title: South Africa national cricket team

text: The 87-run stand between JP Duminy and Colin Ingram is the highest for the sixth wicket for South Africa in World Cups. The highest sixth-wicket stand for South Africa in ODIs is the 137 between Hansie Cronje and Shaun Pollock against Zimbabwe in 1997. The triumph is South Africa's seventh by a fringe of hundred or more runs in World Cups.


title: South Africa national cricket team

text: South Africa's kit is manufactured by New Balance, who replaced previous manufacturer Adidas in 2016.


title: South Africa national cricket team

text: When playing Test cricket, South Africa's cricket whites feature the king protea badge (the emblem of the South African Sports Commission) with the South African flag above it on the left of the shirt, the name and logo of the sponsors Standard Bank on the right, the New Balance logo on the right sleeve. South African fielders may wear a green cap or a white sun hat with the king protea badge in the middle. Helmets are also coloured green. Before 1996, the cap insignia was the United Cricket Board of South Africa old badge, which was a circle with a ball superimposed over a wicket in the centre and the inscription which reads "UNITED CRICKET BOARD OF SOUTH AFRICA" around the circle's border. Before 1991, the cap insignia was a springbok head with under the inscription "S.A.C.B" in yellow letters (which changed to "S.A." with the years of the tour, for instance, "S.A. 1982–83").


title: South Africa national cricket team

text: In limited overs cricket, South Africa's ODI and Twenty20 shirts feature the king protea badge with the national flag on the left of the shirt, Standard Bank on the right side, and the New Balance logo on the right sleeve.


title: South Africa national cricket team

text: In ODIs, the kit comprises a green shirt with yellow accents and dark green stylised protea leaves and green trousers, whilst the Twenty20 kit comprises a green shirt with a yellow gradient and the Oxigen logo in the front and green trousers. In both uniforms, the fielding hat is a green baseball cap with white piping and a yellow line on the visor border or a green sunhat, which are both green with the king protea badge.


title: South Africa national cricket team

text: In ICC limited-overs tournaments, a modified kit design is used with sponsor's logos moving to the sleeve and 'South Africa' printed across the front.


title: South Africa national cricket team

text: Since 2016, South Africa played some matches with an all-pink version of its uniform, to raise breast cancer awareness.


title: South Africa national cricket team

text: Previous suppliers were ISC (1992–1996), Asics (1999), Admiral (2000–2003), Hummel (2004–2007), Adidas (2011–2015) and New Balance (2016-2021).


title: South Africa national cricket team

text: This is a list of every active player named in the recent Test, ODI or T20I squad, or has a national contract with Cricket South Africa. (Updated as of 25 November 2022)


title: South Africa national cricket team

text: For the 2022–23 period, CSA awarded 16 players national contracts, from which selectors choose the core of the Test, One-Day, and Twenty20 International teams. Non-contracted players remain eligible for selection and can be upgraded to a Cricket South Africa contract if they gain regular selection.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Beatrice Benaderet ( ; April 4, 1906 – October 13, 1968) was an American actress and comedienne. Born in New York City and raised in San Francisco, she began performing in Bay Area theatre and radio before embarking on a Hollywood career that spanned over three decades. Benaderet first specialized in voice-over work in the golden age of radio, appearing on numerous programs while working with comedians of the era such as Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, and Lucille Ball. Her expertise in dialect and characterization led to her becoming Warner Bros. Cartoons' leading voice of female characters in their animated cartoons of the early 1940s through the mid-1950s.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet was then a prominent figure on television in situation comedies, first with "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" from 1950 to 1958, for which she earned two Emmy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In the 1960s, she had regular roles in four series until her death from lung cancer in 1968, including the commercial successes "The Beverly Hillbillies", "The Flintstones", and her best-known role as Kate Bradley in "Petticoat Junction". She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame honoring her work in television.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Beatrice Benaderet was born on April 4, 1906, in New York City. Her mother, Margaret (née O'Keefe), was Irish American, and her father, Samuel David Benaderet, a Turkish Sephardic emigrant, was a tobacconist who relocated the family from New York City to San Francisco in 1915 after his participation in the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. The same year, he opened a smoke shop that operated for 65 years, making it the oldest such retailer in California at the time of its closure in 1980.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet was raised Catholic and attended grade school at a Dominican convent. She studied voice and the piano; her first acting performance came at 11 when she portrayed a bearded old man in a school play.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: The following year, her participation in a children's production of "The Beggar's Opera" resulted in a local radio station manager inviting her to a one-time performance on one of his programs, for which she was paid $10. Benaderet made her professional theatre debut at 16 in a production of "The Prince of Pilsen," and, after graduating from the Academy of St. Rose, a private, all-girls' high school, she attended the Reginald Travers School of Acting and joined his stock company The Players' Guild, appearing in stage productions of works such as "Polly", "Lysistrata", and "Uncle Tom's Cabin".


title: Bea Benaderet

text: In 1926, Benaderet joined the staff of San Francisco radio station KFRC, which was under the new ownership of Don Lee and where her duties included acting, singing, writing, and producing.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Initially seeking work as a dramatic actress, she switched to comedy and performed on multiple programs, in particular the "Blue Monday Jamboree" variety show, where her castmates included Meredith Willson, Elvia Allman, and future "I Love Lucy" producer Jess Oppenheimer. Benaderet honed a variety of dialects such as French, Spanish, New York City English, and Yiddish, the latter from voicing a character named "Rheba Haufawitz". She additionally hosted the musical variety show "Salon Moderne" and gained attention for her work as a female announcer, a rarity in 1930s radio.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet relocated to Hollywood in 1936 and joined radio station KHJ, making her network radio debut with Orson Welles for his Mercury Theatre repertory company heard on "The Campbell Playhouse". The following year she received her first big break in the industry on "The Jack Benny Program", where she played Gertrude Gearshift, a wisecracking telephone operator who gossiped about Jack Benny with her cohort Mabel Flapsaddle (Sara Berner). Intended as a one-time appearance, the pair became a recurring role starting in the 1945–46 season, and in early 1947, Benaderet and Berner momentarily took over the NBC switchboards in Hollywood for publicity photos. She performed in as many as five shows daily, causing her rehearsal dates to conflict with those of "The Jack Benny Program" and resulting in her reading live as Gertrude from a marked script she was handed upon entering the studio.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Other recurring characters Benaderet portrayed were Blanche Morton on "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show"; school principal Eve Goodwin on "The Great Gildersleeve"; Millicent Carstairs on "Fibber McGee & Molly"; maid Gloria on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet"; and Iris Atterbury on the Lucille Ball vehicle "My Favorite Husband", opposite Gale Gordon. Benaderet voiced various one-time parts before joining the main cast as Iris, neighbor and friend of Ball's character Liz Cooper. The 1950 CBS program "Granby's Green Acres", a perceived spinoff of "My Favorite Husband", was her one radio lead role and reunited her with Gordon as a husband and wife who abandon city life to become farmers, but it lasted only eight episodes.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Beginning in 1943, Benaderet became Warner Bros.' primary voice of adult female supporting characters for their "Merrie Melodies" and "Looney Tunes" animated shorts, initially sharing duties with Sara Berner. Her characterizations included an obnoxious teenaged bobbysox version of Little Red Riding Hood in "Little Red Riding Rabbit" (1944); Witch Hazel in "Bewitched Bunny" (1954); the spinster hen Miss Prissy in several Foghorn Leghorn cartoons; Tweety's owner "Granny" including the Academy Award-winning "Tweetie Pie" (1947); and Mama Bear in a series of Three Bears shorts, which animator Chuck Jones called one of his favorite portrayals. Benaderet did not receive onscreen credit for her work, because she was employed by Warner Bros. as a freelance actor who voiced peripheral characters, and unlike Mel Blanc, was not under contract with the studio. In 1955, she was succeeded by June Foray as Warner's premier female voice artist.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet was Lucille Ball's first choice as Ethel Mertz for the sitcom "I Love Lucy"; Ball said in a 1984 interview that she had "no other picture of anyone" for the role. However, Benaderet had to turn down the offer since she was contracted to the television adaptation of "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show", so Vivian Vance was eventually cast. Benaderet guest-starred on the January 21, 1952, first-season episode "Lucy Plays Cupid" as the character of Miss Lewis, a love-starved spinster neighbor.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet continued her "Burns & Allen" radio role of the Burns' neighbor Blanche Morton, Gracie's friend and staunchest supporter in her escapades. She was the only secondary cast member who appeared in every episode and the first six shows were shot live in New York, resulting in Benaderet commuting to Los Angeles, where she was working several radio assignments at the time.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Blanche Morton's long-suffering husband, Harry, was played by four actors over the show's eight-year run; the last, Larry Keating, was introduced on the October 5, 1953, fourth-season premiere when George Burns entered the set and halted a scene of an angered Blanche preparing to hit Harry with a book. Burns introduced Keating to Benaderet and the audience, and she broke character to exchange pleasantries with Keating. The segment then resumed and Benaderet struck Keating with the book. Benaderet and Gracie Allen regularly shopped for their own on-set wardrobe and she developed a high-pitched laugh for Blanche that became a staple of the character and used for comic effect: "When we had a scene with some silent spots in it, George would say to me, 'Laugh there, Bea. Benaderet garnered two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1954 and 1955. Following Allen's retirement in 1958 at the end of the eighth season, the program continued as "The George Burns Show" in 1958–59 with Blanche repackaged as George's secretary, but it was cancelled after one season due to low ratings. Benaderet worked sparsely in 1959, filming one-time appearances on "General Electric Theater" and "The Restless Gun".


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet became a fixture on television in the 1960s, which included working on two shows simultaneously from 1960 to 1964. She played housekeeper Wilma in the lone season of the 1960 sitcom "Peter Loves Mary", a part she received because of references from Burns. Benaderet considered herself "lucky" to be cast in another series out of fear that she had become too closely associated with "Burns & Allen". The same year, she was then cast as the voice of Betty Rubble in the Hanna-Barbera primetime animated series "The Flintstones". Benaderet auditioned with past radio coworker Jean Vander Pyl for Betty and Wilma Flintstone by exchanging dialogue before the show's co-creator Joseph Barbera, who asked afterward what part they preferred. Vander Pyl recalled in 1994: "I said, 'Oh, I want to be Wilma!' [and] Bea said, 'That's fine with me. Benaderet voiced guest spots on the side for fellow Hanna-Barbera productions "Top Cat" and "The Yogi Bear Show" during 1961 and 1962. While filming the debut season of her show "Petticoat Junction" the next year, she continued voicing Betty by recording her part alone or with her "Flintstones" castmates during evening hours until scheduling conflicts forced her to drop the role at the end of the fourth season in 1964. She was replaced by Gerry Johnson.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: In the late 1940s, Benaderet befriended Paul Henning, a scriptwriter on the radio production of "Burns & Allen". She appeared on the 19 episodes of the show he had written between 1947 and 1951. She became one of his regular players in the first two seasons of "Burns & Allen", a two-episode guest appearance on "The Bob Cummings Show" in 1956–57, and her involvement in three of the most successful sitcoms of the 1960s. After reading the 1961 first script for "The Beverly Hillbillies", Benaderet wanted to audition for the role of Granny. Despite considering her to be too buxom for his vision of the character as a small and wiry woman, Henning allowed her to test anyway. Irene Ryan ultimately won the role; according to Henning, "Bea took one look at the way Irene did the part and said to me, 'There's your Granny! He additionally took Benaderet's suggestion of casting Harriet MacGibbon as Granny's rival Margaret Drysdale. Henning created for Benaderet the supporting character of Cousin Pearl Bodine, the middle-aged widowed mother of Jethro Bodine (Max Baer Jr.) and cousin of main character Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen), whom she convinces to move from his humble home in the Ozarks after he strikes oil on his property and becomes a millionaire. Prior to shooting the pilot, Benaderet enlisted a dialect coach to help her learn a hillbilly accent. Impressed with her performance while screening the pilot to potential sponsors, Henning made Cousin Pearl a recurring character in the 1962–63 first season as she moved into the Clampetts' Beverly Hills mansion, feuded with Granny, and pursued oil tycoon Mr. Brewster (Frank Wilcox) as a love interest. Bluegrass duo Flatt & Scruggs, who performed the show's opening theme, recorded a comedic serenade in 1963 titled "Pearl Pearl Pearl" and Benaderet was pictured on the single's cover. Benaderet described Pearl's curly hair as "just my mental image of the character. ... Pearl played the piano for the silent movies and she saw such high fashion and ridiculous hairdos. She could read and write, and the curled hair seemed to Pearl the height of smartness."


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Henning had long admired Benaderet's talents and strove to create a starring vehicle for her, as he felt she was worthy of headlining her own series after years of supporting parts. When CBS granted him an open time slot after the massive success of "Beverly Hillbillies", he crafted the 1963 rural sitcom "Petticoat Junction" around Benaderet, starring as Kate Bradley, the widowed proprietor of the Shady Rest Hotel. Cousin Pearl was consequently written out of the "Beverly Hillbillies" storyline as having moved back home. The character of Kate represented Benaderet's first straight role: "Kate Bradley is different from the characters I've played in the past. She has to walk a fine line between being humorous and tender. The other women I've played were strictly for laughs." Benaderet and director Richard Whorf auditioned the young actresses who would play Kate's three teenaged daughters; she persuaded Henning to let his 18-year-old daughter Linda read (successfully) for the role of Betty Jo Bradley. Linda Henning and Benaderet's son, Jack Bannon, were members of a young actors' theater group at the time. CBS promoted the show's September 22, 1963, premiere with a print ad featuring an Al Hirschfeld caricature of Benaderet as Cousin Pearl. "Petticoat Junction" was an immediate hit, peaking at fourth in the Nielsen ratings, and remained in the top 30 during Benaderet's four full seasons on the show from 1963 to 1967. Her former "Flintstones" costars Alan Reed and Jean Vander Pyl filmed guest spots in later seasons.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Henning was again given free rein for a new show with no pilot needed, which he bestowed to colleague Jay Sommers due to his busy schedule. Sommers created the 1965 sitcom "Green Acres", adapted from his 1950 radio program "Granby's Green Acres" that had starred Benaderet, thus making it a spinoff of her own television show. Benaderet filmed six appearances as Kate in the first season as both shows' casts intermingled on several episodes in a process dubbed "cross-pollination".


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet played bit parts in six motion pictures from 1946 to 1962, four of which were uncredited. She was chosen from 200 actresses for the part of a government file clerk in Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious" (1946) and completed filming in half an hour, but her scenes were cut from the final print. She told "Radio Life" magazine that year that after having struggled to remember her lines, "Mr. Hitchcock looked me right in the eye and asked 'You want to go back to radio?' I said yes". Her first onscreen appearance, also uncredited, was in the film "On the Town" (1949), as one of two women whom the main characters (played by Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra) encounter while riding the subway.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: In 1945, Benaderet and fellow voice actresses Janet Waldo and Cathy Lewis were to appear on a televised fashion show on her former KFRC employer Don Lee's W6XAO network before the project fell through. On Irving Taylor's novelty album "Drink Along with Irving" (1960), she duetted with Elvia Allman and Mel Blanc, respectively, on tracks titled "Sub-Bourbon Living" and "Separate Bar Stools".


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet and her first husband, actor Jim Bannon, met while employed at KHJ in Los Angeles. They married in August 1938 and had two children: Jack (1940–2017), and Maggie (b. 1947). However, Bannon's heavy filming and touring schedule required for his portrayal of fictional cowboy hero Red Ryder took a toll on their marriage and she filed for divorce in September 1950. In 1958, Benaderet married Eugene Twombly, a sound-effects technician for movies and television who had worked on "The Jack Benny Program", and they remained together until her death in 1968. Her son Jack became an actor, making his television debut in bit parts on "Petticoat Junction" (and working on the show as a dialogue coach), later appearing in "Lou Grant".


title: Bea Benaderet

text: In 1961, Benaderet dressed in a "Flintstones"-inspired leopard-print costume to collect donations for City of Hope and March of Dimes and worked with Welcome Wagon in the San Fernando Valley. On February 5, 1964, she was named an honorary sheriff of Calabasas, California, with her daughter Maggie accepting a badge on her behalf that was presented by her "Petticoat Junction" co-star Edgar Buchanan in a public ceremony.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: During a routine checkup in 1963, a spot was discovered on one of Benaderet's lungs. It was no longer visible at the time of her follow-up visit, but by November 1967, it had returned and grown in size. She resisted immediate exploratory surgery as she was filming the fifth season of "Petticoat Junction" and feared the show would be affected by her absence. On November 26, she underwent the surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, when it was discovered the tumor could not be removed. Diagnosed with lung cancer, Benaderet underwent six weeks of laser radiation treatment via a linear particle accelerator at Stanford University Medical Center. A longtime smoker, she cut down her multiple-pack-a-day habit following her initial checkups and quit entirely after her surgery.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet's treatment was successful and concluded in January 1968. She missed 10 episodes of the show as she recuperated, during which her character of Kate Bradley was vaguely described in the storyline as being out of town, as expectations were that Benaderet would eventually recover and be able to resume filming. Rosemary DeCamp (Kate's sister Helen) and Shirley Mitchell (Kate's cousin Mae Jennings) filled in as temporary mother figures during her absence; Mitchell had previously worked with Benaderet on "The Jack Benny Program" in 1954–55 as Mabel Flapsaddle. Benaderet returned for the March 30 fifth-season finale "Kate's Homecoming", but five months later, after shooting the first three episodes of the sixth season, she took leave from the series due to being too ill to continue. Initial plans were for her to record her voice to be inserted into future episodes. However, her condition dramatically declined; on September 26, chest pains related to her illness forced her to return to the hospital for the final time. The fourth show of the sixth season, "The Valley Has a Baby," marked Benaderet's last episode and featured only her voice with her stand-in filmed from the rear.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet died on October 13, 1968, of lung cancer and pneumonia. She was entombed in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood. On October 17, four days after her death and the day after her funeral, her husband Eugene Twombly died at the age of 54 from a massive heart attack and was interred beside her.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: When Benaderet was cast in "Petticoat Junction," she was hailed as having "finally" become a star. She had previously played supporting roles throughout her career, usually as a next-door neighbor, and had been openly averse to leading roles. However, in January 1963, following CBS' acquisition of "Petticoat Junction", she enthused to columnist Eve Starr of "The Mercury": "Isn't it nice? After all these years. ... [It] just never occurred to me that it might...golly, my own show!" Benaderet often discussed facets of the acting profession in promotional interviews for the show, and believed that leading a series required a "feeling of responsibility", including her being more observant of on-set activity and her costars' performances, while continuously evolving her character.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Benaderet garnered praise for her mastery of dialects and her work as a comedienne and character actress, while she is recognized for her voice characterizations in animation. MeTV considered her an "icon" of 1960s television. Donna Douglas said, "Watching her timing is like watching a ballerina. She's so effortless." Benaderet credited George Burns with mentoring her in comedy acting, but claimed that television scriptwriters focused more on her voice and delivery than her characters, which she believed stunted opportunities for her to play more dramatic roles. For her contributions to television, Benaderet received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, on 1611 Vine Street, and she was the recipient of a Genii Award in 1966.


title: Bea Benaderet

text: She is credited with over 1000 combined radio and television episode appearances, which earned her the nickname of "Busy Bea" from members of the press. "The Pantagraph" columnist Ernie Kreiling remarked in 1965 that "probably no Hollywood personality has spent as many hours in our homes". Benaderet was good friends and a frequent collaborator with Mel Blanc, who wrote in his 1988 biography "That's Not All Folks!:" "[We] spent so much time together in studios that I used to refer jokingly to her as the 'other woman' in my life."


title: Bea Benaderet

text: Keeping the spelling of her surname, which has been misspelled as "Benederet" or "Benadaret", was a choice she had to make. She first resisted requests to change it early in her radio career: "[T]hey'd say, 'Anything's better than Benaderet—How about Smith?'" When she was introduced to Orson Welles in 1936, he remarked that her name "sounded like something you ad lib in a mob scene." It was misspelled in a 1946 press release created specifically about its proper spelling, and "Radio Life" wrote in 1947: "If someone were to conduct a survey to decide the radio personality with the most frequently misspelled name, Bea Benaderet would probably win hands down." Early in the first season of "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show", her full name appeared as "Bee Benadaret" in the closing credits.


title: Haast's eagle

text: Haast's eagle (Hieraaetus moorei) is an extinct species of eagle that once lived in the South Island of New Zealand, commonly accepted to be the pouakai of Māori legend. It was the largest eagle known to have existed, with an estimated weight of , compared to the harpy eagle. Its massive size is explained as an evolutionary response to the size of its prey, the flightless moa, the largest of which could weigh . Haast's eagle became extinct around 1400, following the arrival of the Māori.


title: Haast's eagle

text: Haast's eagle was first described by Julius von Haast in 1871 from remains discovered by the Canterbury Museum taxidermist, Frederick Richardson Fuller, in a former marsh. Haast named the eagle "Harpagornis moorei" after George Henry Moore, the owner of the Glenmark Estate, where the bones of the bird had been found. The genus name was from the Greek "harpax", meaning "grappling hook", and "ornis", meaning "bird".


title: Haast's eagle

text: DNA analysis later showed that this bird is related most closely to the much smaller little eagle as well as the booted eagle and not, as previously thought, to the large wedge-tailed eagle. "Harpagornis moorei" was therefore reclassified as "Hieraaetus moorei".


title: Haast's eagle

text: "H. moorei" is estimated to have diverged from these smaller eagles as recently as 1.8 million to 700,000 years ago. If this estimate is correct, its increase in weight by ten to fifteen times is an exceptionally rapid weight increase. The suggested increase in the average weight of Haast's eagle over that period would therefore represent the largest, fastest evolutionary increase in average weight of any known vertebrate species. This was made possible in part by the presence of large prey and the absence of competition from other large predators. A recent mitochondrial DNA study found it to be more closely related to the little eagle than the booted eagle, with an estimated divergence from the little eagle around 2.2 million years ago.


title: Haast's eagle

text: Haast's eagle was one of the largest known true raptors. In length and weight, it was even larger than the largest living vultures. Another giant eagle from the fossil record, "Amplibuteo woodwardi", is more recently and scantly-described but rivalled the Haast's in at least the aspect of total length. Female eagles were significantly larger than males. Most estimates place the female Haast's eagles in the range of and males around .


title: Haast's eagle

text: A comparison with living eagles of the Australasian region resulted in estimated masses in Haast's eagles of for males and for females. One source estimates that the largest females could have weighed more than . The largest extant eagles, none of which are verified to exceed in a wild state, are about forty percent smaller in body size than Haast's eagles.


title: Haast's eagle

text: It had a relatively short wingspan for its size. It is estimated that the grown female typically spanned up to , possibly up to in a few cases. This wingspan is broadly similar to the larger range of female size in some extant eagles: the wedge-tailed eagle ("Aquila audax"), golden eagle ("A. chrysaetos"), martial eagle ("Polemaetus bellicosus"), white-tailed eagle ("Haliaeetus albicilla") and Steller's sea eagle ("Haliaeetus pelagicus") are all known to exceed 2.5 m in wingspan. Several of the largest extant Old World vultures, if not in mean mass or other linear measurements, probably exceed Haast's eagle in average wingspan as well.


title: Haast's eagle

text: Short wings may have aided Haast's eagles when hunting in the dense scrubland and forests of New Zealand. Haast's eagle has sometimes been portrayed incorrectly as having evolved toward flightlessness, but this is not so as evidence that it flew is very strong. Instead it represents a departure from the mode of its ancestors' soaring flight to adapt to a dense woodland environment and the species probably had very broad wings.


title: Haast's eagle

text: Some wing and leg remains of Haast's eagles permit direct comparison with living eagles. The harpy eagle ("Harpia harpyja"), the Philippine eagle ("Pithecophaga jefferyi"), and the Steller's sea eagle ("Haliaeetus pelagicus") are the largest and most powerful living eagles, and the first two also have a similarly reduced relative wing-length as an adaptation to forest-dwelling. A lower mandible from the Haast's eagle measured and the tarsus in several Haast's eagle fossils has been measured from . In comparison, the largest beaks of eagles today (from the Philippine and the Steller's sea eagle) reach a little more than ; and the longest tarsal measurements (from the Philippine and the Papuan eagle) top out around .


title: Haast's eagle

text: The talons of the Haast's eagle were similar in length to those of the harpy eagle, with a front-left talon length of and a hallux-claw of possibly up to . The Philippine eagle might be a particularly appropriate living species to compare with the Haast's eagle, because it too evolved in an insular environment from smaller ancestors (apparently basal snake eagles) to island gigantism in the absence of large carnivorous mammals and other competing predators. The eagle's talons are similar to modern eagles, suggesting that it used its talons for hunting and not scavenging.


title: Haast's eagle

text: The strong legs and massive flight muscles of these eagles would have enabled the birds to take off with a jumping start from the ground, despite their great weight. The tail was almost certainly long, in excess of in female specimens, and very broad. This characteristic would compensate for the reduction in wing area by providing additional lift. Total length is estimated to have been up to in females, with a standing height of approximately tall or perhaps slightly greater.


title: Haast's eagle

text: Cave art depicts the Haast's eagle with a pale head. Combined with its vulture-like feeding behaviour, this might suggest it had a bald head, or had shorter feathers on its head than elsewhere on its body. However, this is uncertain; the bald heads of vultures appear to have evolved at least partly for thermoregulatory purposes, and scavenging birds in colder climates such as the Southern giant petrel often have fully feathered heads. As an inhabitant of a cool temperate forest, Haast's eagle would have had less need for thermoregulation than a large tropical vulture.


title: Haast's eagle

text: The Haast's eagle preyed on large, flightless bird species, including the moa, which was up to fifteen times the weight of the eagle. Its large beak also could be used to rip into the internal organs of its prey and death then would have been caused by blood loss. Due to the absence of other large predators or kleptoparasites, a Haast's eagle could easily have monopolised a single large kill over a number of days.


title: Haast's eagle

text: A 2021 analysis showed that, while predatory, the bill of the Haast's eagle was functionally closer to that of the Andean condor than to that of other eagles. This suggests that it deployed feeding tactics more similar to those of vultures after making a kill, plunging its head into the body cavity to devour the vital organs of its prey. This may have been an adaptation as a result of the bird hunting animals much larger than itself.


title: Haast's eagle

text: Until recent human colonisation that introduced rodents and cats, the only placental land mammals found on the islands of New Zealand were three species of bat. Birds occupied or dominated all major niches in the New Zealand animal ecology. Moa were grazers, functionally similar to deer or cattle in other habitats, and Haast's eagles were the hunters who filled the same niche as top-niche mammalian predators, such as bears, lions, wolves, or jaguars.


title: Haast's eagle

text: One study estimated the total population of Haast's eagle at 3,000 to 4,500 breeding pairs. Early human settlers in New Zealand (the ancestors of the Māori arrived around the year 1280) preyed heavily on large flightless birds, including all moa species, eventually hunting them to extinction by around 1400. Both eagles and Māori probably competed for the same foods. Unlike humans, eagles were probably highly dependent on medium and large-sized flightless birds. The loss of its primary prey caused the Haast's eagle to become extinct at about the same time.


title: Haast's eagle

text: Some believe that these birds are described in many legends of the Māori, under the names "Pouakai", "Hokioi", or "Hakawai". According to an account given to Sir George Grey, an early governor of New Zealand, Hokioi were huge black-and-white birds with a red crest and yellow-green tinged wingtips. In some Māori legends, Pouakai kill humans, which scientists believe could have been possible if the name relates to the eagle, given the massive size and strength of the bird. Even smaller golden eagles are capable of killing prey as big as sika deer or a bear cub. However, it has also been argued that the "Hakawai" and "Hokioi" legends refer to the "Coenocorypha" snipe—in particular the extinct South Island species.


title: Haast's eagle

text: Artwork depicting Haast's eagle now may be viewed at OceanaGold's Heritage and Art Park at Macraes, Otago, New Zealand. The sculpture, weighing approximately , standing tall, and depicted with a wingspan of is constructed from stainless steel tube and sheet and was designed and constructed by Mark Hill, a sculptor from Arrowtown, New Zealand.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The nativity of Jesus, nativity of Christ, birth of Jesus or birth of Christ is described in the biblical gospels of Luke and Matthew. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judaea, his mother Mary was engaged to a man named Joseph, who was descended from King David and was not his biological father, and that his birth was caused by divine intervention. Many modern scholars consider the birth narratives unhistorical because they are laced with theology and present two different accounts which cannot be harmonised into a single coherent narrative. But many others view the discussion of historicity as secondary, given that gospels were primarily written as theological documents rather than chronological timelines.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The nativity is the basis for the Christian holiday of Christmas, and plays a major role in the Christian liturgical year. Many Christians traditionally display small manger scenes depicting the nativity in their homes, or attend nativity plays or Christmas pageants focusing on the nativity cycle in the Bible. Elaborate nativity displays featuring life-sized statues are a tradition in many continental European countries during the Christmas season.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The artistic depiction of the nativity has been an important subject for Christian artists since the 4th century. Artistic depictions of the nativity scene since the 13th century have emphasized the humility of Jesus and promoted a more tender image of him, a major change from the early "Lord and Master" image, mirroring changes in the common approaches taken by Christian pastoral ministry during the same era.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Only the Gospels of Matthew and Luke offer narratives regarding the birth of Jesus. Both rely heavily on the Hebrew scriptures, indicating that they both regard the story as part of Israel's salvation history, and both present the God of Israel as controlling events. Both agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the reign of King Herod, that his mother was named Mary and that her husband Joseph was descended from King David (although they disagree on details of the line of descent), and both deny Joseph's biological parenthood while treating the birth, or rather the conception, as divinely effected.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Beyond this, they agree on very little. Joseph dominates Matthew's and Mary dominates Luke's, although the suggestion that one derives from Joseph and the other from Mary is no more than a pious deduction.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Matthew implies that Joseph already has his home in Bethlehem, while Luke states that he lived in Nazareth.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In Matthew the angel speaks to Joseph, while Luke has one speaking to Mary. Only Luke has the stories surrounding the birth of John the Baptist, the census of Quirinius, the adoration of the shepherds and the presentation in the Temple on the eighth day; only Matthew has the wise men, the star of Bethlehem, Herod's plot, the massacre of the innocents, and the flight into Egypt. The two itineraries are quite different, Matthew's Holy Family beginning in Bethlehem, moving to Egypt following the birth, and settling in Nazareth, while in Luke they begin in Nazareth, journey to Bethlehem for the birth, and an immediate return to Nazareth. The two accounts cannot be harmonised into a single coherent narrative or traced to the same Q source, leading scholars to classify them as "special Matthew" (or simply the M source) and "special Luke" (the L source).


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Mary the mother of Jesus was betrothed to Joseph, but was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Joseph intended to divorce her quietly, but an angel told him in a dream that he should take her as his wife and name the child Jesus, "because it is he who will save his people from their sins". This would fulfil the prophecy that a virgin would give birth to a son, who would be known as Emmanuel, meaning "God is with us". Joseph awoke, took Mary for his wife, did not have intercourse with her until she had given birth to a son, and gave him the name Jesus (Matthew 1:18–25).


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: These verses present a problem, for in the preceding Matthean genealogy of Jesus, Joseph has been shown to be the descendant of David (the angel addresses him as "son of David") and heir to the kingdom of Judah, but Matthew 1:16 reveals that Jesus is not Joseph's son, and Matthew is careful never to refer to him in this way. The role of Joseph in naming the child indicates that he is being legally adopted, and thus becoming, like his now-legal father, "son of David."


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The birth took place in Bethlehem of Judea in the time of King Herod (Herod the Great). Wise men from the East (the Magi) came to Jerusalem, asking where they could find the child born king of the Jews, for they had seen his star at its rising, and wished to pay him homage. Herod and all Jerusalem were afraid when they heard this, but Herod, learning from the chief priests and scribes that the messiah would be born in Bethlehem according to prophecy, sent the Magi there with instructions to return and tell him when they had found him. The Magi worshipped the child in Bethlehem and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but an angel warned them in a dream not to return to Herod, and they returned home by another way.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: When Herod learned that the Magi had tricked him he was infuriated, and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem under the age of two (the Massacre of the Innocents). This was in fulfilment of the prophet Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more." But an angel had appeared to Joseph in a dream and warned him to take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and the Holy Family remained there until Herod died to fulfil the words of the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." On the death of Herod an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to return with the child and its mother to Israel, but Herod's son was now ruler of Judea, and after being warned in a dream Joseph went instead to Galilee, where he made his home in Nazareth "so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean.""


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In this chapter, the author of Matthew needs to establish that "Jesus of Nazareth" was in fact born in Bethlehem, the town where David was born, for the "son of David" born there will be "King of the Jews" (a designation that does not reappear in Matthew until the crucifixion). Herod's fear and the visit of the Magi underline the royal birth, as do the various prophetic texts quoted or referenced in this chapter.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In the Gospel of Luke, when Herod was king of Judea, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth in Galilee to announce to a virgin named Mary, who was betrothed to a man named Joseph, that a child would be born to her. The angel Gabriel announced that she was to name him Jesus, for he would be the son of God and rule over Israel forever. When the time of the birth drew near, Caesar Augustus commanded a census of Roman domains, and Joseph took Mary to Bethlehem, the ancient city of David, as he was of the House of David. Jesus was born in Bethlehem; since there was nowhere for them to stay in the town, the infant was laid in a manger while angels announced his birth to a group of shepherds who worshipped him as Messiah and Lord.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In accordance with the Jewish law, his parents presented the infant Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem, where two people in the temple, Simeon and Anna the Prophetess, gave thanks to God who had sent his salvation. Joseph and Mary then returned to Nazareth.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the reign of Herod the Great. In Luke the newborn baby is placed in a manger "because there was no place in the . might mean a private home (this has little support among scholars), or a room in a private home, or an inn, but it is impossible to be certain which is meant.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In the 2nd century, Justin Martyr stated that Jesus had been born in a cave outside the town, while the Protoevangelium of James described a legendary birth in a cave nearby. The Church of the Nativity inside the town, built by St. Helena, contains the cave-manger site traditionally venerated as the birthplace of Jesus, which may have originally been a site of the cult of the god Tammuz. In his (1.51), Origen, who travelled throughout Palestine beginning in around 215, wrote of the "manger of Jesus".


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The date of birth for Jesus of Nazareth is not stated in the gospels or in any secular text, but a majority of scholars assume a date between 6 BC and 4 BC. The historical evidence is too ambiguous to allow a definitive date to be determined, but the date has been estimated through known historical events mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew chapter 2 and Luke chapter 2 or by working backwards from the estimated start of the ministry of Jesus.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Helmut Koester writes that while Matthew's narrative was formed in a Jewish environment, Luke's was modeled to appeal to the Greco-Roman world. In particular, while shepherds were regarded negatively by Jews in Jesus's time, they were seen in Greco-Roman culture as "symbols of a golden age when gods and humans lived in peace and nature was at harmony". C. T. Ruddick Jr. writes that Luke's birth narratives of Jesus and John were modeled on passages from Genesis, chapters 27–43. Regardless, Luke's nativity depicts Jesus as a savior for all people, tracing a genealogy all the way back to Adam, demonstrating his common humanity, and likewise for the lowly circumstances of his birth. Luke, writing for a gentile audience, portrays the infant Jesus as a savior for gentiles as well as Jews. Matthew uses quotations from Jewish scripture, scenes reminiscent of Moses' life, and a numerical pattern in his genealogy to identify Jesus as a son of David, of Abraham, and of God. Luke's prelude is much longer, emphasizing the age of the Holy Spirit and the arrival of a savior for all people, both Jew and gentile.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Mainstream scholars interpret Matthew's nativity as depicting Jesus as a new Moses with a genealogy going back to Abraham, while Ulrich Luz views Matthew's depiction of Jesus at once as the new Moses and the inverse of Moses, and not simply a retelling of the Moses story. Luz also points out that in the massacre narrative, once again, a fulfilment quotation is given: Rachel, the ancestral mother of Israel, weeping for her dead children (Matthew 2:18).


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Scholars who interpret Matthew as casting Jesus in the role of being a second Moses argue that, like Moses, the infant Jesus is saved from a murderous tyrant; and he flees the country of his birth until his persecutor is dead and it is safe to return as the savior of his people. In this view, the account in Matthew is based on an earlier narrative patterned on traditions about the birth of Moses. Moses's birth is announced to Pharaoh by Magi; the child is threatened and rescued; the male Israelite children are similarly put to death by an evil king.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: According to Ulrich Luz, the beginning of the narrative of Matthew is similar to earlier biblical stories, e.g., the Annunciation of Jesus' birth (Matthew 1:18–25) is reminiscent of the biblical accounts of the births of Ishmael (Genesis 16:11, Genesis 17), Isaac (Genesis 21:1), Samson (Judges 13:3, 13:5), and recalls the Haggadic traditions of the birth of Moses. Yet in Luz's view, the contours appear, in part, strangely overlapped and inverted: "Egypt, formerly the land of suppression becomes a place of refuge and it is the King of Israel who now takes on the role of Pharaoh. Yet Matthew is not simply retelling the Moses story. Instead, the story of Jesus really is a new story: Jesus is at once the new Moses and the inverse of Moses."


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Scholars have debated whether and refer to specific Old Testament passages. Fourth century documents such as the Codex Sinaiticus do not mention the prophet Isaiah in the statement in : "All this happened to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet", but some copies of Matthew from the 5th–6th centuries, such as the Codex Bezae, read "Isaiah the prophet". The statement in , "Behold the virgin shall be with child", uses the Greek term ("virgin") as in the Septuagint Isaiah, while the Book of Isaiah uses the Hebrew , which may mean "maiden," "young woman," or "virgin." Raymond E. Brown states that the 3rd century BCE translators of the Septuagint may have understood the Hebrew word to mean "virgin" in this context.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The statement in that "he will be called a Nazarene" does not mention a specific passage in the Old Testament, and there are multiple scholarly interpretations as to what it may refer to. Barbara Aland and other scholars consider the Greek used for 'Nazarene' of uncertain etymology and meaning, but Menken states that it is a demonym that refers to an "inhabitant of Nazareth". Menken also states that it may be referring to Judges 13:5 and 13:7. Gary Smith states that Nazirite may mean one consecrated to God, i.e. an ascetic; or may refer to . "The Oxford Bible Commentary" states that it may be word-play on the use of "nazirite", "Holy One of God," in Isaiah 4:3, meant to identify Jesus with the Nazarenes, a Jewish sect who differed from the Pharisees only in that they regarded Jesus as the Messiah. The Swiss theologian Ulrich Luz, who locates the Matthean community in Syria, has noted that Syrian Christians also called themselves Nazarenes.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The theological significance of the Nativity of Jesus has been a key element in Christian teachings, from the early Church Fathers to 20th century theologians. The theological issues were addressed as early as Apostle Paul, but continued to be debated and eventually lead to both Christological and Mariological differences among Christians that resulted in early schisms within the Church by the 5th century.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Paul the Apostle viewed the birth of Jesus as an event of cosmic significance which brought forth a "new man" who undid the damage caused by the fall of the first man, Adam. Just as the Johannine view of Jesus as the incarnate Logos proclaims the universal relevance of his birth, the Pauline perspective emphasizes the birth of a new man and a new world in the birth of Jesus. Paul's eschatological view of Jesus counter-positions him as a new man of morality and obedience, in contrast to Adam. Unlike Adam, the new man born in Jesus obeys God and ushers in a world of morality and salvation.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In the Pauline view, Adam is positioned as the first man and Jesus as the second: Adam, having corrupted himself by his disobedience, also infected humanity and left it with a curse as inheritance. The birth of Jesus, on the other hand, counterbalanced the fall of Adam, bringing forth redemption and repairing the damage done by Adam.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In patristic theology, Paul's contrasting of Jesus as the new man versus Adam provided a framework for discussing the uniqueness of the birth of Jesus and the ensuing events of his life. The nativity of Jesus thus began to serve as the starting point for "cosmic Christology" in which the birth, life and Resurrection of Jesus have universal implications. The concept of Jesus as the "new man" repeats in the cycle of birth and rebirth of Jesus from his nativity to his resurrection: following his birth, through his morality and obedience to the Father, Jesus began a new harmony in the relationship between God the Father and man. The nativity and resurrection of Jesus thus created the author and exemplar of a new humanity.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Irenaeus was also one of the early theologians to use the analogy of "second Adam and second Eve". He suggested the Virgin Mary as the "second Eve" and wrote that the Mary had "untied the knot of sin bound up by the virgin Eve" and that just as Eve had tempted Adam to disobey God, Mary had set a path of obedience for the second Adam (i.e. Jesus) from the Annunciation to Calvary so that Jesus could bring about salvation, undoing the damage of Adam.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In the 4th century, this uniqueness of the circumstances related to the nativity of Jesus, and their interplay with the mystery of the incarnation, became a central element in both the theology and hymnody of Ephrem the Syrian. For him, the uniqueness of the nativity of Jesus was supplemented with the sign of the majesty of the Creator through the ability of a powerful God to enter the world as a small newborn.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In the Middle Ages the birth of Jesus as the second Adam came to be seen in the context of Saint Augustine's ("happy fall") and was intertwined with the popular teachings on the fall from grace of Adam and Eve. Augustine was fond of a statement on the nativity by Gregory of Nyssa and he quoted it five times: "Venerate the Nativity, through which you are freed from the bonds of an earthly nativity". He also liked to quote: "Just as in Adam all of us died, so too in Christ all of us will be brought to life".


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The theology persisted into the Protestant Reformation, and second Adam was one of the six modes of atonement discussed by John Calvin. In the 20th century, leading theologian Karl Barth continued the same line of reasoning and viewed the nativity of Jesus as the birth of a new man who succeeded Adam. In Barth's theology, in contrast to Adam, Jesus acted as an obedient Son in the fulfilment of the divine will and was therefore free from sin and could hence reveal the righteousness of God the Father and bring about salvation.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The nativity of Jesus impacted the Christological issues about the Person of Christ from the earliest days of Christianity. Luke's Christology centers on the dialectics of the dual natures of the earthly and heavenly manifestations of existence of the Christ, while Matthew's Christology focuses on the mission of Jesus and his role as the savior.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The belief in the divinity of Jesus leads to the question: "was Jesus a man to be born of a woman or was he God born of a woman?" A wide range of hypotheses and beliefs regarding the nature of the nativity of Jesus were presented in the first four centuries of Christianity. Some of the debates involved the title (God bearer) for the Virgin Mary and began to illustrate the impact of Mariology on Christology. Some of these viewpoints were eventually declared as heresies, others led to schisms and the formation of new branches of the Church.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The salvific emphasis of later impacted the theological issues and the devotions to the Holy Name of Jesus. provides the only key to the "Emmanuel Christology" in the New Testament. Beginning with 1:23, Matthew shows a clear interest in identifying Jesus as "God with us" and in later developing the Emmanuel characterization of Jesus at key points throughout the rest of his Gospel. The name 'Emmanuel' does not appear elsewhere in the New Testament, but Matthew builds on it in ("I am with you always, even unto the end of the world") to indicate that Jesus will be with the faithful to the end of the age. According to Ulrich Luz, the Emmanuel motif brackets the entire Gospel of Matthew between 1:23 and 28:20, appearing explicitly and implicitly in several other passages.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: A number of ecumenical councils were convened in the 4th and 5th centuries to deal with these issues. The Council of Ephesus debated hypostasis (co-existing natures) versus Monophysitism (only one nature) versus Miaphysitism (two natures united as one) versus Nestorianism (disunion of two natures). The 451 Council of Chalcedon was highly influential and marked a key turning point in the Christological debates that divided the church of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 5th century. In Chalcedon the hypostatic union was decreed, namely that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human, making this part of the creed of orthodox Christianity.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In the 5th century, leading Church Father Pope Leo I used the nativity as a key element of his theology. Leo gave 10 sermons on the nativity and 7 have survived. The one on December 25, 451, demonstrates his concern to increase the importance of the feast of nativity and along with it emphasize the two natures of Christ in defense of the Christological doctrine of hypostatic union. Leo often used his nativity sermons as an occasion to attack opposing viewpoints, without naming the opposition. Thus Leo used the occasion of the Nativity feast to establish boundaries for what could be considered a heresy regarding the birth and nature of Christ.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas addressed the Christologocal attribution of the nativity: if it should be attributed to the person (the Word) or only to the assumed human nature of that person. Aquinas treated nativity in 8 separate articles in , each posing a separate question:


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: To deal with this issue, Aquinas distinguishes between the person born and the nature in which the birth takes place. Aquinas thus resolved the question by arguing that in the hypostatic union Christ has two natures, one received from the Father from eternity, the other from his mother in time. This approach also resolved the Mariological problem of Mary receiving the title of Theotokos for under this scenario she is the "Mother of God".


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: During the Reformation, John Calvin argued that Jesus was not sanctified to be "God manifested as Incarnate" () only due to his virgin birth, but through the action of the Holy Spirit at the instant of his birth. Thus Calvin argued that Jesus was exempt from original sin because he was sanctified at the moment of birth so that his generation was without blemish; as generation was blemishless before the fall of Adam.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Christian Churches celebrate the nativity of Jesus on Christmas, which is marked on December 25 by the Western Christian Churches, while many Eastern Christian Churches celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord on January 7. This is not a disagreement over the date of Christmas as such, but rather a preference of which calendar should be used to determine the day that is December 25. In the Council of Tours of 567, the Church, with its desire to be universal, "declared the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany to be one unified festal cycle", thus giving significance to both the Western and Eastern dates of Christmas. The liturgical season of Advent precedes, and is used to prepare for the celebration of Christmas. Customs of the Christmas season include completing an Advent daily devotional and Advent wreath, carol singing, gift giving, seeing Nativity plays, attending church services, and eating special food, such as Christmas cake. In many countries, such as Sweden, people start to set up their Advent and Christmas decorations on the first day of Advent. Liturgically, this is done in some parishes through a hanging of the greens ceremony.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In the 1st and 2nd centuries, the Lord's Day (Sunday) was the earliest Christian celebration and included a number of theological themes. In the 2nd century, the Resurrection of Jesus became a separate feast as Easter and in the same century Epiphany began to be celebrated in the Churches of the East on January 6. The celebration of the feast of the Magi on January 6 may relate to a pre-Christian celebration for the blessing of the Nile in Egypt on January 5, but this is not historically certain. The festival of the Nativity which later turned into Christmas was a 4th-century feast in the Western Church notably in Rome and North Africa, although it is uncertain exactly where and when it was first celebrated.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The earliest source stating December 25 as the date of birth of Jesus was Hippolytus of Rome (170–236), written very early in the 3rd century, based on the assumption that the conception of Jesus took place at the Spring equinox which he placed on March 25, and then added nine months. There is historical evidence that by the middle of the 4th century the Christian churches of the East celebrated the birth and Baptism of Jesus on the same day, on January 6, while those in the West celebrated a Nativity feast on December 25 (perhaps influenced by the Winter solstice); and that by the last quarter of the 4th century, the calendars of both churches included both feasts. The earliest suggestions of a feast of the Baptism of Jesus on January 6 during the 2nd century comes from Clement of Alexandria, but there is no further mention of such a feast until 361 when Emperor Julian attended a feast on January 6 in the year 361.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The Chronography of 354 illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome includes an early reference to the celebration of a Nativity feast. In a sermon delivered in Antioch on December 25, , John Chrysostom provides specific information about the feast there, stating that the feast had existed for about 10 years. By around 385 the feast for the birth of Jesus was distinct from that of the Baptism and was held on December 25 in Constantinople, Nyssa and Amaseia. In a sermon in 386, Gregory of Nyssa specifically related the feast of Nativity with that of the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, celebrated a day later. By 390 the feast was also held in Iconium on that day.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Pope Leo I established a feast of the "Mystery of Incarnation" in the 5th century, in effect as the first formal feast for the Nativity of Jesus. Pope Sixtus III then instituted the practice of Midnight Mass just before that feast. In the 6th century, Emperor Justinian declared Christmas to be a legal holiday.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In the 14th and 15th centuries, the theological importance of the nativity of Jesus was coupled with an emphasis on the loving nature of the child Jesus in sermons by figures such as Jean Gerson. In his sermons Gerson emphasized the loving nature of Jesus at his nativity, as well as his cosmic plan for the salvation of mankind.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: By the early part of the 20th century, Christmas had become a "cultural signature" of Christianity and indeed of the Western culture even in countries such as the United States which are officially non-religious. By the beginning of the 21st century these countries began to pay more attention to the sensitivities of non-Christians during the festivities at the end of the calendar year.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Early Christians viewed Jesus as "the Lord" and the word appears over 700 times in the New Testament, referring to him as such. The use of the word in the Septuagint Bible also assigned to Jesus the Old Testament attributes of an omnipotent God. The use of the term , and hence the Lordship of Jesus, pre-dated the Pauline epistles, but Paul expanded and elaborated on the topic.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Pauline writings established among early Christians the image, and attributes of Jesus as not only referring to his eschatological victory, but to him as the "divine image" (Greek ) in whose face the glory of God shines forth. This image persisted among Christians as the predominant perception of Jesus for a number of centuries. More than any other title, defined the relationship between Jesus and those who believed in him as Christ: Jesus was their Lord and Master who was to be served with all their hearts and who would one day judge their actions throughout their lives.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The lordship attributes associated with the image of Jesus also implied his power over all creation. Paul then looked back and reasoned that the final lordship of Jesus was prepared from the very beginning, starting with pre-existence and the nativity, based on his obedience as the image of God. Over time, based on the influence of Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux and others, the image of Jesus began to be supplemented with a more "tender image of Jesus", and the Franciscan approach to popular piety was instrumental in establishing this image.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The 13th century witnessed a major turning point in the development of a new "tender image of Jesus" within Christianity, as the Franciscans began to emphasize the humility of Jesus both at his birth and his death. The construction of the nativity scene by Francis of Assisi was instrumental in portraying a softer image of Jesus that contrasted with the powerful and radiant image at the Transfiguration, and emphasized how God had taken a humble path to his own birth. As the Black Death raged in Medieval Europe, the two mendicant orders of Franciscans and Dominicans helped the faithful cope with tragedies. One element of the Franciscan approach was the emphasis on the humility of Jesus and the poverty of his birth: the image of God was the image of Jesus, not a severe and punishing God, but himself humble at birth and sacrificed at death. The concept that the omnipotent Creator would set aside all power in order to conquer the hearts of men by love and that he would have been helplessly placed in a manger was as marvelous and as touching to the believers as the sacrifice of dying on the cross in Calvary.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Thus by the 13th century the tender joys of the nativity of Jesus were added to the agony of his Crucifixion and a whole new range of approved religious emotions was ushered in, with wide-ranging cultural impacts for centuries thereafter. The Franciscans approached both ends of this spectrum of emotions. On one hand the introduction of the nativity scene encouraged the tender image of Jesus, while on the other hand Francis of Assisi himself had a deep attachment to the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross and was said to have received the stigmata as an expression of that love. The dual nature of Franciscan piety based both on joy of nativity and the sacrifice at Calvary had a deep appeal among city dwellers and as the Franciscan Friars travelled these emotions spread across the world, transforming the image of Jesus to a more tender, loving, and compassionate image. These traditions did not remain limited to Europe and soon spread to the other parts of the world such as Latin America, the Philippines and the United States.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: According to Archbishop Rowan Williams, this transformation, accompanied by the proliferation of the tender image of Jesus in Madonna and Child paintings, made an important impact within the Christian ministry by allowing Christians to feel the living presence of Jesus as a loving figure "who is always there to harbor and nurture those who turn to him for help".


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Luke's nativity text has given rise to four well-known canticles: the and the in the first chapter, and the and the in the second chapter. These "Gospel canticles" are now an integral part of the liturgical tradition. The parallel structure in Luke regarding the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, extends to the three canticles (Song of Zechariah), the and the .


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The , in Luke 1:46–55, is spoken by Mary and is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns, perhaps the earliest Marian hymn. The , in Luke 1:68–79, is spoken by Zechariah, while the , in Luke 2:29–32, is spoken by Simeon. The traditional is longer than the opening line presented in Luke 2:14, and is often called the "Song of the Angels" given that it was uttered by the angels in the Annunciation to the Shepherds.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The three canticles , and the , if not originating in the Gospel of Luke, may have their roots in the earliest Christian liturgical services in Jerusalem, but their exact origins remain unknown.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: One of the most visible traditions during the Christmas season is the display of manger scenes depicting the nativity, usually in the form of statues or figurines, in private homes, businesses and churches, either inside or outside the building. This tradition is usually attributed to Francis of Assisi who was described as creating such a display at Greccio, Italy, in 1223 as related by St. Bonaventure in his "Life of Saint Francis of Assisi" written around 1260.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Before the manger scene tradition developed, there were paintings depicting the subject. The earliest artistic depictions of the nativity were in the catacombs and on sarcophagi in Rome. As gentile visitors, the Magi were popular in these scenes, representing the significance of the arrival of the Messiah to all peoples. The ox and ass were also taken to symbolize the Jews and the gentiles, and have remained a constant since the earliest depictions. Mary was soon seated on a throne as the Magi visited.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Depictions of the nativity soon became a normal component of cycles in art illustrating both the Life of Christ and the Life of the Virgin. Nativity images also carry the message of redemption: God's unification with matter forms the mystery of the Incarnation, a turning point in the Christian perspective on Salvation.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: In the Eastern Church painted icons of the nativity often correspond to specific hymns to Mary, e.g. to the : "The Virgin today bringeth forth the Transubstantial, and the eart offereth a cave to the Unapproachable." In many Eastern icons of nativity (often accompanied by matching hymnody) two basic elements are emphasized. First the event portrays the mystery of incarnation as a foundation for the Christian faith, and the combined nature of Christ as divine and human. Secondly, it relates the event to the natural life of the world, and its consequences for humanity.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Like 1st-century Jews, early Christians rejected the use of musical instruments in religious ceremonies and instead relied on chants and plainsong leading to the use of the term "a cappella" (in the chapel) for these chants.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: One of the earliest nativity hymns was composed by Ambrose of Milan in the 4th century. By the beginning of the 5th century, the Spanish poet Prudentius had written "From the Heart of the Father" where the ninth stanza focused on the nativity and portrayed Jesus as the creator of the universe. In the 5th century the Gallic poet Sedulius composed "From the lands that see the Sun arise" in which the humility of the birth of Jesus was portrayed. The , one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn, is based on the Annunciation.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Romanus the Melodist had a dream of the Virgin Mary the night before the feast of the nativity, and when he woke up the next morning, composed his first hymn "On the Nativity" and continued composing hymns (perhaps several hundred) to the end of his life. Re-enactments of nativity, which are now called nativity plays, were part of the "troparion" hymns in the liturgy of Byzantine Rite churches, from Sophronius of Jerusalem in the 7th century. By the 13th century, the Franciscans had encouraged a strong tradition of popular Christmas songs in the native languages. Christmas carols in English first appear in a 1426 work of John Awdlay, a Shropshire chaplain, who lists twenty-five "caroles of Cristemas".


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: The largest body of musical works about Christ in which he does not speak are about the nativity. A large body of liturgical music, as well as a great deal of para-liturgical texts, carols and folk music exist about the nativity of Jesus. Christmas carols have


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Most musical nativity narrations are not biblical and did not come about until church music assimilated opera in the 17th century. However, thereafter there was a torrent of new music, such as Heinrich Schütz's 1660, Marc-Antoine Charpentier "(Midnight Mass, Pastorals, Oratorio, instrumental music", 11 settings), "The Christmas Story" and Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" in the 18th century, as well as "Lisz's Christus", Berlioz's (1850), Camille Saint-Saëns's Christmas Oratorio (1858), etc. John Milton's classic 1629 poem "Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity" was used by John McEwan in 1901.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: According to some scholars, the two Gospel accounts of the nativity are historically accurate and do not contradict each other, with similarities such as the birthplace of Bethlehem and the virgin birth. George Kilpatrick and Michael Patella state that a comparison of the nativity accounts of Luke and Matthew show common elements in terms of the virgin birth, the birth at Bethlehem, and the upbringing at Nazareth, and that although there are differences in the accounts of the nativity in Luke and Matthew, a general narrative may be constructed by combining the two. A number of biblical scholars have attempted to show how the text from both narratives can be interwoven as a gospel harmony to create one account that begins with a trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where Jesus is born, followed by the flight to Egypt, and ending with a return to Nazareth.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Neither Luke nor Matthew claims their birth narratives are based on direct testimony. Raymond E. Brown suggested in 1973 that Joseph was the source of Matthew's account and Mary of Luke's, but modern scholars consider this "highly unlikely", given that the story emerged so late.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Roman Catholic scholars, such as John L. McKenzie, Raymond E. Brown, and Daniel J. Harrington express the view that due to the scarcity of ancient records, a number of issues regarding the historicity of some nativity episodes can never be fully determined, and that the more important task is deciding what the nativity narratives meant to the early Christian communities.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Many scholars do not see the Luke and Matthew nativity stories as historically factual, regarding them as laced with theology and presenting two different accounts and genealogies. For instance, they point to Matthew's account of the appearance of an angel to Joseph in a dream; the wise men from the East; the massacre of the innocents; and the flight to Egypt, which do not appear in Luke, which instead describes the appearance of an angel to Mary; the Roman census; the birth in a manger; and the choir of angels appearing to the shepherds in the fields. Sanders considers Luke's census, for which everyone returned to their ancestral home, not historically credible, as this was contrary to Roman practice; they would not have uprooted everyone from their homes and farms in the Empire by forcing them to return to their ancestral cities. Moreover, people were not able to trace their own lineages back 42 generations. More generally, according to Karl Rahner the evangelists show little interest in synchronizing the episodes of the birth or subsequent life of Jesus with the secular history of the age. As a result, modern scholars do not use much of the birth narratives for historical information. Nevertheless, they are considered to contain some useful biographical information: Jesus being born near the end of the reign of Herod, during the reign of Emperor Augustus and his father being named Joseph are considered historically plausible.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Most modern scholars accept the Marcan priority hypothesis, that the Luke and Matthew accounts are based on the Gospel of Mark, but that the birth narratives come from the evangelists' independent sources, known as the M source for Matthew and the L source for Luke, which were added later.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: While Géza Vermes and E. P. Sanders dismiss the accounts as pious fiction, Raymond E. Brown sees them as having been constructed from historical traditions which predate the Gospels. According to Brown, there is no uniform agreement among scholars on the historicity of the accounts, e.g., most of those scholars who reject the historicity of the birth at Bethlehem argue for a birth at Nazareth, a few suggest Capernaum, and other have hypothesized locations as far away as Chorazin. Bruce Chilton and archaeologist Aviram Oshri have proposed a birth at Bethlehem of Galilee, a site located from Nazareth at which remains dating to the time of Herod the Great have been excavated. Armand P. Tarrech states that Chilton's hypothesis has no support in either the Jewish or Christian sources, although Chilton seems to take seriously the statement in that Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem.


title: Nativity of Jesus

text: Many view the discussion of historicity as secondary, given that gospels were primarily written as theological documents rather than chronological timelines. For instance, Matthew pays far more attention to the name of the child and its theological implications than the actual birth event itself.


title: Kai Sotto

text: Kai Zachary Perlado Sotto (, ; born May 11, 2002) is a Filipino professional basketball player for the Adelaide 36ers of the Australian National Basketball League (NBL). Listed at and , he plays the center position. He also played for the Ateneo Blue Eaglets of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) before moving to The Skill Factory (TSF) in Atlanta, Georgia. He has represented the Philippines national team in several senior and youth tournaments.


title: Kai Sotto

text: Sotto was born on May 11, 2002, in Las Piñas, Philippines, to Ervin Sotto and Pamela Sotto (). Sotto began playing basketball when he was four years old. Sotto began studying at Saint Francis of Assisi College to pursue his primary education. He grew up idolizing basketball players Tim Duncan, June Mar Fajardo and Kristaps Porziņģis.


title: Kai Sotto

text: In March 2019, Sotto left Ateneo as a third-year high school student to move to the United States in an attempt to advance his basketball career. In the United States, he continued his studies at the Miami School in Hamilton, Ohio while simultaneously dealing with commitments with The Skill Factory and NBA G League Ignite. He graduated from Miami School in April 2021.


title: Kai Sotto

text: In April 2016, Sotto entered the Ateneo de Manila High School and joined its junior basketball program, the Ateneo Blue Eaglets in Quezon City. In March 2018, he led his team to a UAAP Basketball Championship title juniors division and was named in the finals MVP after averaging 17 points, 13 rebounds and 6.3 blocks per game in three games. In the following season, Sotto averaged 25.1 points, 13.9 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game and earned UAAP juniors MVP honors.


title: Kai Sotto

text: On November 9, 2019, Sotto announced that he would join The Skill Factory, a preparatory program based in Atlanta, Georgia. In his debut one day later, he recorded 18 points and 12 rebounds in a 65–61 loss to IMG Academy. On January 21, 2020, Sotto was named MVP of the King Invitational tournament, averaging 27 points, 10.6 rebounds, 4.3 blocks and three assists in three games. In February 15, 2020, he participated in the Basketball Without Borders Global Camp held during NBA All-Star Weekend in Chicago.


title: Kai Sotto

text: In the United States, Sotto was considered a consensus four-star recruit by major recruiting services. He was recruited by several NCAA Division I programs. It was announced on May 13, 2020, that Sotto joined the NBA G League Ignite, forgoing his college eligibility.


title: Kai Sotto

text: On May 13, 2020, Sotto signed with the NBA G League and joined the NBA G League Ignite as part of the league's new developmental program operating outside its traditional team structure. Ignite joined the 2020–21 season as part of the traditional team structure following the non-participation of several regular teams in a competition played inside a bio-secure bubble. However, Sotto was expected to miss several games with Ignite after he opted to play for the Philippine national team at the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers given by logistical issues caused by COVID-19 pandemic-related travel restrictions. Despite being able to return to the United States, the NBA G League announced that it has reached a "mutual decision" that Sotto would not be able to rejoin Ignite.


title: Kai Sotto

text: Due to Sotto joining Ignite, he is ineligible to play for a college team in NCAA Division I games. Overtime reportedly expressed interest for Sotto to join their basketball league, to be known as Overtime Elite. He is also ineligible for the 2021 NBA draft having recently graduated from high school in the same year and will only be able to join in 2022 at earliest.


title: Kai Sotto

text: On April 21, 2021, Sotto signed a contract to play for the Adelaide 36ers of the Australian National Basketball League (NBL). He was signed as a "Special Restricted Player", which means that he is treated the same way as a local player and is not subject to the NBL's import limit. Sotto is guaranteed two years in his contract with an option to play for the 36ers for a third year.


title: Kai Sotto

text: On January 30, 2022, Sotto recorded 12 points, 4 rebounds, and 1 assist in 21 minutes of play, in an upset victory, 88–83 over the reigning champions and top-seeded Melbourne United.


title: Kai Sotto

text: On April 28, Sotto declared for the 2022 NBA draft. He worked out for multiple NBA teams but went undrafted. He then switched agents and on July 29, he announced that he would return to play for Adelaide for a second straight year.


title: Kai Sotto

text: Sotto made his national team debut for the Philippines at the 2017 SEABA Under-16 Championship in Quezon City, Philippines. He averaged 16.8 points, 8.5 rebounds and three blocks per game, leading his team to a gold medal. Sotto registered 15 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks in an 83–62 win over Malaysia in the final. In April 2018, he represented the Philippines at the FIBA Under-16 Asian Championship in Foshan, China, where he led his team to fourth place. Sotto averaged 16.8 points, 13.5 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks per game and was named to the tournament's Mythical First Team. He recorded 28 points, 21 rebounds and three blocks in a quarterfinal win over Japan, before recording 26 points, 21 rebounds and six blocks in a semifinal loss to China. He led the event in rebounds and blocks per game, as well as player efficiency rating (21.5).


title: Kai Sotto

text: Sotto played for the Philippines at the 2018 FIBA Under-17 World Cup in Argentina, where he averaged 16.4 points, 10.6 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game. He led his team to 13th place, its best finish at the event. In a classification game win over Egypt, he had his best performance at the tournament, tallying 28 points, 17 rebounds and three blocks. Sotto represented the Philippines at the 2019 FIBA Under-19 World Cup in Heraklion, Greece, where his team finished in 14th place. He averaged 11.7 points and 7.9 rebounds, while tying with Ibou Dianko Badji for a tournament-high 3.1 blocks per game.


title: Kai Sotto

text: Sotto was supposed to make a debut with the senior national team at the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers in early 2021 and went to the Philippines. However, due to logistical issues and abrupt hosting changes for the qualifiers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Sotto had to return the United States to rejoin Ignite.


title: Kai Sotto

text: On June 16, 2021, Sotto made it to the final 12 man lineup at the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers. The following year, he played in the fourth window of the 2023 FIBA World Cup qualifiers.


title: Kai Sotto

text: His father, Ervin Sotto, and his godfather, Ranidel de Ocampo, played basketball professionally in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). Ervin Sotto stands and Pamela Sotto stands . He has two siblings.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: Alternative hip hop (also known as alternative rap) is a subgenre of hip hop music that encompasses a wide range of styles that are not typically identified as mainstream. AllMusic defines it as comprising "hip hop groups that refuse to conform to any of the traditional stereotypes of rap, such as gangsta, bass, hardcore, and party rap. Instead, they blur genres drawing equally from funk and pop/rock, as well as jazz, soul, reggae, and even folk."


title: Alternative hip hop

text: Alternative hip hop developed in the late 1980s and experienced a degree of mainstream recognition during the early-to-mid 1990s. While some groups such as Arrested Development and The Fugees managed to achieve commercial success before breaking up, many alternative rap acts tend to be embraced by alternative rock listeners other than hip-hop or pop audiences. The commercial and cultural momentum was impeded by the then  -also emerging, significantly harder-edged West Coast gangsta rap. A resurgence came about in the late 1990s and early 2000s at the dawn of the digital era with a rejuvenated interest in independent music by the general public.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: During the 2000s, alternative hip hop reattained its place within the mainstream due to the declining commercial viability of gangsta rap as well as the crossover success of artists such as Outkast and Kanye West. The alternative hip hop movement has expanded beyond the United States to include the Somali-Canadian poet K'naan, and English artist M.I.A. Alternative hip hop acts have attained much critical acclaim, but receive relatively little exposure through radio and other media outlets. The most prominent alternative hip hop acts include A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Hieroglyphics, The Pharcyde, Digable Planets and Black Sheep.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: Originating in the late 1980s, in midst of the golden age of hip hop, alternative hip hop was headed primarily by East Coast groups such as De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Brand Nubian, and Digable Planets in subsidiary conjunction by West Coast acts such as The Pharcyde, Digital Underground, Souls of Mischief, Del the Funky Homosapien, and Freestyle Fellowship as well as certain Southern acts such as Arrested Development, Goodie Mob, and Outkast. Similar to the alternative rock movement, alternative hip hop segued into the mainstream at the dawn of the 1990s. Arrested Development, along with The Fugees, stand as some of the first few alternative rap to be recognized by mainstream audiences. The classic debut albums "3 Feet High and Rising", "People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm", and "Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde" achieved minor commercial success as they garnered immense acclaim from music critics, who described the records as managing to be both ambitiously innovative but playful masterpieces, hailing the artists as the future of hip hop music as a whole.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: Contrary to alternative rock, which went on to become a mainstay in mainstream music and replaced the glam metal of the previous generation as the most popular form of rock music, alternative hip hop's commercial momentum was impeded by the then also newly emerging, significantly harder-edged West Coast gangsta rap. With its aggressive tone, nihilistic tendencies, and violent imagery, gangsta rap was considered to be the more entertaining, more lucrative subgenre as signified by the high chart placings, radio success and multiplatinum-selling records of gangsta rappers such as Snoop Dogg, Warren G and N.W.A, who were widely embraced by major record labels and produced a legion of imitators. Albums such as "Straight Outta Compton", "The Chronic" and "Doggystyle" redefined the direction of hip hop, which resulted in lyricism concerning the gangsta lifestyle becoming the driving force of sales figures. The situation broke way around the mid-90s with the emergence and mainstream popularity of East Coast hardcore rap artists such as Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., and Mobb Deep. Following this development, many alternative rap acts eventually either disbanded or faded into obscurity.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: In his 1995 book on the current state of hip hop culture, music critic Stephen Rodrick wrote that, at that time, alternative hip-hop had "drawn little more than barely concealed yawns from other rappers and urban audiences" and came to the conclusion that the subgenre was a complete failure.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: However, a commercial breakthrough came about in the late 1990s with the rejuvenated interest in indie music by the general public due to the mainstream success of acts like The Fugees and Arrested Development. While acts such as Slum Village, Common, and The Roots were rising to prominence.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: The Fugees saw huge critical and commercial success with the release of their second album, "The Score" in 1996. The album peaked at number-one on the US Billboard 200 chart, and briefly became the best-selling album of all time. That same year, saw A Tribe Called Quest reached their commercial peak with the release of their album "Beats, Rhymes and Life", which reached number-one on the US "Billboard" 200 and became their best-selling release; while acts such as OutKast and De La Soul released some of their most definitive albums with "Atliens" and "Stakes Is High".


title: Alternative hip hop

text: Since the mid-1990s, independent record labels such as Rawkus Records, Rhymesayers, Anticon, Stones Throw and Definitive Jux have experienced lesser mainstream success with alternative rap acts such as Jurassic 5, Little Brother, Talib Kweli, MF DOOM, Atmosphere, Antipop Consortium, Mos Def, Doomtree, Pharoahe Monch, El-P, Quasimoto, Living Legends, CYNE, Blue Scholars, and Aesop Rock. It was in the 2000s that alternative hip hop reattained its place within the mainstream, due in part to the declining commercial viability of gangsta rap as well as the crossover success of artists such as Outkast, Kanye West, and Gnarls Barkley.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: Not only did Outkast's fifth studio album "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" (2003) receive universal acclaim from music critics and manage to appeal to listeners of all ages spanning numerous musical genres but also spawned two number-one hit singles. The album eventually went on to win a Grammy Award for Album of the Year—making it only the second hip hop album to win the award ("The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" being the first) and has been certified diamond by selling 11 times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).


title: Alternative hip hop

text: MF DOOM had also been on the come up in the alternative/underground scene after releasing his debut studio album "". He would come back to the hip-hop scene after the dissolving of hip-hop group KMD. Later, he and Madlib's 2004 project "Madvillainy" would be released in this time period under the illustrious hip-hop duo "Madvillain". This album was praised by music critics; and would forever inspire many upcoming artists such as Aminé and Joey Badass.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: Gnarls Barkley experienced a surprise hit with their debut single "Crazy". Due to high download sales, it reached number-one of the single charts in several countries, including the United Kingdom, where it became the best selling single of 2006. The song was named the best song of 2006 by both "Rolling Stone" and the "Village Voice" annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. "Rolling Stone" later ranked "Crazy" as the number-one song of the entire decade. The song has since been certified double platinum by RIAA. The duo were the recipient of multiple accolades, at the 49th Grammy Awards, they won the awards for Best Urban/Alternative Performance and Best Alternative Music Album.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: Industry observers view the 2007 sales competition between Kanye West's "Graduation" and 50 Cent's "Curtis" as a turning point for hip hop. West emerged the victor, selling nearly a million copies in the first week alone. Ben Detrick of "XXL" cited the outcome of the sales competition as being responsible for altering the direction of hip hop and paving the way for new rappers who didn't follow the hardcore-gangster mold, writing, "If there was ever a watershed moment to indicate hip hop's changing direction, it may have come when 50 Cent competed with Kanye in 2007 to see whose album would claim superior sales. 50 lost handily, and it was made clear that excellent song crafting trumped a street-life experience. Kanye led a wave of new artists—Kid Cudi, Wale, Lupe Fiasco, Kidz in the Hall, Drake—who lacked the interest or ability to create narratives about any past gunplay or drug-dealing." Similarly, in a retrospective article, Rosie Swash of "The Guardian" viewed the album's sales competition with 50 Cent's "Curtis" as a historical moment in hip hop, writing that it "highlighted the diverging facets of hip-hop in the last decade; the former was gangsta rap for the noughties, while West was the thinking man's alternative."


title: Alternative hip hop

text: Several burgeoning artists and groups acknowledge being directly influenced by their 1990s predecessors in addition to alternative rock groups while their music has been noted by critics as expressing eclectic sounds, life experiences and emotions rarely seen in mainstream hip hop. As traditional rock music continually becomes less synonymous with pop music, more left-of-center artists who are not fully embraced by hip-hop radio have increasingly found inclusion on alternative radio. According to Nielsen SoundScan, contemporary hip-hop acts who increasingly receive domestic airplay on alt-radio include Run the Jewels, Childish Gambino, Logic, Brockhampton, L.I.F.T. and nothing, nowhere. Regarding audiences, according to Jeff Regan, senior director of music programming for the Alt Nation channel on Sirius XM Radio, "This generation has maybe never even gone to a record store or CD store where there was a hip-hop section and a rock section — it has all been in front of them on a screen." It's for this reason that recording artists and groups traditionally perceived as rappers are included on his predominantly rock-oriented playlists, saying, "Whether it’s Lil Peep or Brockhampton or Post Malone, we have tried records from all those artists. ... We need some depth perception in the music we're presenting. Whether it’s done on a laptop or on an amp and a guitar, I just want to find something new — that’s what alternative is supposed to be."


title: Alternative hip hop

text: While some groups managed to achieve commercial success, most alternative rap acts tended to be embraced largely by alternative rock listeners and indie music fans rather than hip-hop or pop audiences. Artists receive limited exposure through commercial radio and other media outlets and primarily rely on campus radio and various independent media channels. Alternative hip hop is the recipient of consistent critical acclaim but is generally shunned by American mainstream media and widely regarded as commercially unappealing. New York radio personality and spoken word artist Imhotep Gary Byrd's single "The Crown" was rejected by American radio stations for being "too Black and too positive." However, the song was very well received and become a hit in Europe. It reached number 6 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the longest record ever to reach the top 10 in the history of the British Charts. Over the years, multiple organizations representing African-Americans such as the National Black Leadership Alliance and the National Congress of Black Women have released statements criticizing how urban radio stations refuse to play rap music that does not demean and degrade black women, censoring out alternative hip-hop artists such as Arrested Development and Dead Prez. Q-Tip, frontman of the highly influential alternative rap group A Tribe Called Quest, had his sophomore solo effort "Kamaal the Abstract" shelved for nearly a decade after his record label deemed the genre-bending album as sounding uncommercial. Q-Tip was quoted as saying:


title: Alternative hip hop

text: Similarly, BET infamously refused to play "Lovin' It", the lead single of North Carolina-based alt-rap duo Little Brother's socio-politically charged concept album "The Minstrel Show", which provided a tongue-in-cheek critique of African-American pop culture, on the grounds that the group's music was "too intelligent" for their target audience. The network was subsequently satirized by the animated series "The Boondocks" – which regularly features underground/alternative rap as background music – in the banned episode "The Hunger Strike". The episode, which portrayed BET as an evil organization dedicated to the self-genocidal mission of eradicating black people through violent, overtly sexual programming, was banned by Cartoon Network and has yet to be aired in the United States.


title: Alternative hip hop

text: The alternative hip hop movement is not limited solely to the United States, as genre-defying rappers such as Somali-Canadian poet K'naan, and especially British artist M.I.A. have achieved considerable worldwide recognition. K'naan's 2009 single Wavin' Flag reached number two on the Canadian Hot 100 while its various remixes topped the charts in several countries. Shing02 was chosen for rapping "Battlecry", the theme song of the hit hip-hop-influenced chanbara anime "Samurai Champloo", which was produced by Japanese jazz rap DJ Nujabes. "Time" magazine placed M.I.A in the "Time" 100 list of "World's Most Influential people" for having "global influence across many genres." Groups like the British virtual band Gorillaz also experienced mainstream popularization during this period of time, selling over 20 million albums total between the albums "Gorillaz" and "Demon Days." Today, due in part to the increasing usage of social networking as well as online distribution, many alternative rap artists are able to find acceptance by far-reaching audiences.


title: 2022 Pacific hurricane season

text: The 2022 Pacific hurricane season was a fairly active Pacific hurricane season, with nineteen named storms (including two that crossed over from the Atlantic), ten hurricanes, and four major hurricanes forming. The season officially began on May 15 in the Eastern Pacific, and on June 1 in the Central Pacific; both ended on November 30. These dates historically describe the period each year when most tropical cyclogenesis occurs in these regions of the Pacific and are adopted by convention.