The Carpocratians (Greek: Καρποκρατιανοὶ) was a Gnostic sect partially based on Platonism that was established in the 2nd century AD and existed until the 6th. It was named after Carpocrates of Alexandria, its founder, and gained its final form in the writings of his son, Epiphanes. Only fragmentary sources remain about their beliefs and practices, and proto-orthodox Christians of the time mischaracterised their theology to discredit them, accusing them of debauchery.

Theology
The Carpocratians were Gnostics, believing in a dualism of evil matter and good spirit, and pursuing gnosis, the esoteric knowledge needed for salvation. As others of the belief system, they believed all beings in the world strove towards Monas, the Supreme Principle or Primal Being, whom Carpocratians called the Father of All, or the One Beginning. The visible world was created not by him but by inferior angels far removed from the divine source, known as the 'fabricating powers' or the 'builders'.

Human souls existed before being trapped in material bodies, orbiting around a 'spiritual sun' on the 'plain of truth'. After initially working with God, souls were imprisoned by the 'builders' in bodies and can only be free after living every form of life and committing every possible act. Based on Luke 12:58, Carpocrates said that the Devil, or 'the accuser', dragged souls to the highest 'builder', who then gave them over to a messenger angel. This being imprisoned souls in bodies until they 'paid the uttermost farthing' (Matthew 5:26, King James Version), won freedom and re-joined God.

Every imprisoned soul retained the capacity for remembering their natural state () to a different degree. This knowledge is the only one through which humans can be saved, every other moral judgment being subjective.

Carpocratians rejected the material world, which they believed to have been created and ruled by evil. To prove their belonging to a superior spiritual realm, they claimed to communicate with demonic spirits. They also practiced a form of magic, making love potions and using theurgic incantantions, as they considered themselves above the 'builders'. This also gave them the power to exorcise, understand dreams, and cure disease. For worship, they erected statues and painted brightly coloured icons of Christ, the apostles, and other eminent men such as Plato, Pythagoras, and Aristotle, becoming the first known Christians to depict Christ. They honoured these figures in a temple on Cephalonia.

They professed the transmigration of souls (), which they might have lifted from Indian or Pythagorean sources, believing that a soul could only be freed if he remembered his former, better existence. Then, he could defy the evil spirits of the world and reach eternal rest in contemplating the Supreme Being. They rejected the idea of bodily resurrection, and the entirety of the Old Testament.

The role of Jesus
Carpocratians revered Jesus as a man whose soul had not forgotten its origins in the higher sphere of the perfect God. Believing that Jesus had been a Gnostic, they strove to imitate him, but considered him to have been an ordinary human being, not the son of God. In the Carpocratian world view, Jesus was seen as excellent in holiness and virtue, and possessing a great elasticity of mind that enabled him to remember his (and all other humans') previous existence with the Primal Being. With his extraordinary strength of soul and through the power of contemplation, he obtained divine power to perform miracles which he then used to overturn the evil religion and break free from the control of the Jewish God who had dictated it.

It was taught that anyone could become equal to Jesus with enough effort, and that he could even be excelled by someone with an even purer soul, or who despised the material world even more than he had. Every Carpocratian believer was thought to resemble Jesus to a large degree, and it was claimed that their best believers attained his level of transcendence and rose above the apostles.

The natural-born son of Joseph and Mary, Jesus was known by them to have been raised among Jews, but they held that he detested them. They might have believed that Jesus had studied at the Temple of Isis in Egypt for six years, learning gnosis there, which he then taught to the apostles, ordering them to disseminate it among the 'worthy and believing'. Their founder, Carpocrates, was believed by them to have gained his knowledge of the religion from the apostles.

Libertine Gnosticism
As Carpocratians taught that biblical laws had been imposed by the evil angels responsible for the material realm, they considered subverting them a religious responsibility. They hoped to achieve transcendence and spiritual freedom by having every possible experience, for which more than one lifetime might be necessary. They backed this claim by quoting the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus preached that '[t]ruly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny' (Matthew 5:26, English Standard Version).

Carpocratians professed that nothing was inherently good or bad, and that questions of right and wrong depended entirely on human opinion. Because of this belief, they were accused by members of other Christian groups of living debauched lives, and given the name of 'libertine Gnostics'; however, this accusation is not found in the oldest source on the sect, an account by Irenæus.

The position of wives and views on sexuality
Since Carpocrates and his followers rejected private property, they also held that women should be shared by all men of the community for procreation. Epiphanes taught that God's righteousness was a 'communion together with equality', and this ideal would have been offended by privately 'possessing' a woman. Sexuality was seen as part of the material world, and the commandment against adultery a 'joke' by the God of the Jews, who first gave an urge then forbade humans from acting on it. Marriage was seen as this evil god 'forcing what is in common to be individual', taking away something from humans that he allowed all other creatures to have.

Proto-orthodox Christians of the time such as Clement of Alexandria or Theodoret claimed this was merely an excuse for sinning. At the same time as other Christian groups embraced asceticism and celibacy in the 4th and 5th centuries, Carpocratians fostered a more liberal attitude. Their opponents therefore discredited them by accusing them of holding orgies and saying that they hoped to achieve salvation by committing every possible evil deed. Thomas Whitley characterises the Carpocratian movement as a sign of the opposition to the emerging ascetic demands of the early Christian religion.

History
Founded in the 2nd century by Carpocrates of Alexandria, the sect's belief system and community was solidified in the writings of his son, Epiphanes. Both men were well-educated in the writings and thought of Plato, and this background informed their theology. No original writings remain from Carpocrates, but some of his rhetoric can be traced from fragments in his son's works.

According to Clement of Alexandria, Epiphanes died at the age of seventeen, after already having authored his books, and was subsequently worshipped as a god. This was refuted as a legend by 19th century scholars who argued that the cult of a local moon god (theos epiphanes) was mistakenly applied to him. While Philip Schaff's religious encyclopædia disputes this claim, its writers agree that Epiphanes had to have been an important writer of the sect.

There is proof that Carpocratians were one of the best-developed among Gnostic cults, and they are known to have existed until the 6th century. Members had secret greetings, signs, and symbols, as well as a hierarchy. They might have been branded with a hot iron behind the right ear with a special mark.

See also

References

Gnostics
Early Christianity
Heresy in Christianity
Heresy in ancient Christianity
Platonism
Dualism (philosophy of mind)
Western esotericism
Spirituality
Reincarnation
2nd century
2nd-century establishments
Alexandria

Carpocratians (Gnostic sect)


Yoruba-English: B

1.	Ba: v. 'to hide' Mo ba sí abẹ́ igi; I hid under the tree.

2.	Bà: v. (i) to ferment: Kòkó náà ti bà; The cocoa has fermented (ii) to perch: Ẹyẹ náà bà; The bird perched (iii) to foment: Mo ba egbò rẹ̀; I fomented his ulcer (iv) to hit: Òkúta tí ó sọ bà mí; The stone he threw hit me. (v) to be afraid: Ẹ̀rù bà mí; I was afraid. (vi) settle: Ẹyẹ náà bá sórí ẹ̀ka igi ka; The bird settled on a branch.

3.	Bẹ́: v. (i) to burst: Ó bẹ́ pẹ̀ẹ́; It bursts (ii) to cut: Ó bẹ́ ẹ ní orí; He cut his head off (iii) to jump: Ọmọ náà bẹ́; The child jumped (iv) to buy a little quantity of a commodity: Ó bẹ́ tábà; He bought a little quantity of tobacco (vi) to crack: Orógbó náà bẹ́; The bitter cola cracked when it was eaten (vii) to start: Òràn ti bẹ́; Trouble has started (viii) to puncture: Táyà náà bẹ́; The tyre punctured (iv) to spat: Ó bẹ́ itọ́; He Spat.

4.	Bẹ: v. (i) to be bright: Ó bẹ; It is bright (ii) to peel: Ó bẹ iṣu náà; He peeled the yam (iii) to speak cheekily: Ó bẹ si mi; He spoke cheekily to me (iv) to exist: Ó ń bẹ; It exists (v) to be forward/to be screwed: Ọmọkùnrin yẹn bẹ;  That boy is too forward.

5.	Bẹ̀: v. 'beg': Ó bẹ̀ mí; He begged me (ii) apologize: O ti ṣẹ Olú. Bẹ́ ẹ̀ 'You have offended Olú. Apologize to him. (iii) implore: Ó bẹ olè náà kí ó máà kó gbogbo owó wọn lọ; He implored the robber not to take all their money (iv) ask: Ó bẹ̀ wà lọ́wẹ̀; He asked us for communal help.

6.	Bí: v. (i) to give birth to: Ó bímọ; She gave birth to a baby (ii) to be annoyed: Ó ń bínú; He is annoyed (iii) If: Bí o lù mi n ó lù ọ́; If you hit me I will hit you. (iv) Question marker: Ó lọ bí?; Did he go? (v) how: Ó kọ́ mi bí mo ti máa se é; He taught me how to do it (vi) that: Ó ní àfi bí òun pa á; He says there is nothing but that he will kill him (vii) When/after: Bí ó ti rí mi, inú rè dùn; When he saw me, he was happy (viii) like: Ó rí bí Olú; He is like Olú (ix) as: Ṣe bí mo ti wí; Do as I say (x) bear: Obìnrin yẹn ti bí ọmọ mẹ́wàá;  That woman has borne ten children (xi) born: Ọdún tí ó kọjá ni wọ́n bí Olú; Olú was born last year (xii) just: Adé wole bí mo se jádé; Adè entered just as I left (xiii) more: Ènìyàn bí ogbọ̀n ló wà nílé rẹ̀; There were thirty people in his house, more or less (xiv) reproduce: Ológbò máa ń bí ní ẹ̀ẹ̀méjì lọ́dún; Cats reproduce twice a year (xv) such: Wọ́n ń fẹ́ èso tí ó kún fún omi bí i osàn; They want some juicy fruit such as orange (xvi) whether: Nò mọ̀ bí ó máa wá tàbí kò níí wá; I don't know whether he will come or not'.

7.	Bi: v. to ask: Ó bi í ní ìbéèrè; He asked him questions.

8.	Bì: v.(i) to vomit: Ó bì; He vomited (ii) Ó bì mí; He pushed me (iii) to change colour: Aṣọ náà máa ń bì; The cloth always changes its colour(s) (iv) sick: Olú bì nígbà tí ó jẹ iyán ní àjẹjù; Olú was sick when he ate too much pounded yam.

9.	Bo: v. to hide: Ó bo sí abẹ́ igi; He hid under the tree.

	Bò: v. (i) to cover: Ó bo abọ́ náà; He covered the plate (ii) to roof: A bo ilé wa; We roofed our house (iii) to have plenty of leaves: Igi ìrókò náà bò; The ìrókò tree is dense with leaves (iv) smoother: Eruku bò mí 'I was smothered in dust.

10.	Bọ: v. to worship: Ó bọ òrìṣà; He worshipped the deity

Atúmọ̀-Èdè (Yorùbá-Gẹ̀ẹ́sì): B1


Islamic Culture and Communication Organization () is one of the Iranian organizations which is affiliated to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance; and was established in 1995. Islamic Culture and Communication Organization's main responsibility is in the field of cultural activities (abroad the country). Mehdi Imanipour is the head of the organization.
Amongst the goals of "Islamic Culture and Communication Organization" are briefly as follows:

 Expand/strengthen cultural relations with diverse nations and ethnic groups, particularly with Islamic-countries; providing situations for unity between Muslims of the world;
 correct-introduction of the school of Ahl al-Bayt on the subject of belief/jurisprudence/ethics;
and so forth.

Members
The Islamic Culture and Communication Organization has two pillars, consisting of the head of the organization and "the Supreme Council". Supreme-council is composed of 11 members who are appointed by the decree of Iran's supreme leader, Seyyed Ali Khamenei; including:

 Three scientific/cultural personalities which are chosen by the Supreme Leader; the Deputy of International Relations at Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran; and the head of the organization.
 Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance (Chairman of the council) and minister of Foreign Affairs.
 Chief of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.
 Islamic Development Organization's head.
 Secretary general of The World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought

See also
 Islamic Development Organization
 Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance
 Islamic Development Coordination Council

References

Organisations under control of the Supreme Leader of Iran
Organisations based in Iran
Government agencies of Iran


AeroTrain is a  underground people mover system at Washington Dulles International Airport. It was scheduled to open in fall 2009, but was delayed until 2010 in order to complete reliability tests.  It opened to Dulles employees on January 20, 2010, and to passengers January 26, 2010.  The system mostly replaced the mobile lounges that transport passengers from the concourses to the Main Terminal.  The system cost about $1.4 billion and also includes a new security screening mezzanine.  The system utilizes 29 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Crystal Mover vehicles as its rolling stock.

The AeroTrain transports passengers between the Main Terminal building and Concourses A, B and C.  From the Main Terminal Station, trains travel to Concourse A and Concourse C in one direction, and Concourse B in the other direction.  The track map for AeroTrain is shaped like a fishhook, with the Main Terminal station at the bottom.  The Aerotrain runs 4 three-car trains from 5:00 AM to around 3:00 PM from which seven three-car trains run from 3:00 PM until 11:00 PM.  From midnight to 5 AM there are usually two three-car trains but sometimes only one three-car train.  There are supposed to be no more than two minutes between trains, and trains transport passengers to the concourses in about two minutes, at 40–42 miles per hour (the mobile lounges travel about fifteen miles per hour).

Since the existing Concourse C/D (built in 1985 and renovated in 2006 to extend its life for 8-10 more years) is a temporary concourse, the Concourse C station has been built at the site of the future permanent Concourse C/D, and is connected to the existing concourse by an underground walkway.

There are also plans for future expansion of the system.  The AeroTrain can be expanded to include stations for the future Concourse D, two stations for an additional midfield Concourse (Concourses E and F), and a South Terminal.  Once fully built out, the trains will run in a two-way loop around the airport.

References

External links
 Dulles International Airport Homepage

Airport people mover systems in the United States
Crystal Mover people movers
Railway lines opened in 2010
Dulles International Airport
2010 establishments in Virginia

AeroTrain (Washington Dulles International Airport)


Paganello is a beach ultimate event held over the Easter weekend in Rimini, Italy.

The sport competitions which take place during Paganello are the World Beach Ultimate Cup and the Acrobatic Freestyle Paganello.
It was in Rimini, at Paganello that Beach Ultimate, the beach version of Ultimate, was invented.
Held for the first time in 1991, Paganello has become one of the world's biggest Ultimate events and one of the most popular tournaments internationally.
Many of the best European teams as well as many competitive American teams  attend Paganello. More than 1,200 athletes from 25 countries attend and play a total of almost 500 games.
The tournament takes place over the course of four days, ending on Monday afternoon with the finals of the four divisions: juniors, mixed, women's and men's, played in front of about 10,000 spectators.

External links
 http://www.paganello.com

Flying disc tournaments
Ultimate (sport) competitions

Paganello


Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (1974) is a book by the economists Robert Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman.  Fogel and Engerman argued that slavery was an economically rational institution and that the economic exploitation of slaves was not as catastrophic as presumed, because there were financial incentives for slaveholders to maintain a basic level of material support for those they held as property. The book was reprinted in 1995 at its twentieth anniversary. The book contradicts the long-standing notion that slavery was economically backwards, underdeveloped the South, and was on the path to extinction before the Civil War broke out. It attracted widespread attention in the media and generated heated controversy and criticism for its methodology and conclusions.

Content
The scholar Thomas L. Haskell wrote in 1975 that Time on the Cross had two main themes: to revise the history of slavery and to support the use of the scientific method in history.

The book directly challenged the long-held conclusions that American slavery was unprofitable, a moribund institution, inefficient, and extremely harsh for the typical slave. The authors proposed that slavery before the Civil War was economically efficient, especially in the case of the South, which grew commodity crops such as cotton, tobacco, and sugar. These types of crops were usually grown on plantations that employed a gang system of labor, which was closely monitored and considered more efficient than task-based work by smaller groups.

Fogel wrote that slave farms were just as productive as free farms.  He said that the large plantation-style slave farms (16+ slaves) were the most efficient, having a Total Factor Productivity ratio (Ai/Aj) to be around 1.33. Fogel also wrote that if slaves had a day of rest, they tended to be more efficient because of the extra day of rest. They would be able to regain their energy and thus have more energy to produce more. "In their revised view slaves were hard working; slave labor was of superior quality. Indeed, this helps explain why large slave plantations were much more efficient than free Southern farms."  In addition, since different crops were grown in the South and the North, he noted that although slavery was efficient in the South, it would not have been so in the North due to different weather and other conditions.

The authors predicted that if slavery had not been abolished, the price of slaves would have continued to rise rapidly in the late 19th century as more land was put into production for cotton. The book compares conditions and economics in the "Old South" (Atlantic Coastal states) with the "New South" (areas farther west, commonly called the Deep South).  It evaluates available statistics to shed light on slave life. The authors point out that following emancipation and the end of the Civil War, the life expectancy of freedmen declined by 10 percent, and their illnesses increased by 20 percent, over slavery times. (At the same time, there was considerable social dislocation across the South following the widespread destruction of the war and loss of life among a generation of men. White militias directly attacked and intimidated freedmen, and with the agricultural economy being decimated, causing widespread problems and suffering among the entire population.)

The authors evaluated oral interviews conducted by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration, United States Census information, and other statistical data to assert that many slaves were encouraged to marry and maintain households, they were given garden plots, the dehumanizing practice of "slave breeding" was virtually non-existent, the quality of their daily diets and medical care were comparable to the white population, and many trusted slaves were given great responsibility in managing plantations. This was in contrast to other accounts of the dehumanizing effects of slavery.

Fogel and Engerman wrote: "[S]lave owners expropriated far less than generally presumed, and over the course of a lifetime a slave field hand received approximately ninety percent of the income produced."(p. 5-6) They were estimating the value of housing, clothing, food and other benefits received by the slaves and argued that they lived as well in material terms as did free urban laborers; life was difficult for both classes.

The authors acknowledged their thesis was controversial and emphasized that their goal was not to justify slavery.  Rather, they asserted, their goal was to counter myths about the character of black Americans—myths they said had gained currency in the antebellum slavery debate and had survived into the civil rights era. These myths, the authors wrote, had their genesis in racist attitudes widely shared by both abolitionists and defenders of slavery. Myths included perceptions that black Americans were lazy, promiscuous, untrustworthy and lacked natural ability.

Reception
The book received unusually broad mainstream media attention for a work of economic history; its revisionism in the decade following some achievements by the civil rights movement caused controversy.  It was a seminal work in generating debate within the fields of economics and history.  As Thomas J. Weiss noted in 2001,

Many in the historical community were impressed with the authors' application of cliometrics. In general historians and economists agree with the conclusion that slavery was efficient and economically viable but had more mixed attitudes towards the material well being of slaves.

Criticism and praise
In a 1975 review of three works critical of the book, Thomas Haskell of The New York Review of Books said that Time on the Cross "at first seemed exceptionally important, if contentious, [but] now appears at least to be severely flawed and possibly not even worth further attention by serious scholars."

In 1975, the historian Herbert Gutman published Slavery and the Numbers Game in which he criticized Fogel and Engerman on a host of issues. He challenged their use of limited evidence for systematic and regular rewards, and their failure to consider the effect public whipping would have on other slaves.  He argued that Fogel and Engerman had mistakenly assumed that slaves had assimilated the Protestant work ethic.  If they had such an ethic, then the system of punishments and rewards outlined in Time on the Cross would support Fogel and Engerman's thesis.  Gutman's thesis was that most slaves had not adopted this ethic at all, and that slavery's carrot-and-stick approach to work was not part of the slave worldview.  He also claimed that much of the mathematics in the text is incorrect and often uses insufficient measurements.

In American Slavery, the historian Peter Kolchin suggests that the economists did not fully consider the costs of the forced migration of more than one million slaves from the Upper South to the Deep South, where they were sold to cotton plantations. He wrote that the book was a "flash in the pan, a bold but now discredited work."

In 2001, calling it that "rare" book that has withstood "the onslaught of unrelenting, withering criticism," Thomas Weiss, who served as editor of the Journal of Economic History, and the Executive Director of the Economic History Association, wrote that the book made quantitative "results more widely known among the general public and integrating that information into their bold, new vision of the way the slave system functioned." The book's reissue in 1995 at its twentieth anniversary prompted new symposia and roundtables to discuss the material.  New scholarly articles and books have been published that use similar methods to evaluate such factors as the physical stature of slaves (related to their health and material well-being) and their standard of living.

In regard to the work's influence, Weiss added that "Moreover, many economic historians, in both economics and history departments, agree with the major conclusions put forth by Fogel and Engerman."

Michael Tadman wrote that Time on the Cross is "widely accepted as establishing the profitability of American slavery—indeed as establishing that slave‐based agriculture was profitable not just on virgin land but in the older slave‐exporting states too." However, in the context of the historiography of the slave trade, Fogel and Engerman surface "only the mildest version of the abolitionist critique of slave treatment," and Tadman finds that their inferences about "black and white mentalities and relationships were, however, far less convincing."

Notes

Further reading

 Hilt, Eric. (2010). "Revisiting Time on the Cross After 45 Years: The Slavery Debates and the New Economic History." Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics, Volume 1, Number 2, pp. 456-483 .

References
  Reissue edition; first published in 1974.
 Fogel, Robert William and Engerman, Stanley L. Time On The Cross: Evidence and Methods - A Supplement. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1974.
 Gutman, Herbert G. Slavery and the Numbers Game: A Critique of 'Time on the Cross'. Champaign, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2003. ; reprint, first published 1975
 Haskell, Thomas L. "The True and Tragical History of 'Time on the Cross'", New York Review of Books, 22:15 (October 2, 1975).
 Weiss, Thomas. "Review: 'Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery'", Project 2001: Significant Works in Economic History, EH.net (Economic History.net), September 2001

External links

1974 non-fiction books
Non-fiction books about American slavery
Books about economic history
Bancroft Prize-winning works
Collaborative non-fiction books
1974 controversies
African-American-related controversies


Edward Applebaum (September 28, 1937 – January 7, 2020) was an American composer of contemporary classical music.

Born in Los Angeles, United States of America, Applebaum began his career as a jazz pianist and conductor. He received a B.A. (1962), M.A. (1963), and Ph.D. (1966) from the University of California, Los Angeles, and also studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm, Sweden. His primary teachers were Henri Lazarof and Lukas Foss. In Sweden, he also studied  with Ingvar Lidholm.

Applebaum taught composition at the University of Houston and had previously taught at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Texas, Edith Cowan University in Australia, the University of California, Santa Barbara, Florida State University, and in Norway. He also lectured at The Jung Center of Houston. His notable students include Donald Crockett and Carl Faia.

In 1984, Applebaum received a first-place Kennedy Center Friedheim Award in Music Composition for his Symphony No. 2. His most notable work is The Princess in the Garden for string orchestra, composed in 1985.

Applebaum also held a particular scholarly interest in the subject of psychotherapy and the arts. He had been married to the composer Allyson Brown Applebaum (now Allyson Applebaum Wells).

References

External links
 Biography of Applebaum at ZALA films
 Biography of Applebaum at the website of the University of Houston

1937 births
2020 deaths
Musicians from Los Angeles
20th-century American composers
20th-century classical composers
21st-century American composers
21st-century classical composers
American classical composers
American male classical composers
Florida State University faculty
Pupils of Lukas Foss
Rice University faculty
UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture alumni
University of California, Santa Barbara faculty
University of Houston faculty
20th-century American male musicians
21st-century American male musicians

Edward Applebaum


The Alabama Museum of Natural History is the state's natural history museum, located in Smith Hall at the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa. The oldest museum in the state, it was founded in 1831. The exhibits depict the natural diversity of Alabama from the Age of Dinosaurs, the Coal Age, and the Ice Age. Collections include items relating to geology, zoology, mineralogy, paleontology, ethnology, history, and photography. The Grand Gallery Exhibition Hall houses a replica of a Basilosaurus cetoides, an Eocene whale that has been designated as the State Fossil.  Exhibits of special interest include the skull of an American mastodon dredged from the Tombigbee River near Demopolis and the Hodges meteorite. The latter hit a woman as it fell to earth near Sylacauga on November 30, 1954. The museum sponsors expeditions throughout the year, as it has since 1979.

History

The current home for the Alabama Museum of Natural History, Smith Hall, is named in honor of Dr. Eugene Allen Smith.  He was appointed as state geologist in 1873 and spent nearly forty years surveying, mapping and collecting scientific specimens throughout the state.  The cornerstone for Smith Hall was laid on May 28, 1907.  Construction of Smith Hall was completed in fall 1909 and it was formally dedicated on May 5, 1910.

Eugene A. Smith recruited collector Herbert Huntington Smith (no relation) as the museum's curator. Herbert H. Smith directed the Museum under Eugene A. Smith from 1910 till his death in 1919. During this period the Alabama Museum of Natural History was very active in acquiring natural history objects by collecting, trading and donation, especially fossil and recent mollusks of Alabama. Large collections of tertiary shells were made and traded to other institutions and individuals. The two Smiths generously sent specimens to local and out-of-state researchers, generating many publications on Alabama material. The museum also improved its exhibits and provided identified sets of natural history objects to schools in Alabama.

Herbert Smith's wife, Amelia "Daisy" Woolworth Smith, was also a collector and worked for the museum, but with scant public attention, as this would have been thought of as immodest at the time. Remarkably, after her husband's unexpected death, Daisy Smith replaced him as Acting Curator, making her one of the few women to direct a natural history museum in the early twentieth century. Her endeavors included seeing her late husband's malacological projects through to completion, which she accomplished by recruiting Calvin Goodrich and other malacologists.

Architecture

Smith Hall consists of a three-story central block, built to house the Alabama Museum of Natural History, and adjoining two-story north and south wings.  The north wing originally housed the Department of Biology with the south wing housing the Department of Geology.  The Department of Geology currently occupies both wings.  The architecture of Smith Hall mirrors on a smaller scale the design and layout of several large natural history museums that were also built during the early years of the 20th century in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.

The building is designed in a Classical Revival style known as Beaux-Arts.  The exterior features an engaged colonnade of eight Ionic columns raised above a podium-like ground floor.  The main entrance is at ground level through a pedimented stone doorway.  Immediately inside the entrance is a center hall dominated by a sweeping staircase made of Alabama marble and supported by Alabama-manufactured iron.  The staircase leads to the Grand Gallery Exhibition Hall on the second floor.  The Grand Gallery is ringed by a colonnade of monumental Corinthian columns supporting an entablature and cornice.  A barrel vaulted ceiling above the cornice contains skylights that provide the space with natural light.

See also

List of museums in Alabama

References

University of Alabama
Museums established in 1831
Natural history museums in Alabama
Museums in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Dinosaur museums in the United States
Beaux-Arts architecture in Alabama
Paleontology in Alabama
1831 establishments in Alabama

Alabama Museum of Natural History


Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (stylized as CineMark from 1998 to 2022 and CINEMARK since 2022) is an American movie theater chain that started operations in 1984 and since then it has operated theaters with hundreds of locations throughout the Americas. It is headquartered in Plano, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Cinemark is a leader in the theatrical exhibition industry with 521 theatres and 5,855 screens in the U.S. and Latin America as of June 30, 2022. It is also the largest movie theatre chain in Brazil, with a 30 percent market share.

Cinemark operates theaters under several brands, including its flagship Cinemark, Century Theatres, Tinseltown, CinéArts and Rave Cinemas.

In May 2021, Cinemark struck agreements to show films from some of its major Hollywood studio partners, including Warner Bros., Walt Disney Studios, Paramount, and Sony Pictures. The goal of the move is to establish how long movies will play in theaters before being available for home video.

History

Cinemark was started by Lee Roy Mitchell as a chain of theatres in California, Texas and Utah. It is unclear when Cinemark was first founded. While Cinemark officially claims to have launched in 1984 (and previously claimed a 1983 founding date), online records show Cinemark might have started as early as 1977. The roots of the company date back to the 1960s when brothers J.C. and Lee Roy Mitchell created Mitchell Theatres, Inc. By 1972, the company was named Texas Cinema Corporation. Lee Roy Mitchell then formed a group of theaters under the Cinemark name beginning in 1977. Cinemark Corporation and Texas Cinema Corporation merged operations in June 1979 creating a portfolio of 25 theaters in Texas and New Mexico under the Cinemark brand. On March 26, 1980, Henry G. Plitt of Plitt Theatres Holdings purchased the Cinemark circuit of theaters. But Cinemark Corporation continued operations acquiring existing theaters and began to build new theaters. In 1987, Cinemark acquired all of the Plitt Theatres.

With the opening of the Movies 8 on 3912 Hampton Road in Texarkana, Texas in 1987, Cinemark began building theaters with colorful interiors and large video game arcades. Legal advertisements indicate that the company known as Cinemark USA, Incorporated, officially began December 31, 1987. The following year, Cinemark introduced its Front Row Joe mascot created by independent animation studio Wilming Reams Animation. This animated cat appeared in policy trailers and on kids' concession products. The mascot was retired in 1998 when Cinemark had begun to open Art Deco-style theatres, and was revived in 2004 for its 20th anniversary, and again in 2018 with a CGI look, darker orange color and the beige color being added. In 1992, Cinemark opened a new theater concept called Hollywood USA in Garland, Texas; this concept was subsequently refined into the Tinseltown USA brand of theaters, which were much bigger than what Cinemark had previously built. The following year, Cinemark expanded to Latin America with the opening of a theater in Santiago, Chile. The next year, Cinemark opened four theaters in Mexico. In 1998, Cinemark announced that it would replace its bright color interiors with what Cinemark characterized as a more classic Art Deco design. Through new theatre construction and acquisitions, it became the third largest theatre chain in the United States and the second largest theatre chain in the world. Mitchell's son Kevin Mitchell worked with the company as an executive until leaving in 2007 to found ShowBiz Cinemas. In 2013, Cinemark decided to sell all of its Mexican theaters to Cinemex.

Cinemark has a deal with Universal in which movies that gross more than $50 million domestically during their first weekend in theaters will continue to be shown in theaters exclusively for five weekends, or 31 days. After that, while theaters can continue to screen a film, the title becomes available on online rental platforms such as Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.

Cinemark introduced a brand new premium offering, Cinemark XD, standing for Extreme Digital Cinema in 2009. The first XD screen opened at the Century San Francisco Centre 9 theater in San Francisco, California. This auditorium features a giant, wall-to-wall display, Barco 4K digital projection with 2D and RealD 3D capabilities, immersive, surround sound audio systems that enabled customers to hear the movies as the filmmakers intended and premium seats with Luxury Lounger electric recliners. Special features include 11.1 layers of multi-layer channel surround sound and 35 trillion colors. On May 4, 2017, it was announced that a THX sound system would be coming to the XD locations as part of a partnership with Cinemark. The Razer-owned company was hired to certify over 200 XD auditoriums in the United States and Latin America to offer a superior audiovisual experience for moviegoers and provide an unparalleled entertainment environment. It took a year to finish the certification update. Finally on May 2, 2018, Cinemark confirmed that the XD screens were now THX certified as the progress was completed.

United States Department of Justice lawsuits
In the 1990s, Cinemark Theatres was one of the first chains to incorporate stadium-style seating into their theatres.  In 1997, several disabled individuals filed a lawsuit against Cinemark, alleging that their stadium style seats forced patrons who used wheelchairs to sit in the front row of the theatre, effectively rendering them unable to see the screen without assuming a horizontal position. The case was heard in El Paso district court as Lara v. Cinemark USA, where a judge ruled that the architecture of Cinemark's theatres violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ruling was later overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that Cinemark only had to provide an "unobstructed view" of the screen, and that since disabled patrons' view was only awkward and not actually obscured, Cinemark was not violating the law.

In response, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed their own suit against Cinemark while appealing the appellate court's decision. The DOJ argued that, while Cinemark was not technically violating the ADA, it was nevertheless discriminating against disabled patrons by relegating them to the worst seats in the auditorium. Cinemark responded by filing a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, alleging misconduct on the DOJ's behalf. Cinemark's lawsuit was thrown out, and the Department of Justice proceeded with its lawsuit. Cinemark ultimately agreed to settle out of court before the court came to a ruling, agreeing with the DOJ that it was in the company's best interest to end litigation before a ruling was issued. Per the terms of the settlement, Cinemark agreed to renovate all existing theatres to provide patrons who used wheelchairs access to rows higher in its theatres, and also agreed that all future theatres would be constructed so as to allow handicapped patrons better access to higher rows. In turn, the Department of Justice agreed not to bring further litigation against the company in relation to the architecture of stadium seating as it applies to the ADA.

Aurora shooting

On July 20, 2012, a gunman opened fire during the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in a Century theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others. The gunman, later identified as James Eagan Holmes, who was believed to be acting alone, entered the theater dressed in protective clothing, set off tactical grenades, then opened fire with multiple firearms on the theatergoers. Counting both fatalities and injuries, the attack was the largest mass shooting in terms of number of casualties in United States history at the time. The theater was reopened on January 17, 2013.

The theater was sued by families of the victims, who alleged the theater should have taken greater measures to prevent the shooting. In May 2016, after years of legal debate, a jury took three hours to deliver a unanimous verdict that the theater chain was not liable. As the prevailing party in the judgment, Cinemark sought nearly US$700,000 from the plaintiffs to recover litigation expenses. In September 2016, after objections from the victims, Cinemark dropped all claims for reimbursement of legal fees. A separate group of victims were also dismissed in federal court when US District Judge R. Brooke Jackson ruled: "[James Holmes'] own premeditated and intentional actions were the predominant cause of the plaintiffs' losses."

In the wake of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Cinemark announced that it would no longer allow bags larger than  in its theaters as a safety precaution.

2020 temporary closure
Effective March 18, 2020, Cinemark closed all of its 345 theaters across the United States indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cinemark released a statement describing the temporary closure "as a proactive measure in support of the health and safety of its employees, guests and communities." In light of the pandemic, a few dozen locations have upgraded their box office stands, replacing them with digital kiosks for ticket purchases, including the lay offs of many ushers working up front-end. Another reason is due to the plunging revenue in Q3 2020. The process of entirely replacing ushers with kiosks, has been pushed back to January 1, 2028.

In May 2021, CEO Mark Zoradi said that 98 percent of Cinemark's theaters in the United States had reopened. Due to government restrictions in Latin America, only half of the theaters the region are operating More recently, the company signed a new deal with the major movie studios.

Political causes

In 2008, CEO Alan Stock donated US$9,999 toward the successful passage of California's Proposition 8, an initiative restricting the definition of marriage to opposite-sex couples and overturning the California Supreme Court's ruling that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. An ensuing campaign, launched by opponents to the Prop 8 passage, encouraged patrons to see showings of the film Milk, based on the life of gay-rights activist Harvey Milk, at a competing theater in protest instead of at Cinemark showings. Others called for a more general boycott.

Theater chains acquired

Century Theatres acquisition
On August 8, 2006, Cinemark purchased Century Theatres with a combination of cash and stock bonds. This acquisition added over 80 theatres and many more screens. Some of these theatres were subsequently shut down either being phased out as under performing or replaced with new complexes. The transaction was completed on October 5, 2006. With this purchase, Cinemark heavily strengthened their presence in Northern California and entered Alaska, Nevada, South Dakota, and Washington state, though at the transaction both of their locations in Washington state were still under construction. However, Cinemark retains the Century banner and continues to open new locations under that banner.

Muvico Theaters purchases
In 2009, in order to save the company from a potential bankruptcy, Muvico Theaters sold four theatres to Cinemark: Arundel Mills Egyptian 24 in Hanover, Maryland; Paradise 24 in Pembroke Pines, Florida; Palace 20 in Boca Raton, Florida; and Boynton Beach 14 in Boynton Beach, Florida. Muvico was bought by another theater chain (Carmike Cinemas) in 2013, which was bought by yet another (AMC Theatres) in 2016.

Rave Cinemas purchase
In November 2012, Cinemark announced it was acquiring Rave Cinemas, the Dallas, Texas–based chain that operates the former Bridge theater with IMAX in Culver City, California for US$240 million. The deal included 32 theaters located in 12 US states, representing 483 screens. Tim Warner, Cinemark's CEO said in a statement "The acquisition of these high quality assets will further enhance Cinemark's diversified domestic footprint, including the expansion of our presence in the New England market". The sale was closed on May 29, 2013, but Cinemark was required to sell the Rave Stonybrook 20 + IMAX theater in Louisville, Kentucky, the Rave Ritz Center 16 in southern New Jersey, and either the Rave Hickory Creek 16 in Hickory Creek, Texas or the Cinemark 14 in Denton, Texas. In addition, Cinemark's chairman Lee Roy Mitchell was also required to sell the Movie Tavern Inc. to Southern Theatres. On July 18, 2013, Cinemark found a buyer, Carmike Cinemas, for the Stonybrook 20 & IMAX, Rave Ritz Center 16, and the Rave Hickory Creek 16. With this change, National CineMedia has been replaced with Screenvision at the Stonybrook 20 and Ritz Center 16. Screenvision is already at Hickory Creek, Texas at the time of the announcement of the sale. The sale was closed on August 16, 2013. On September 12, 2013, Southern Theatres announced that they acquired The Movie Tavern from Lee Roy Mitchell after he was required to sell The Movie Tavern after Cinemark bought Rave Cinemas on May 29, 2013. In 2018, Southern sold the Movie Tavern chain to the Marcus Corporation. As part of Southern Theatres' long-term deal with National CineMedia, The Movie Tavern switched from Screenvision to National CineMedia in June 2014. Also, Cinemark purchased Rave Cinemas Baldwin Hills Crenshaw 15, in Los Angeles, in June 2014.

See also
 AMC Theatres
 Regal Cinemas

References

External links

Movie theatre chains in the United States
Movie theatre chains in Canada
American companies established in 1984
Entertainment companies established in 1984
1984 establishments in Texas
Companies based in Plano, Texas
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
2007 initial public offerings

Cinemark Theatres