon of the Who. In 2017, he once again appeared in Ultimate Guitar's list of Top 25 Greatest Singing Drummers, at No. 5.


title: The Rev

text: Pinkly Smooth was an American heavy metal/avant-garde metal band. The band was formed in the summer of 2001 in Huntington Beach, California, as a side project of the Rev, and originally featured Rev (under the name "Rathead") on vocals, along with fellow Avenged Sevenfold member Synyster Gates on guitar and former Ballistico band members Buck Silverspur (under the name "El Diablo") on bass, as well as Derek Eglit (under the name "Super Loop") on drums. They released only one album, "Unfortunate Snort", which featured former Avenged Sevenfold bassist Justin Meacham (under his stage name "Justin Sane") as a keyboard player.


title: The Rev

text: On December 28, 2009, the Rev was found unresponsive in his Huntington Beach home, and was later pronounced dead upon arrival to the hospital. Police ruled out foul play and noted that his death appeared to be from natural causes. An autopsy performed on December 30, 2009, was inconclusive, but toxicology results revealed to the public in June that he died from an overdose of oxycodone (Percocet), oxymorphone (a metabolite of oxycodone), diazepam (Valium), nordiazepam (a metabolite of diazepam), and alcohol. The coroner noted an enlarged heart as a "significant condition" that may have played a role in Sullivan's death.


title: The Rev

text: On January 6, 2010, a private funeral was held for Sullivan, who was then buried in The Good Shepherd Cemetery in Huntington Beach, California. Shortly after his death, Avenged Sevenfold dedicated their fifth studio album "Nightmare" to him, as well as several songs, including "So Far Away", which had been written by bandmate (and childhood friend) Synyster Gates, and "Fiction", which the Rev had written three days before his death. M. Shadows and Gates stated in an interview to "Hard Drive Radio":


title: The Rev

text: His triple bass drum kit from the 2008 Taste of Chaos tour was donated for display at a Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas. It has since been taken down. Another drum kit he used is displayed in a Hard Rock Cafe in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.


title: T.O.P

text: Choi Seung-hyun (; born November 4, 1987), better known by his stage name T.O.P, is a South Korean rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. He performed as an underground rapper before joining the record label YG Entertainment and debuted as the main rapper for the boy band Big Bang in 2006. The group became one of the best-selling groups of all-time in Asia and one of the best-selling boy bands in the world. In 2010, while the group was on hiatus, T.O.P and G-Dragon collaborated to release the album, "GD & TOP". As a solo rapper, he has released two digital singles, "Turn It Up" (2010) and "Doom Dada" (2013), that have peaked at number two and four, respectively, on the Gaon Digital Chart.