Variety is an American magazine owned by Penske Media Corporation. It was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933, Daily Variety was launched, based in Los Angeles, to cover the motion-picture industry. Variety website features entertainment news, reviews, box office results, plus a credits database, production charts and film calendar.

History

Founding

Variety has been published since December 16, 1905, when it was launched by Sime Silverman as a weekly periodical covering theater and vaudeville, with its headquarters in New York City. Silverman had been fired by The Morning Telegraph in 1905 for panning an act which had taken out an advert for $50. He subsequently decided to start his own publication that, he said, would "not be influenced by advertising." With a loan of $1,500 from his father-in-law, he launched Variety as publisher and editor. In addition to The Morning Telegraph, other major competitors at the time of the company's launch were The New York Clipper and the New York Dramatic Mirror.

The original cover design, which is very similar to the current design, was sketched by Edgar M. Miller, a scenic painter, who refused payment. The front cover contained pictures of the original editorial staff: Alfred Greason, Epes W. Sargeant (Chicot or Chic), Joshua Lowe, and Silverman. The first issue contained a review by Silverman's son Sidne, also known as Skigie (based on the childish lisping of his name) who was claimed to be the youngest critic in the world at seven years old.

20th century
In 1922, Silverman acquired The New York Clipper which had been reporting on the stage and other entertainment since 1853, in an attempt to attract advertising revenue away from Billboard, following a dispute with William Donaldson, the owner of Billboard. Silverman folded it two years later after spending $100,000, merging some of its features into Variety. The same year, he launched the Times Square Daily, which he referred to as "the world's worst daily" and soon scrapped. During that period, Variety staffers worked on all three papers.

After the launch of The Hollywood Reporter in 1930, Silverman launched the Hollywood-based Daily Variety in 1933 with Arthur Ungar as the editor. It replaced Variety Bulletin that was issued in Hollywood on Fridays as a four-page wraparound to the Weekly. Daily Variety was initially published every day other than Sunday but mostly on Monday to Friday. The Daily and the Weekly were initially run as virtually independent newspapers, with the Daily concentrating mostly on Hollywood news and the Weekly on U.S. and international coverage.

Silverman passed on the editorship of the Weekly Variety to Abel Green as his replacement in 1933. He remained as publisher until his death later that year, soon after launching Daily Variety. Silverman's son Sidne succeeded him as publisher of both publications but upon contracting tuberculosis in 1936 he could no longer take a day to day role at the paper. Green, the editor, and Harold Erichs, the treasurer and chief financial officer, ran the paper during his illness. Following Sidne's death in 1950, his only son Syd Silverman, was the sole heir to what was then Variety Inc. Young Syd's legal guardian Erichs, who had started at Variety as an office boy, assumed the presidency.

Ungar remained editor of Daily Variety until his death in 1950.
He was followed by Joe Schoenfeld.

In 1953, Army Archerd took over the "Just for Variety" column on page two of Daily Variety and swiftly became popular in Hollywood. Archerd broke countless exclusive stories, reporting from film sets, announcing pending deals, giving news of star-related hospitalizations, marriages, and births. The column appeared daily for 52 years until September 1, 2005.

Erichs continued to oversee Variety until 1956. After that date, Syd Silverman managed the company as publisher of both the Weekly Variety in New York and the Daily Variety in Hollywood.

Thomas M. Pryor, former Hollywood bureau chief of The New York Times, became editor of Daily Variety in 1959. Under Pryor, Daily Variety expanded from 8 pages to 32 pages and also saw circulation increase from 8,000 to 22,000.

Green remained as editor of Variety until his death in 1973, with Syd taking over the role.

In 1987, Variety was sold to Cahners Publishing for $64 million. In December 1987, Syd handed over editorship of Variety to Roger Watkins. After 29 years as editor of Daily Variety, Tom Pryor handed over to his son Pete in June 1988.

On December 7, 1988, Watkins proposed and oversaw the transition to four-color print. Upon its launch, the new-look Variety measured one inch shorter with a washed-out color on the front. The old front-page box advertisement was replaced by a strip advertisement, along with the first photos published in Variety since Sime gave up using them in the old format in 1920: they depicted Sime, Abel and Syd.

For 20 years from 1989, Varietys editor-in-chief was Peter Bart, originally only of the weekly New York edition, with Michael Silverman (Syd's son) running the Daily in Hollywood. Bart had worked previously at Paramount Pictures and The New York Times.

Syd remained as publisher until 1990 when he was succeeded on Weekly Variety by Gerard A. Byrne and on Daily Variety by Sime Silverman's great-grandson, Michael Silverman. Syd became chairman of both publications.

21st century
In April 2009, Bart moved to the position of "vice president and editorial director", characterized online as "Boffo No More: Bart Up and Out at Variety". From mid 2009 to 2013, Timothy M. Gray oversaw the publication as Editor-in-Chief, after over 30 years of various reporter and editor positions in the newsroom.

Acquisition by Penske Media Corporation
In October 2012, Reed Business Information, the periodical's owner, (formerly known as Reed-Elsevier, which had been parent to Cahner's Corp. in the United States) sold the publication to Penske Media Corporation (PMC). PMC is the owner of Deadline Hollywood, which since the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike has been considered Variety's largest competitor in online showbiz news. In October 2012, Jay Penske, chairman and CEO of PMC, announced that the website's paywall would come down, the print publication would stay, and he would invest more into Varietys digital platform in a townhall.

In March 2013, owner Penske appointed three co-editors to oversee different parts of the publication's industry coverage; Claudia Eller as Editor, Film; Cynthia Littleton as Editor, TV; and Andrew Wallenstein as Editor, Digital. The decision was also made to stop printing Daily Variety with the last printed edition published on March 19, 2013, with the headline "Variety Ankles Daily Pub Hubbub".

In June 2014, Variety launched a high-end real-estate breaking news site, Dirt, under the direction of self-proclaimed "Real Estalker" Mark David, which later expanded to its own stand-alone site in 2019. October 2014 Eller and Wallenstein were upped to Co-Editors in Chief, with Littleton continuing to oversee the trade's television coverage. In June 2014, Penske Media Corporation entered into an agreement with Reuters to syndicate news from Variety and Variety Latino-Powered by Univision to distribute leading entertainment news to the international news agency's global readership. This dissemination comes in the form of columns, news stories, images, video, and data-focused products. In July 2015, Variety was awarded a Los Angeles Area Emmy Award by the Television Academy in the Best Entertainment Program category for Variety Studio: Actors on Actors, a series of one-hour specials that take viewers inside Hollywood films and television programs through conversations with acclaimed actors. A second Los Angeles Area Emmy Award was awarded in 2016.

In June 2019, Variety shut down its Gaming section.

A significant portion of the publication's advertising revenue comes during the film-award season leading up to the Academy Awards. During this "Awards Season", large numbers of colorful, full-page "For Your Consideration" advertisements inflate the size of Variety to double or triple its usual page count. These advertisements are the studios' attempt to reach other Hollywood professionals who will be voting on the many awards given out in the early part of the year, including the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes and various guild award honors.

Editions
 Variety (first edition published December 16, 1905) is a  weekly entertainment publication with a broad coverage of movies, television, theater, music and technology, written for entertainment executives.  It is the only remaining Variety print publication and is published weekly and delivered internationally.
 Daily Variety (first edition published September 6, 1933 and last published March 19, 2013) was the Los Angeles-based Hollywood and Broadway daily edition. The Daily Variety brand was revived in 2019 as a Mon–Fri email newsletter presenting the top stories of the last 24 hours. Top stories are also posted on the Daily Variety page of Variety.com. Daily Variety Gotham, (started in 1998) was the name of the New York City-based edition which gave a priority focus to East Coast show-business news and was produced earlier in the evening than the Los Angeles edition so it could be delivered to New York the following morning.
 Variety.com (launched in 1998) is the Internet version of Variety. It was one of the first online newspapers to charge for access when it launched. In June 2010, all content on the website became paywalled. The paywall was removed in April 2013, but access to additional content, such as the archives, requires subscription. Variety is also available as a mobile app as Variety On-The-Go.
 Variety Hitmakers (first edition published in November 2017) is the publication's first music franchise. The annual list recognizes the writers, producers, publishers, and other key personnel behind the scenes "who helped make―and break―the most consumed songs of the year as compiled by BuzzAngle Music". Kendrick Lamar, DJ Khaled, and Scooter Braun featured on three individual covers of the premiere print issues, with Lamar named Hitmaker of the Year. He, along with Khaled and Hailee Steinfeld, was honored at the inaugural Hitmakers awards ceremony held later that same month—the event has continued annually since. Other honorees have included Dua Lipa and Bebe Rexha as 2018's Breakthrough Artist and Songwriter of the Year respectively, BTS (2019 Group of the Year), and Harry Styles (2020 Hitmaker of the Year).

On December 15, 1906, Variety published its first anniversary number that contained 64 pages, double the size of a regular edition. It published regular bumper anniversary editions each year, most often at the beginning of January, normally with a review of the year and other charts and data, including, from 1938 onwards, lists of the top performing films of the year and, from 1949, the annually updated all-time rental chart.  The editions also contained many advertisements from show business personalities and companies.  The 100th anniversary edition was published in October 2005 listing Variety icons of the century. Along with the large anniversary editions, Variety also published special editions containing lots of additional information, charts and data (and advertising) for three film festivals: Cannes Film Festival, MIFED Film Market, and American Film Market Daily Variety also published an anniversary issue each October.  This regularly contained a day-by-day review of the year in show business and in the 1970s started to contain republication of the film reviews published during the year.

Older back issues of Variety are available on microfilm. In 2010, Variety.com allowed access to digitized versions of all issues of Variety and Daily Variety with a subscription. Certain articles and reviews prior to 1998 have been republished on Variety.com. The Media History Digital Library has scans of the archive of Variety from 1905 to 1963 available online.

Circulation
The first issue of Variety sold 320 copies in 1905.

Paid circulation for the weekly Variety magazine in 2023 was 85,300 (Source: BPA Audit Statement, 2023). Each copy of each Variety issue is read by an average of three people, with an estimated total readership of 255,900 (Source: Ipsos Subscriber Study, 2013). Variety.com has 32 million unique monthly visitors (Source: Comscore, March 2023).

Culture
For much of its existence, Variety writers and columnists have used a jargon called slanguage or Varietyese (a form of headlinese) that refers especially to the movie industry, and has largely been adopted and imitated by other writers in the industry. The language initially reflected that spoken by the actors of the early days during the newspaper.

Such terms as "boffo", "payola", and "striptease"  are attributed to the magazine.

In 1934, founder Sime Silverman headed a list in Time magazine of the "ten modern Americans who have done most to keep American jargon alive".

According to The Boston Globe, the Oxford English Dictionary cites Variety as the earliest source for about two dozen terms, including "show biz" (1945). In 2005, Welcome Books published The Hollywood Dictionary by Timothy M. Gray and J. C. Suares, which defines nearly 200 of these terms.

One of its popular headlines was during the Wall Street Crash of 1929: "Wall St. Lays An Egg". The most famous was "Sticks Nix Hick Pix" (the movie-prop version renders it as "Stix nix hix pix!" in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Michael Curtiz's musical–biographical film about George M. Cohan starring James Cagney).

In 2012, Rizzoli Books published Variety: An Illustrated History of the World from the Most Important Magazine in Hollywood by Gray. The book covers Varietys coverage of hundreds of world events, from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, through Arab Spring in 2012, and argues that the entertainment industry needs to stay aware of changes in politics and tastes since those changes will affect their audiences. In a foreword to the book, Martin Scorsese calls Variety "the single most formidable trade publication ever" and says that the book's content "makes you feel not only like a witness to history, but part of it too."

In 2013, Variety staffers tallied more than 200 uses of weekly or Daily Variety in TV shows and films, ranging from I Love Lucy to Entourage.

In 2016, Variety endorsed Hillary Clinton for President of the United States, marking the first time the publication endorsed a candidate for elected office in its 111-year history.

Office locations
Variety first offices were in the Knickerbocker Theatre located at 1396 Broadway on 38th and Broadway in New York. Later it moved to 1536 Broadway at the 45th and Broadway corner until Loew's acquired the site to build the Loew's State Theatre. In 1909, Variety set up its first overseas office in London.

In 1920, Sime Silverman purchased an old brownstone building around the corner at 154 West 46th Street in New York, which became the Variety headquarters until 1987, when the publication was purchased. Under the new management of Cahners Publishing, the New York headquarters of the Weekly Variety was relocated to the corner of 32nd Street and Park Avenue South. Five years later, it was downgraded to a section of one floor in a building housing other Cahner's publications on West 18th Street, until the majority of operations were moved to Los Angeles.

When Daily Variety started in 1933, its offices were in various buildings near Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. In 1972, Syd Silverman purchased a building at 1400 North Cahuenga Blvd. which housed the Daily's offices until 1988, after which its new corporate owners and new publisher, Arthur Anderman, moved them to a building on the Miracle Mile on Wilshire Boulevard.

In late 2008, Variety moved its Los Angeles offices to 5900 Wilshire, a 31-story office building on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile area. The building was dubbed the Variety Building because a red, illuminated "Variety" sign graced the top of the building.

In 2013, PMC, the parent company of Variety, announced plans to move Variety's offices to their new corporate headquarters at 11175 Santa Monica Blvd. in Westwood. There, Variety shares the 9-story building with parent company PMC, Variety Intelligence Platform, and PMC's other media brands, including Deadline.com, Rolling Stone, Vibe, Billboard, Robb Report and the West Coast offices of WWD and Footwear News.

Content

Film reviews
On January 19, 1907, Variety published what is considered the first film review in history. Two reviews written by Sime Silverman were published: Pathe's comedy short An Exciting Honeymoon and Edison Studios' western short The Life of a Cowboy directed by Edwin S. Porter. Variety discontinued reviews of films between March 1911 until January 1913 as they were convinced by a film producer, believed to be George Kleine, that they were wasting space criticising moving pictures and others had suggested that favorable reviews brought too strong a demand for certain pictures to the exclusion of others. Despite the gap, Variety is still the longest unbroken source of film criticism in existence.

In 1930 Variety also started publishing a summary of miniature reviews for the films reviewed that week and in 1951 the editors decided to position the capsules on top of the reviews, a tradition retained today.

Film reviewers
Writing reviews was a side job for Variety staff, most of whom were hired to be reporters and not film or theatre critics. Many of the publication's reviewers identified their work with four-letter pen names ("sigs") rather than with their full names. The practice stopped in August 1991. Those abbreviated names include the following:

 Abel – Abel Green, editor 1931–1973
 Anby – Vincent Canby, 1951–1957, later chief film critic for The New York Times
 Army – Army Archerd
 Bell – Harry Ennis
 Besa – Peter Besas
 Bige – Joe Bigelow
 Bing – Claude Binyon
 Cart – Todd McCarthy, 1979–1989; film review editor 1991–2010.
 Chic – Epes W Sargeant
 Con – John White Conway (1888-1928)
 Drek – Derek Elley
 Edba – Ed Barry
 Fred – Fred Schader
 Gene – Gene Arneel
 Har – James Harwood
 Hawk – Robert Hawkins
 Herm – Herman Schoenfeld
 Holl and Hyho – Hy Hollinger, 1953–1960, 1979–1992
 Jolo – Joshua Lowe
 Lait – Jack Lait
 Ley – Joe Leydon
 Murf – Arthur D. Murphy, the principal film critic from December 1964 until October 1978.
 Pry – Thomas M. Pryor, editor of Daily Variety from 1959 until his retirement in 1988.
 Rush – Alfred Greason
 Sid or Skig – Sidne Silverman, Variety publisher and Sime Silverman's son.
 Sime – Sime Silverman, founder of Variety and the first to write a film review for the paper.
 Sisk – Robert Sisk, formerly a writer of "news letters" for The Sun in Baltimore, Maryland.
 Strat – David Stratton
 Syd – Syd Silverman, Sime Silverman's grandson
 The Skirt – Hattie Silverman, Sime's wife
 Ung – Arthur Ungar, first Daily Variety editor
 Whit – Whitney Williams

Reprints of reviews
Variety is one of the three English-language periodicals with 10,000 or more film reviews reprinted in book form. These are contained in the 24-volume Variety Film Reviews (1907–1996). Film reviews continue to be published in Variety. The other two periodicals are The New York Times (as The New York Times Film Reviews (1913–2000) in 22 volumes) and Harrison's Reports (as Harrison's Reports and Film Reviews (1919–1962) in 15 volumes).

In 1992 Variety published the Variety Movie Guide containing a collection of 5,000 abridged reviews edited by Derek Elley. The last edition was published in 2001 with 8,500 reviews. Many of the abridged reviews for films prior to 1998 are published on Variety.com unless they have later posted the original review.

Obituaries
The complete text of approximately 100,000 entertainment-related obituaries (1905–1986) was reprinted as Variety Obituaries, an 11-volume set, including alphabetical index. Four additional bi-annual reprints were published (for 1987–1994) before the reprint series was discontinued.

The annual anniversary edition published in January would often contain a necrology of the entertainment people who had died that year.

Charts and data
Variety started reporting box office grosses for films by theatre on March 3, 1922, to give exhibitors around the country information on a film's performance on Broadway, which was often where first run showings of a film were held. In addition to New York City, they also endeavored to include all of the key cities in the U.S. in the future and initially also reported results for ten other cities including Chicago and Los Angeles. They continued to report these grosses for films until 1989 when they put the data into a summarized weekly chart and only published the data by theatre for New York and Los Angeles as well as other international cities such as London and Paris.

As media expanded over the years, charts and data for other media such as TV ratings and music charts were published, especially in the anniversary editions that were regularly published each January.

During the 1930s, charts of the top performing films of the year were published and this tradition has been maintained annually since.

In 1946, a weekly National Box Office survey was published on page 3 indicating the performance of the week's hits and flops based on the box office results of 25 key U.S. cities. Later that year, a list of All-Time Top Grossers with a list of films that had achieved or gave promise of earning $4,000,000 or more in domestic (United States and Canada) rentals was published. An updated chart was published annually for over 50 years, normally in the anniversary edition each January.

In the late 1960s, Variety started to use an IBM 360 computer to collate the grosses from their weekly reports of 22 to 24 U.S. cities from January 1, 1968. The data came from up to 800 theatres which represented around 5% of the U.S. cinema population at the time but around one-third of the total U.S. box office grosses. In 1969, they started to publish the computerized box office compilation of the top 50 grossing films of the week based on this data. "The Love Bug" was the number one in the first chart published for the week ending April 16, 1969. The chart format was changed in 1989 to reduce the list to a top 40 and display a summary of the sample city theater grosses rather than publish the theater grosses separately. The sample chart was discontinued in 1990.

Arthur D. Murphy, who joined Variety in 1964 and worked there until 1993, was one of the first to organize and chart domestic box office gross information that became more available during the 1980s and report it in a meaningful form setting a standard for how film box office information is reported today. Murphy used the weekly sample reports to estimate the total US weekly box office compared with previous annual totals which was reported in Variety's US Boxoffice Report each week. The sample also allowed Murphy to estimate the Market Share percentage rankings of distributors.

In 1976, Variety Box Office Index (VBI) was launched where each month's actual key city box office tally, after seasonal adjustment, was simultaneously expressed as an index number, with 1970 as a whole being used as the base initially. The current month's VBI expressed the monthly box office performance as a percentage change from the base year. The index was published until 1991 giving a history of comparable monthly and annual box office performance for the past 20 years.

During the 1980s, Daily Variety started to publish a weekly chart of the domestic box office grosses of films as compared to the Top 50 chart in Variety which was based on a sample of key markets. Variety started to publish this weekend box office report together with the sample Top 50 chart (later top 40) until they discontinued the sample chart in February 1990 with the weekend box office report being their main source of box office reporting.

In 2009, Variety launched a chart showcasing the top performing film trailers ahead of theatrical release in partnership with media measurement firm Visible Measures.

Other Variety products
In 1937, Variety compiled and published a Radio Directory compiling a record of events in radio such as program histories, ratings and popularity polls. It published an annual edition for the next three years which are available on the Media History Digital Library.

In 1981, Variety International Showbusiness Reference was published, which they claimed was the first book to contain a complete list of all winners and nominees for the Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, Tony Awards, Grammy Awards and Pulitzer Prize. The following year they published Variety major U.S. showbusiness awards containing just this award details and a revised edition, called Variety presents the complete book of major U.S. show business awards, was published in 1985.

In 1988, R.R. Bowker, a Reed Reference Publishing Company, part of Reed-Elsevier, PLC, a "sister" company to Variety, published Variety's Video Directory Plus, a CD-ROM subscription product, updated quarterly, containing metadata about 90,000 home video products and full-text film reviews from Variety.

Peter Cowie joined Variety in 1989 and his International Film Guide, which had been published annually since 1964, became Variety International Film Guide with reports from countries on the year in cinema as well as information of film festivals. It continued to bear Variety'''s name until 2006.

In 1990, Variety published a 15-volume set of its television reviews (including home video product) from 1923 to 1988. Additional supplements were published covering 1989–1990, 1991–1992 and 1993–1994.

In 1999, Cowie published The Variety Insider with detailed information on the year in entertainment as well as historical information. A second edition followed in 2000.

Variety Studio: Actors on Actors

In November 2014, Variety premiered Variety Studio: Actors on Actors, a co-production with PBS SoCal that featured two actors discussing their craft and thoughts on Hollywood, which subsequently went on to win three Emmy awards, including a Daytime Creative Arts Award in May 2019.

In January 2017, they launched the Variety Content Studio, creating custom content for brands.

Variety InsightVariety established its data and research division, Variety Insight, in 2011 when it acquired entertainment data company, TVtracker.com. Its film database was announced in December 2011 as FlixTracker, but was later folded into Variety Insight. Variety positioned the subscription service as an alternative to crowd-sourced websites, such as the IMDb. The database uses Varietys existing relationships with the studios to get information. The New York Observer identified the main competitor as Baseline StudioSystems. In 2014, Variety Insight added Vscore, a measure of actors' cachet and bankability. In 2015, it partnered with ScriptNoted, a social media website for film scripts.

Variety Australia
Variety Australia is a website owned by Brag Media, published under license from Variety Media, LLC. It covers film, TV and music around the world, but with a special focus on the Australian and New Zealand industries. The main writer is Vivienne Kelly.

See also

 The Hollywood Reporter Deadline Hollywood, related publication owned by Penske Media Corporation
 TVLine'', related publication owned by Penske Media Corporation
 List of film periodicals

References
 Citations

 Bibliography
 Peter Besas, Inside Variety (Madrid: Ars Millenii, 2000) The 563-page book gives a detailed history of the newspaper (it was never called a "magazine" under the Silvermans) from its birth in 1905 to its sale in 1987.
 Sime's Site
 a web site run by Peter Besas,  Ian Watkins, for ex-Variety'' employees from the pre-Cahners, pre-corporate, Silverman era.

External links

  of Variety (magazine)
 Variety magazine (1905–1963) from Media History Digital Library at the Internet Archive

1905 establishments in New York City
2012 mergers and acquisitions
Entertainment trade magazines
Film magazines published in the United States
Magazines established in 1905
Magazines published in Los Angeles
Magazines published in New York City
Music magazines published in the United States
Penske Media Corporation
Weekly magazines published in the United States


Edward Montague Hussey Cooper (August 12, 1906 – May 5, 2000) was an Australian born actor, later active in Britain and the United States. Known by his professional name of Edward Ashley (to avoid confusion with a fellow actor Edward Cooper), Cooper performed in 60 films for Metro Goldwyn Mayer including Pride and Prejudice (1940) where he played George Wickham.

Origins
Edward Montague Hussey Cooper was born on 12 August 1906  in Sydney, Australia, the  son of Edward Montague Hussey Cooper and Violet Coghill Maddrell. His father, Edward (known as Montague) was a Master Mariner and a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve, who worked as a second officer for the P&O Steam Navigation Company in Australia.

Despite his use of the surname Ashley-Cooper, there was no link to the Earl of Shaftesbury.

Career
Edward Ashley made a number of films in the United Kingdom before moving to California, United States, in 1940 where his first big role was George Wickham in Pride and Prejudice. After this his career consisted of a large number of mainly supporting roles until 1988, including a recurring character in the Maverick television series called "Nobby Ned Wingate" in the late 1950s.

Selected filmography

 The Beggar Student (1931) - Nicki
 Men of Steel (1932) - Sylvano
 The White Lilac (1935) - (uncredited)
 Under Proof (1936) - Ward Delaney
 Conquest of the Air (1936) - Minor Role (uncredited)
 Underneath the Arches (1937) - Carlos
 Sing as You Swing (1937) - Harrington
 Saturday Night Revue (1937) - Duke O'Brien
 The Villiers Diamond (1938) - Capt. Dawson
 Spies of the Air (1939) - Stuart
 Pride and Prejudice (1940) - Mr. Wickham
 Sky Murder (1940) - Cortland Grand
 Bitter Sweet (1940) - Harry Daventry
 Gallant Sons (1940) - Al Posna
 Maisie Was a Lady (1941) - Link Phillips
 Come Live with Me (1941) - Arnold Stafford
 You're Telling Me (1942) - Fred Curtis
 The Pied Piper (1942) - Charendon (uncredited)
 The Black Swan (1942) - Roger Ingram (uncredited)
 Love, Honor and Goodbye (1945) - William Baxter
 Gay Blades (1946) - Ted Brinker
 The Madonna's Secret (1946) - John Earl
 Nocturne (1946) - Keith Vincent
 The Other Love (1947) - Richard Shelton
 Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947) - Dr. L. E. Thal
 Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948) - Commissioner
 Tarzan's Peril (1951) - Conners
 Macao (1952) - Martin Stewart
 Elephant Walk (1953) - Planter Gordon Gregory
 El Alamein (1953) - Capt. Harbison
 The Court Jester (1955) - Black Fox
 Darby's Rangers (1958) - Lt. Dave Manson
 King Rat (1965) - Prouty
 Herbie Rides Again (1974) - Announcer at Chicken Race
 Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) - Second Butler
 Beyond the Next Mountain (1987) - Governor
 Waxwork (1988) - Professor Sutherland (final film role)

Death
Edward Ashley died early 5 May 2000, aged 93, from congestive heart failure and was cremated with the remains scattered at sea, off the coast of San Diego County, California, on May 9, 2000. Ashley married actress Renee Torres in 1943 in Acapulco, Mexico. The couple returned to Acapulco in 1947 when Ashley was filming "Tarzan And The Mermaids."  Torres died in San Diego County, California, where the couple lived, preceding Edward in death in 1998. They lived in Oceanside, California.

References

External links

1906 births
2000 deaths
Australian expatriate male actors in the United States
Australian male film actors
Australian people of English descent
Male actors from Sydney
People from Oceanside, California
20th-century Australian male actors


Kupası is the Turkish word for Cup, may refer to:

Başbakanlık Kupası (Northern Cyprus), the tournament of the Cyprus Turkish Football Federation
Cumhurbaşkanlığı Kupası, supercup tournament of the Cyprus Turkish Football Federation
Dr. Fazıl Küçük Kupası, the tournament of the Cyprus Turkish Football Federation
Federasyon Kupası, the top knockout tournament of the Cyprus Turkish Football Federation
Türkiye Kupası 2003-04, the 42nd edition of the annual Turkish Cup
Türkiye Kupası 2004-05, the 43rd edition of the annual Turkish Cup
Türkiye Kupası 2005-06, the 44th edition of the annual Turkish Cup
Türkiye Kupası 2007–08, the 45th edition of the annual Turkish Cup
Türkiye Kupası 2007-08, the 46th edition of the annual Turkish Cup
Türkiye Kupası 2008–09, the 47th season of Turkey's annual cup competition

See also
Football in Turkey - For complete list of Football Cup in Turkey


Miss Thailand Universe 2007, the 8th Miss Thailand Universe pageant held at Sofitel Centara Grand Bangkok, in Bangkok, Thailand on March 24, 2007. The contestants arrived in Trang a week earlier to do some activities before came back to Bangkok for rehearsals.

In the final round, broadcast live on BBTV Channel 7, Farung Yuthithum, was crowned Miss Thailand Universe 2007 by Zuleyka Rivera, Miss Universe 2006 from Puerto Rico.

In May 2007, Farung Yuthithum represented Thailand in Miss Universe 2007 pageant in Mexico City, Mexico and placed in Top 15 of the competition. These make Thailand was called in semi-finalists round two years in a row.

External links
 Miss Thailand Universe official website

2007
2007 in Bangkok
2007 beauty pageants
March 2007 events in Thailand
Beauty pageants in Thailand


The PAPOP (PolyArme POlyProjectiles, "multi-projectile multi-weapon") was a French project to construct a computerized infantry weapon for the FÉLIN system, capable of hitting hidden or protected targets. It would have combined a 35 mm grenade launcher with a 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle, both in a bullpup configuration, complete with targeting aids and an unorthodox sight.

History
Development of the PAPOP began in July 1995. The project aimed to provide a replacement for the FAMAS then in service with the French Army by the year 2010. It was envisioned as a versatile weapon capable of engaging enemy infantry, even protected, with a range of up to 600 metres.

An industrial partnership was set up to answer the request, GIAT being the main contractor. The subsystems were designed by FN Herstal (for the assault rifle), Sfim ODS (targeting system), Euroimpact and  (grenades).

Phase 1
A first prototype was proposed with 3 grenades in an internal tubular magazine. The prototype was deemed too heavy (8 kg) and bulky to be acceptable, which led to the design of a second prototype.

Phase 2
The second prototype aimed at correcting the issues of the first one, reducing the weight to 6 kg and making the whole system more compact. A particular emphasis was put on usability in urban warfare.

The PAPOP-2 carries 25 5.56 mm cartridges and only two grenades, though a platoon-level configuration allows carrying 5 grenades, at the expense of the weight which then rises to 10 kg.

Systems

Sub-calibre 5.56mm rifle
The rifle fires sub-calibre ammunition with a 5.56 NATO round, which has a muzzle velocity of 1600 metres per second, along with the capability of shooting up to range of 600m. The new ammunition offers an enhanced range, and increases the penetrability enough to defeat individual armour of the PASGT type even at great distance.

Grenade launcher
The second tube is a semi-automatic 35 mm grenade launcher with programmable airburst shells. A large selector switches from rifle to grenade.

Three grenades are carried in a tubular magazine. They can be programmed to explode near the target, with two selectable yields; pre-cut fragments can be projected either towards the front, the side or the rear of the projectile, depending on how the charge is activated, which are lethal in a 5-metre radius. The 35 mm calibre was selected as to offer capabilities to penetrate flak vests.

Electronic systems
A camera is fitted in the nose of the weapon, under the rifle muzzle. Batteries and the on-board computer are located in the stock. A rotating LCD screen on the top of the weapon displays information, allowing aiming the PAPOP from behind cover and around corners.

The targeting system includes night vision, a laser telemeter, and an IFF and a targeting computer which also programmes the grenades prior to launch.

The FÉLIN concept requires that data from the weapon could be shared with the other electronic component of the soldier, and transmitted across the battlefield to command posts or information centres. The PAPOP is thus a component of a larger integrated system, usable for reconnaissance or target designation.

See also
List of bullpup firearms
List of assault rifles

References

5.56×45mm NATO assault rifles
Assault rifles of France
Grenade launchers
Personal weapons
Bullpup firearms


The Constitution House of Tabriz, also known as Khaneh Mashrouteh, is a historical edifice located next to the Great Bazaar of Tabriz, on Motahari Ave in Tabriz, Iran. During the years which led to Constitutional Revolution and afterwards the house was used as a gathering place of the leaders, activists and sympathizers of the movement. Among them, the most famous people were Sattar khan, Bagher Khan, Seqat-ol-Eslam Tabrizi and Haji Mirza Aqa Farshi and the founder Haji Mehdi Kuzeh kanaani, himself a revolutionary activist and a well-reputed person of the time; who was named Abolmele, i.e. the father of the nation at the time. The two-story building was constructed in 1868 by Haj Vali Me'mar-e TabriziTABRIZ. It has numerous rooms and halls. The most beautiful part of the house is a skylight and corridor decorated with colorful glass and mirrors. The house was later purchased by Haj Abolghasem Haeri and was the family’s residence until it was turned into a museum.

History
The house was constructed by order of Haj Mehdi Koozekonani in 1868. It includes a two-floor building with internal and external areas featuring Qajar period architecture. Haj Mehdi Koozekonani was a merchant in the Bazaar of Tabriz. With initiating of Constitution revolution and rising up in Tabriz city, Haj Mehdi joined the revolution and became one of the major financier of the revolution. At the same time he used the house as a place for meeting of the revolution heads, and a place for publication of underground paper of the constitution movement. The house became important in the history once again just after World War II, when it was used a place for Azerbaijan's Democrat Party meeting center (1946–1947). In 1975 the house is registered by Cultural Heritage of Iran.

Museum contents
The first floor is an exhibition of sculptures of famous Iranian constitution revolutionaries and some of their personal belongings, including their weapons, underground published newspaper of the revolution, night letters, the printing machine which was used in the house to publish revolution papers, and numerous photos from the revolution. One of the rooms in the building belongs to the woman's role in the revolution.

Location
The Constitutional House of Tabriz is located in Rasteh Koocheh Street in front of Jamee Mosque of Tabriz.

Photo gallery

See also
 Iranian Constitutional Revolution
 Tabriz

References

External links

 Hāleh Heydari, Khāneh-ye Mashrouteh (The Constitutional Revolution House), in Persian, Jadid Online, 15 January 2010.• Audio slideshow: Untitled Document (4 min 39 sec).
 Tishineh

Museums in Tabriz
Houses in Iran
Buildings of the Qajar period
Houses completed in 1868


Benedita may refer to:

Places
Benedita, Portugal, A  freguesia (civil parish) of Alcobaça Municipality, Portugal

People
Benedita Barata da Rocha (born 1949), immunologist
Benedita da Silva (born 1943), Brazilian politician
Benedita Pereira (born 1985), Portuguese actress
Infanta Benedita of Portugal (1746–1829), Portuguese infanta, daughter of King Joseph I of Portugal and his wife Marianne Victoria of Borbón
Maria Benedita Bormann (1853–1895), Brazilian writer of feminist novels and other works using the pseudonym Délia
Maria Benedita Mouzinho de Albuquerque de Faria Pinho (1865–1939), Portuguese writer, translator, teacher, propagandist, republican activist and feminist activist


Welcome to the Walk Alone is the second album from the Devon-based band The Rumble Strips. It was released on 13 July 2009 by Island Records, and was preceded by a single release in June. The title and release date were confirmed by the band on their website on 11 May 2009, whilst "London" was made available to download for free from the band's website on 23 March. The album leaked onto the internet on 4 June 2009.

Background
Following The Rumble Strips' reinterpretation of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black", Mark Ronson offered his services in producing the album in New York.  On working with Ronson, the band commented: "He definitely had an idea about how he wanted it to sound. Certainly for the drums, he kind of built the sound around this particular technique of drums. And obviously coming in fresh, he sort of sat down and listened to the songs, and trimmed off bits. But he’s no megalomaniac, he doesn’t come in and insist it has to be 'this way', but he’s got ideas."

As part of their First Listen series of features, The-Fly.co.uk put up a track-by-track synopsis of Welcome to the Walk Alone on 26 May. Whilst stating that "Ronson's kitchen sink production is evident after little more than a minute," they said that the sound of the record is "lush", highlighting "Dem Girls", "Sweet Heart Hooligan" and "Daniel" as the album's highlights.

Track listing

Personnel
The Rumble Strips
Charles Waller – guitar, vocals
Henry Clark – trumpet, vocals, piano
Tom Gorbutt – saxophone, vocals, guitar
Matthew Wheeler – drums
Sam Mansbridge – bass guitar
Technical personnel
Mark Ronson – producer
Owen Pallett – string arrangements

References

2009 albums
The Rumble Strips albums
Island Records albums
Albums produced by Mark Ronson


St. Nicholas Church is the Anglican parish church of West Itchenor, a village in the Chichester district of West Sussex, United Kingdom.

History
In around 1175 Hugh Esturmy was given permission by the Bishop of Chichester John of Greenford and the Prebendary of Wightring to build a chapel in Itchenor. Between 1180 and 1197 Bishop Seffrid II allowed the chapel to be converted into a little parish church with its own graveyard. In 1935 the Parish of Itchenor was united with the Parish of Birdham as a single benefice. In 1986 the benefice of Itchenor and Birdham was united with the Parish of West Wittering. From there after the Vicar of West Wittering was made the Rector of the Benefice of West Wittering and Birdham with Itchenor, which is what the benefice is known as today.

Music
The annals of the village indicate that string or wind instruments would have been used to accompany the singing prior to 1862. From 1862 church music at St. Nicholas developed: a harmonium was purchased in 1870 to take place of the string and wind instruments, and in 1922 a small pipe organ was acquired. The next step forward came in 1950 when a new electric blower was installed. In 1956 the building of a vestry forced the ageing 34 year-old pipe organ to be moved. Due to its poor state, the organist of the church Margot Linton-Bogle, donated a small reed organ which was installed at the West end of the church. In 1961 Linton-Bogle donated a Jennings electronic organ. The organ was moved onto the newly built gallery in 1964 (the site where the current organ stands today). In 1970 the organ's maintenance caused difficulties and Linton-Bogle donated a Compton pipe organ. It wasn't until 1994 when the new organist Margaret Thomas donated the Viscount organ which is in use today.

Currently there are three bells: The Treble, The Second and The Tenor. The Treble dates from 1530 whilst both The Second and The Tenor are from the seventeenth century. The bells were re-hung in 1988 by Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Ellacombe apparatus was installed, allowing the bells to either be swing chimed or hand chimed. The church bells chime before services, before and/or after weddings and funerals. The bells are usually rung by the churchwardens.

Rectors

 1363 Roger Lyndon
 1363 Robert de Brendbirgthen
 1415 Richard Estan
 1415 John Seyll
 1438 Richard atte Okes
 1438 Thomas Hogge
 1502 Robert Kirkelond
 1502 William Prestall
 1527 Robert Kisleive
 1541 Robert Frost
 1541 Thomas Hewetson
 1550 John Spyncke
 1555 Stephen Parker
 1556 Oliver Chype
 1561 Thomas Secker
 1598 Philip Timmins
 1599 Roger Smith
 1613 Robert Meakon
 1615 Thomas Smith
 1616 John Cartwright
 1625 Robert Johnson
 1640 John Knight
 1662 William Sergeant
 1674 John Radford
 1676 Humphrey Day
 1699 Thomas Kelway
 1722 Robert Hulbert
 1735 Thomas Darwent
 1736 John Marewood
 1771 Thomas Sampson
 1800 William Williams
 1825 Robert Tredcroft
 1847 Stenning Johnson
 1865 Alfred Fuller
 1879 George Heath
 1902 Francis Haines
 1916 Albert Tansey
 1934 Victor Dunphy
 1952 Maurice Elliott
 1955 R. Wright
 1968 Roy Goodchild
 1974 John Stewnette
 1976 Philip Barry
 1981 Kenneth Woolhouse
 1986 Trevor Smyth
 1994 John Williams
 2012 Jonathan Swindells

See also

Grade I listed buildings in West Sussex
List of current places of worship in Chichester (district)

References

External links
The Benefice of West Wittering and Birdham with Itchenor
Stained Glass Windows at St. Nicholas

Church of England church buildings in West Sussex
Grade I listed churches in West Sussex


Boljoo, or Boljoo Chat, is a popular freeware Mongolian script instant messaging computer program among Mongols. It is based on a simple Mongolian input-method.

Boljoo IME
There is also a standalone Mongolian input method made by Boljoo, called Boljoo IME. Boljoo IME supports Menksoft and Saiyin codes.

Unlike Menksoft Mongolian IME, Boljoo IME has an English installation interface and is installed as English by default. However, it's a standalone program in the system tray, so you can not find it in ctfmon. And the IME must be enabled before use.

Designed for the Inner Mongolian who cannot speak Chinese, Boljoo IME has a pure Mongolian script installation and using guide.

See also

 Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients
Comparison of instant messaging protocols
Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients
Comparison of LAN messengers
Comparison of VoIP software
List of SIP software
List of video telecommunication services and product brands
 Mongolian script

References

http://www.boljoo.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=2&id=10

External links
 Boljoo
 Boljoo IME, written in Mongolian script

Instant messaging clients
Mongolian-language computing
Inner Mongolia


Science and Sorcery is the second full-length album to come from the psychedelic rock group Wolf & Cub. The album was released on 18 April 2009.

A preview of the album can be found on Wolf & Cub's MySpace, https://www.myspace.com/wolfandcub.

Track listing
"Seven Sevens"
"What Are They Running"
"One to the Other"
"Master"
"Spider's Web"
"Restless Sons"
"Hearts"
"The Loosest of Gooses (Go on Your Own)"
"Blood"
"Burden"
"Tama Swing Soul" (bonus track, iTunes extended version)

References

Wolf & Cub albums
2009 albums


Alvaro Trinidad Antonio, also known by his nickname Bong or Ambong, (born February 19, 1952) is a Filipino politician, who was the  Governor of Cagayan from 2007 to 2016. He is a former pro-bono lawyer at the Citizen's Legal Action Office (now known as Public Assistance Office or PAO) and a former mayor of Alcala.

Education
Antonio spent his high school years at San Jacinto Seminary, where he graduated in 1968. He thereafter went to the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas in Manila, to pursue his college studies. Antonio completed his baccalaureate in philosophy, with honors, in 1972. Antonio proceeded to take up law, also at UST. While finishing his law degree, Antonio joined the Suprema Lex Fraternity.

Career
Antonio started his career as a pro bono lawyer at the Citizen's Legal Action Office (now the Public Attorney's Office). He then ran and won as mayor of his hometown of Alcala, Cagayan. In 2007, he was elected as Governor of Cagayan, with the support of then Congressman Manuel Mamba and Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. Mamba later broke away because of allegations of corruption and jueteng against Antonio. Antonio went on to win two more terms. He took a leave after 3 terms and then lost in 2019 to the incumbent Governor Manuel Mamba landing in third place.

Sources
Profile of Governor Alvaro T. Antonio in the Official Website of Cagayan
Profile of Governor Alvaro T. Antonio in the Official Website of The League of Provinces in the Philippines
COMELEC Upholds Cagayan Governor Antonio's Procalamation
Supreme Court Upholds Cagayan Governor's Victory
Cagayan Governor to Form Task Force vs Illegal Logging
Calayan Folks Elated Over Prospect of New Seaworthy Vessel
3 Dead in Cagayan; Calamity in Isabela
Biggest wind farm to rise in Cagayan

Mayors of places in Cagayan
Living people
Governors of Cagayan
1952 births
Lakas–CMD politicians
United Nationalist Alliance politicians
20th-century Filipino lawyers
People from Cagayan


Bessie Pease Gutmann (1876 – 1960) was an American artist and illustrator, most noted for her paintings of putti, infants, and young children. During the early 1900s she was one of the better-known magazine and book illustrators in the United States. Her artwork was featured on 22 magazine covers such as Woman's Home Companion and McCall's between 1906 and 1920. She also illustrated popular children's books including a notable 1907 edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Although the commercial popularity of Gutmann's art declined during World War II, there was renewed interest in her illustrations from collectors by the late 20th century.

Early life and education

Gutmann was born Bessie Collins Pease on April 8, 1876, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Horace Collins Pease and Margaretta Pease (). After graduating from high school, she studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. From 1896 to 1898, she attended the New York School of Art (later Parsons, The New School), and attended Art Students League of New York from 1899 to 1901.

Career
Gutmann initially worked as an independent commercial artist drawing portraits and newspapers advertisements. In 1903, she gained employment with the publishing firm of Gutmann & Gutmann which specialized in fine art prints. The first children's book she illustrated was a 1905 edition of A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. Gutmann illustrated several more books including a notable 1907 version of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She also created artwork for postcards and calendars, and her art adorned 22 magazine covers for McCall's, Collier's, Woman's Home Companion, and Pictorial Review, among others. Her greatest recognition came from a series of hand-colored prints which highlighted the innocence of young children. Two of her most notable works were A Little Bit of Heaven and The Awakening which both focused on the face and hands of an infant tucked under a blanket. Gutmann's work was popular through the 1920s but interest in her style declined before World War II. Due to failing eyesight, she retired from drawing in 1947.

Personal life
In 1906 Gutmann married Hellmuth Gutmann, one of the brothers who co-owned the publishing firm where she was employed. The couple moved to South Orange, New Jersey (378 West End Road) in 1909.  Thereafter, they had three children, Alice, Lucille, and John, who became the models for her illustrations.

She died on September 29, 1960, in Centerport, New York, at the age of 84.

Illustrated works

Original editions

As Bessie Collins Pease:
 Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses, New York: Dodge Publishing Co. (1905),
 Edmund Vance Cooke, "The Biography of our Baby", Dodge (1906)
As Bessie Pease Gutmann:
Edith Dunham The Diary of a Mouse, Dodge (1907),
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Dodge (1907) ; reissued New York: Children's Classics, Crown (1988),
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, Dodge (1909),
Bessie Pease Gutmann, Golden Hours, New York: Hurst & Co. (1912),

Posthumous collections
Nursery Songs & Lullabies, New York : Grosset & Dunlap (1990)
Nursery Poems & Prayers, Grosset & Dunlap (1990)
I Love You: Verses & Sweet Sayings, Grosset & Dunlap (1991)
My Sweet Girl, Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House (2005)

References

Further reading
Choppa, Karen. Bessie Pease Gutmann: Over Fifty Years of Published Art. Schiffer Publishing, 1998, 160pp,
Christie, Victor J. W. Bessie Pease Gutmann: Her Life and Works, Wallace-Homestead Book Co (December 1990), 199pp,
Higonnet, Anne. Pictures of Innocence: The History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood, Thames & Hudson (July 1998),
Prince, Pamela,  Sweet Dreams: The Art of Bessie Pease Gutmann, Harmony, December 13, 1985, 46pp,

External links

Color plates by Gutmann (10) for a 1907 edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

19th-century American painters
20th-century American painters
American children's book illustrators
1876 births
1960 deaths
Philadelphia School of Design for Women alumni
American women painters


Welcome to the New Cold World is an Album by Lights Action. It was released worldwide on March 2, 2009 as a digital download only, with the option to buy a CD version through the band's website.

Track listing

Information of Value

Funding

The album was produced and mastered on a slim budget of around £15k. Much of the recording costs of the album were funded through the investment engine "SliceThePie".

Recording
The band spent the vast majority of 2008 writing and recording the album. Over 18 tracks were recorded for the album, the band choosing 10 to make the final cut.

Dirty Pretty Strings
The London-based string quartet "Dirty Pretty Strings" feature on four of the songs on the album. "Signals to Radar", "Young Scarlett Young", "I Woke Up in a Civil War" and "Black Feathers".
Dirty Pretty Strings have worked with bands such as The Enemy, Lightspeed Champion and Ed Harcourt.

"The Bottom of the Sea" choir
The final track on the record features a choir vocal in the chorus. The vocals were recorded in various locations around the UK and feature the voices of the band themselves, along with Singer/songwriter Richard Walters, Dallas Green of Alexisonfire/City and Colour, Kenny Bridges of Moneen, and all of the Oxford Band A Silent Film.

Credits

Patrick Currier - vocals, Cover Illustration
Karl Bareham - Guitar, Art Direction & Design
Chris Moorhead - Guitar/Keys/String Arrangement
Alex Leeder - Bass
Steven Durham - drums/String Arrangement
Richard Wilkinson - Producer, Mixing (At The Pierce Rooms/Mayfair)
Doug Shearer - Mastering (At Pierce Entertainment)
Dirty Pretty Strings - Session string quartet
Dallas Green - Guest vocals (on "Bottom of the Sea")
Kenny Bridges - Guest vocals (on "Bottom of the Sea")
Richard Walters - Guest vocals (on "Bottom of the Sea")
Rob Stevenson - Guest vocals (on "Bottom of the Sea")
Spencer Walker - Guest vocals (on "Bottom of the Sea")
Ali Hussain - Guest vocals (on "Bottom of the Sea")
Lewis Jones - Guest vocals (on "Bottom of the Sea")
Darren Heelis - Assistant Engineer (At The Pierce Rooms)
Ben Bell - Mayfair Assistant
Toshi Minesaki - Mayfair Assistant
Dougal Lott - Konk Assistant
Emma Hampson-Jones - Band Photography
iheartstudios - still life photography
Paul Russell for P Russell & Co - Legal
Matt Hughes for Devil PR - UK Press

References

2009 albums
Lights Action albums


The President of the National Assembly of the Lao People's Democratic Republic is the speaker of the National Assembly of Laos. Before 1991, the President of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly of the Lao People's Democratic Republic served as head of state and chairman of the presidium of the National Assembly's predecessor, the Supreme People's Assembly. The office was later merged with that of parliamentary president while the head of state became the President of Laos.

Presidents of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly

Presidents of the National Assembly

See also
Parliament of the Kingdom of Laos

References

Politics of Laos
Laos, National Assembly


Kogi Korean BBQ is a fleet of five fusion food trucks in Los Angeles famous both for their combination of Korean with Mexican food and also for their reliance on Internet technology, especially Twitter and YouTube, to spread information about their offerings and locations. Highlights of typical fare include Spicy Pork Tacos, Kimchi Quesadillas and Short Rib Sliders. Its owner/founder, Mark Manguera, a Filipino-American, married into a Korean family and was inspired to combine Mexican and Korean food as a result. The food truck has won much recognition, including a Bon Appétit Award in 2009 and "Best New Chef" for Roy Choi by Food & Wine in 2010, the first for a food truck.

Early days
After several weeks of parking in different locations and not getting any customers, Kogi began going to clubs and giving free samples to bouncers. They enjoyed them and spread the word.

Kogi's first 'big break' came when it got the idea outside of Green Door in Hollywood to contact food bloggers about trying the tacos who then wrote about Kogi. Its subsequent use of Twitter to announce its location led to considerable buzz on social networking services, leading Newsweek to proclaim Kogi "America's first viral eatery".

Operations
In addition to co-founders Mark Manguera and Caroline Shin, Mark Manguera's friend Roy Choi, a former valedictorian at the Culinary Institute of America, is the chief chef and considered "a sort of post-Abstract Expressionist food artist" while Manguera's sister-in-law, Alice Shin, is in charge of connectivity- posting and tweeting regularly to keep their roving clientele informed. The name, logo, decision to use Twitter, and ongoing social media strategy came from consultant and "twentysomething social networking and branding wunderkind" Kogi Social Media & Brand Director Mike Prasad, who is a best friend of Eric Shin, Kogi Lunch Manager, photographer, and brother of Caroline.

Kogi initially had no fixed location. In the tradition of LA taco trucks, Kogi operated entirely from a mobile vehicle driven around the city and parked for a few hours in different locations, with some preparation done from a home base in Culver City, California. Its fan base has been built up through effective use of the Internet and cell phones to promote an online "Kogi Kulture". By mid-2009 it had 36,000 Twitter followers, and its first fixed location in the Alibi Room, a local lounge. By mid-2011, Kogi had expanded from the original truck to five.

In 2010, the creators of Kogi opened two sister restaurants serving Korean inspired food. The restaurant Chego, with a primary focus on bowls, opened on April 7, 2010. Another restaurant and full bar, The A-Frame, was created from a former IHOP and modeled around the sloped architecture; it opened on November 4, 2010.

To serve airline passengers at Terminal 4, Kogi opened a stationary location within the secured area at the Los Angeles International Airport in December 2014. What distinguished this airport terminal eatery from its competitors within the food court is that it was made to look like a Kogi food truck. In November 2015, Kogi quietly left LAX and handed the food truck in the terminal over to Border Grill, another locally owned restaurant. The change is a part of the airport's plan to have a different vendor occupy the food truck every few months.

Kogi Taqueria
In April 2016, Kogi opened their first brick-and-mortar version of their food trucks in Palms, Los Angeles. Called Kogi Taqueria, the new operation carried all of the favorites from the food truck menu, some favorites from their Alibi Room, plus some Mexican-American standards such as carne asada, carnitas, and pollo asada. The restaurant was designed to look like a garage that houses the food trucks when they are not on the road.

Seven months later, a second Kogi Taqueria location was opened inside a Whole Foods Market in El Segundo in November 2016.

Reasons for success
Part of the reason for the sudden and strong interest in Kogi is the food. The New York Times opined, "The food at Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go, the taco vendor that has overtaken Los Angeles, does not fit into any known culinary category."

Los Angeles, like many large American cities, has a large percentage of residents from different cultures, and Kogi relies on the familiarity people have with other cuisines.

The attraction, however, depends only partly on the flavors. Media accounts emphasize the social aspect of eating at the ever-mobile Kogi. According to the Los Angeles Times, "The truck and its staff of merry makers have become a sort of roving party, bringing people to neighborhoods they might not normally go to, and allowing for interactions with strangers they might not otherwise talk to."

In popular culture
Kogi was the inspiration for the title of a jazz song by artist Jacob Mann released on December 9, 2016.

See also
 Don Chow Tacos
 List of food trucks

References

External links

 Roy Choi – Kogi BBQ on KCET Departures Venice Interviews with the founder of Kogi BBQ

Food trucks
Korean restaurants in the United States
Korean-American culture in Los Angeles
Mexican-American cuisine
Mexican-American culture in Los Angeles
Restaurants in Los Angeles


Elaine Paige Live is a live solo album by Elaine Paige, recorded and released in 2009 during an early date of Paige's 40th anniversary concert tour.

Background
It was produced by Paige and the tour's musical director Chris Egan. The recording, made at Vicar Street, Dublin, features tracks from throughout her 40-year theatrical career.

As well as the musical theatre songs with which she is closely related, the album features less obvious performances such as The Beatles song, "Yesterday" that Paige performed for her first Evita audition, and "Shoot the Breeze" that was taught to her by the song's composer Dustin Hoffman.

The final, bonus track on the album is a studio recording, "The Things You Are to Me", written by Brendan Graham and Rolf Løvland and recorded by Paige for their Secret Garden album, Inside I'm Singing. As of March 2009, this was not yet released in the United Kingdom.

Marketing and promotion
The album was self-financed by Paige and sold at concert venues as well as via her website. It is available on CD in the United States through Amazon.com under the title Celebrating 40 Years On Stage on a PBS label, containing the same 18 live tracks and additional studio bonus track.

The album was released digitally on 21 September 2009.

Track listing
"Life Goes On" (Craig Doerge/Paul Williams)
"Tomorrow" (Charles Strouse/Martin Charnin)
"Easy to Be Hard" (Galt MacDermot/James Rado/Gerome Ragni)
"Broadway Baby" (Stephen Sondheim)
"I Don't Know How to Love Him" (Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber)
"Shoot the Breeze" (Dustin Hoffman/Bette Midler)
"Yesterday" (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
"Argentina Introduction" (Andrew Lloyd Webber)
"Don't Cry for Me Argentina" (Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber)
"As If We Never Said Goodbye" (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Don Black/Christopher Hampton/Amy Powers)
"By the Sea" (Stephen Sondheim)
"I Get a Kick Out of You" (Cole Porter)
"I Know Him So Well" (Benny Andersson/Björn Ulvaeus/Tim Rice)
"Poor Old John" (Marguerite Monnot/Rene Rouzaud/Mitchell)
"Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" (Charles Dumont/Michel Vaucaire/Edith Piaf)
"Hymne a L'Amour (If You Love Me)" (Marguerite Monnot/Edith Piaf/Geoffrey Parsons)
"Memory" (Andrew Lloyd Webber/T. S. Eliot/Trevor Nunn)
"With One Look" (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Don Black/Christopher Hampton/Amy Powers)
"The Things You Are to Me" (Brendan Graham/Rolf Løvland)

Personnel

Musicians
Elaine Paige - vocals
Chris Egan - musical direction, piano
Neil Angilley - keyboards
Paul Frankish - keyboards
Pete Callard - electric guitars, acoustic guitars
Andy Pask - electric bass, acoustic bass
Mike Smith - drums
Steve Socci - percussion
Adrian Revell - flute, clarinet, saxophones
Gareth Griffiths - violin
Brian Wright - violin
Adrian Smith - viola
Chris Fish - cello
Annie Skates - backing vocals

Production credits
Producer - Elaine Paige and Chris Egan
Mixer and engineer - Richard Brooker
Pro Tools and post-production - Trystan Francis
Recording - Andy Knightley
Mixed at Vivace Music Studios
Mastered by Lowland Masters
Music Production Services by Vivace

Elaine Paige albums
2009 live albums


The Enfield Shaker Museum is an outdoor history museum and historic district in Enfield, New Hampshire, in the United States. It is dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of the Shakers, a Protestant religious denomination, who lived on the site from 1793 to 1923. The museum features exhibitions, artifacts, eight Shaker buildings and restored Shaker gardens. It is located in a valley between Mount Assurance and Mascoma Lake in Enfield.

One of the buildings, the Great Stone Dwelling, was the largest residential building north of Boston and is the largest Shaker building. When the Shaker community closed, most of the land that made up the Enfield Shaker Village was sold to the Missionaries of La Salette. The state owns  and 13 buildings, which is now the Enfield Shaker Museum.

Shakers

Village history

The Shakers, or United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, settled on the site in 1793 along Lake Mascoma on up to . A meetinghouse was built May 1793 and a residential building was constructed in 1794. Subsequent buildings were made of granite with advanced stone masonry techniques, which was revolutionary for that time period. There were 132 members of the village by 1803, and by 1840 there were nearly 300 people.

Within the village was the largest Shaker dwelling and the largest residential dwelling north of Boston, the Great Stone Building. Built from 1837 to 1841 for the Church Family, it had four full stories and a total of six stories. Men and women lived in the building, but entered doors specific for their gender to separate quarters. It was designed by Ammi Burnham Young, who created the designs for the second state capitol in Vermont and was the first supervising architect for the United States Treasury. The granite stonework on the exterior and the slate roof were constructed by stonemasons from Boston. The Shaker brothers constructed the rest of the building themselves.

In 1849, the Shakers built the half-mile long Shaker Bridge that crossed a narrow portion of Lake Mascoma to the railroad line. In 1870, the elaborate Victorian and Shaker architectural Ministry shop was built to house the community's religious leaders. To support itself, the community made brooms, buckets, spinning wheels, tubs, dry measures and shirts. It also made and sold applesauce, maple syrup, herbs, medicines and seeds.

Like other Shaker communities, the Enfield Shaker village declined throughout the second half of the 19th century. In 1923, they closed the Enfield Shaker village and moved to the Canterbury community in central New Hampshire.

Much of the village property was sold in 1927 to the La Salettes. The site is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as the Enfield Shaker Historic District.

Museum
Since 1986, the Enfield Shaker Museum has worked to preserve the Shaker heritage of the site without neglecting the 20th century history of the village. The Great Stone Dwelling houses the gift shop and the primary exhibition space. The museum is open 7 days a week, offering tours of the site, and offers overnight stays in the original Shaker bedrooms of the Great Stone Dwelling.

There are 13 remaining Shaker village buildings and gardens on 28 acres, which can be seen during a self-guided walking tour. The village museum is owned by the state of New Hampshire.

Missionaries of La Salette
In 1927, the site was sold to the Missionaries of La Salette, who converted the site into a seminary for the Catholic priesthood, school and conference site. The La Salettes built in 1930 the Mary Keane Chapel, a neo-classical revival chapel, which is now part of the museum and open to visitors. The Missionaries of La Salette closed the seminary in 1974, and the center is now known as the Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, which is a center of "reconciliation".

See also
Enfield Village Historic District
National Register of Historic Places listings in Grafton County, New Hampshire
New Hampshire Historical Marker No. 202: The Enfield Shakers
Shaker Seed Company
Thomas Corbett (Shaker doctor)

References

External links

 Museum website
 Overnight stays at the Great Stone Dwelling
 LaSalette, Center for Reconciliation

Shaker communities or museums
Herb gardens
Residential buildings completed in 1841
Open-air museums in New Hampshire
Museums in Grafton County, New Hampshire
History museums in New Hampshire
Museums established in 1986
1986 establishments in New Hampshire
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire
National Register of Historic Places in Grafton County, New Hampshire
Enfield, New Hampshire


is a mountainous region covering most of the Kii Peninsula. They lie south of the Japan Median Tectonic Line (MTL) in Wakayama, Nara, and Mie prefectures. The mountains are arranged roughly northeast to southwest.

History
During the Heian period, Shugendō flourished in these mountains. In 2004 it became part of a UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage site, under the name "Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range"

In the Northern regions of the mountains, Yoshino and Omine have the oldest sacred traditions where followers of Shugendo, have been practising their faith within the forests since the seventh century. Kumano Sanzan is in the Southern area of the ranges and has three significant Buddhist shrines devoted to nature worship. Around Koyasan, 117 temples represent over one thousand years of worship  and are linked by networks of pilgrim routes through the steep peaks and glades of the Kii mountains.

Geography
The highest peak is Mount Hakkyō  in the Ōmine Mountains. Other peaks in the central group are Mount Shakka(1800m) and Mount Sanjō (1719m). To the East in the Daikō Mountains is Mount Ōdaigahara (1695m). In the South is Mount Daitō 大塔山(1122m). The Obako Mountains separate Nara Prefecture from Wakayama Prefecture.

Yoshino-Kumano National Park is located in the Kii Mountains.

Geology
Along with the Shikoku Mountains, the Kii Mountains form the outer arc of the Southwestern Japan Arc. The mountains are mostly domed upthrusts of sedimentary rock from the Cretaceous and Lower Miocene.

References

Mountain ranges of Nara Prefecture
Mountain ranges of Wakayama Prefecture
Mountain ranges of Mie Prefecture


The atmosphere of Pluto consists mainly of nitrogen (N2), with minor amounts of methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO), all of which are vaporized from their ices on Pluto's surface. It contains layered haze, probably consisting of heavier compounds which form from these gases due to high-energy radiation. The atmosphere of Pluto is notable for its strong and not completely understood seasonal changes caused by peculiarities of the orbital and axial rotation of Pluto.

The surface pressure of the atmosphere of Pluto, measured by New Horizons in 2015, is about  (), roughly 1/100,000 of Earth's atmospheric pressure. The temperature on the surface is , but it quickly grows with altitude due to methane-generated greenhouse effect. Near the altitude of  it reaches , and then slowly decreases.

Pluto is the only trans-Neptunian object with a known atmosphere. Its closest analog is the atmosphere of Triton, although in some aspects it resembles even the atmosphere of Mars.

The atmosphere of Pluto has been studied since the 1980s by way of earth-based observation of occultations of stars by Pluto and spectroscopy. In 2015, it was studied from a close distance by the spacecraft New Horizons.

Composition

The main component of the atmosphere of Pluto is nitrogen. The methane content, according to measurements by New Horizons, is 0.25%. For carbon monoxide, the Earth-based estimates are  (2010) and  (2015). Under the influence of high-energy cosmic radiation, these gases react to form more complex compounds (not volatile at Pluto's surface temperatures), including ethane (C2H6), ethylene (C2H4), acetylene (C2H2), heavier hydrocarbons and nitriles and hydrogen cyanide (HCN) (the amount of ethylene is about 0.0001%, and the amount of acetylene is about 0.0003%). These compounds slowly precipitate on the surface. They probably also include tholins, which are responsible for the brown color of Pluto (like some other bodies in the outer solar system).

The most volatile compound of the atmosphere of Pluto is nitrogen, the second is carbon monoxide and the third is methane. The indicator of volatility is saturated vapor pressure (sublimation pressure). At temperature  (close to minimum value for surface of Pluto) it is about  for nitrogen,  for carbon monoxide and  for methane. It quickly increases with temperature, and at  (close to the maximum value) approaches to ,  and  respectively. For heavier-than-methane hydrocarbons, water, ammonia, carbon dioxide and hydrogen cyanide, this pressure remains negligibly low (about  or still lower), which indicates absence of volatility at Pluto's conditions (at least in cold lower atmosphere).

Methane and carbon monoxide, due to their lower abundance and volatility, could be expected to demonstrate stronger deviations from pressure equilibrium with surface ices and bigger temporal and spatial variations of concentration. But actually the concentration of, at least, methane, does not depend noticeably on height (at least, in the lower 20–30 km), longitude or time. But temperature dependence of the volatilities of methane and nitrogen suggest that the concentration of methane will decrease as Pluto moves further from the Sun. It is notable that the observed concentration of methane is 2 orders of magnitude higher than expected from Raoult's law on the basis of its concentration in surface ice and the ratio of the sublimation pressures of methane and nitrogen. Reasons of this discrepancy are unknown. It could be due to the existence of separate patches of relatively clean methane ice, or due to an increased methane content in the uppermost layer of usual mixed ice.

Seasonal and orbital changes of insolation result in migration of surface ices: they sublimate in some places and condensate in others. According to some estimates, this causes meter-sized changes of their thickness. This (but also changes in viewing geometry) results in appreciable changes of the brightness and color of Pluto.

Methane and carbon monoxide, despite their low abundance, are significant for the thermal structure of the atmosphere: methane is a strong heating agent and carbon monoxide is a cooling one (although amount of this cooling is not completely clear).

Haze

New Horizons discovered in the atmosphere of Pluto a multi-layered haze, which covers the entirety of the dwarf planet and reaches altitude over 200 km. The best images show about 20 layers of the haze. Horizontal extent of the layers is no less than 1000 km. The thickness of the layers varies from 1 to >10 km, and vertical distance between them is about 10 km. In northern regions the haze is 2-3 times denser than near the equator.

Despite the very low density of the atmosphere, the haze is rather appreciable: it even scatters enough light to allow photographing some details of Pluto's night side. Long shadows from mountains are seen on the haze. Its normal optical depth is estimated as 0.004 or 0.013 (thus, it diminishes the intensity of a vertical beam of light by  or ; for grazing light the effect is much stronger). Scale height of the haze is ; it approximately coincides with scale height of pressure in the middle atmosphere. On the heights of  it diminishes to 30 km.

Size of the haze particles is unclear. Its blue color points to a particle radius near 10 nm, but the ratio of brightnesses at different phase angles indicates a radius exceeding 100 nm. This can be explained by aggregation of small (tens of nm) particles into larger (hundreds of nm) clusters.

The haze probably consists of particles of non-volatile compounds, which are synthesized from atmospheric gases under influence of cosmic high-energy radiation. The layers show the presence of atmospheric waves (presence of which is also suggested by observations of occultations), and such waves can be created by wind blowing over Pluto's rough surface.

The haze is the most probable reason for a kink in the curve of light intensity vs. time obtained by New Horizons during the flight through Pluto's shadow (see image on right) – below altitude  the atmosphere attenuates light much stronger than above. A similar kink was observed during stellar occultation in 1988. Firstly it was also interpreted as weakening of light by haze, but now it is thought to be mainly a result of strong inverse temperature gradient in lower atmosphere. During later occultations (when the atmosphere of Pluto was already  denser) this kink was absent.

Another evidence of the haze was obtained in 2002 due to a new occultation. The stellar light which managed to reach Earth during the occultation (due to refraction in Pluto's atmosphere), demonstrated an increase of intensity with wavelength. This was interpreted as a reliable evidence of light scattering by aerosols (similar to the reddening of rising Sun). However, this feature was absent during later eclipses (including 29 June 2015), and on 14 July 2015, New Horizons found the haze to be blue.

In the final batch of images received from New Horizons, a number of potential clouds were observed.

Temperature and thermal structure
Pluto has no or almost no troposphere; observations by New Horizons suggest only a thin tropospheric boundary layer. Its thickness in the place of measurement was 4 km, and the temperature was 37±3 K. The layer is not continuous.

Above it lays a layer with fast increase of temperature with height, the stratosphere. The temperature gradient is estimated to be 2.2,  or 5.5 degrees per km. It is a result of greenhouse effect, caused by methane. The mean temperature of the surface is  (measured in 2005), and the mean value for the whole atmosphere is  (2008).

At height  the temperature reaches its maximum (; stratopause) and then slowly decreases (about ; mesosphere). Causes of this decrease are unclear; it could be related to the cooling effect of carbon monoxide, or hydrogen cyanide, or other reasons. Above 200 km the temperature reaches approximately  and then remains constant.

The temperature of the upper layers of the atmosphere does not show noticeable temporal changes. In 1988, 2002 and 2006 it was approximately constant and equal to  (with uncertainty about ), despite a twofold increase in pressure. Dependence on latitude or morning/evening conditions is also absent: temperature is the same above every part of the surface. It is consistent with theoretical data, which predict fast mixing of the atmosphere. But there is evidence for small vertical heterogeneities in temperature. They reveal themselves in sharp and brief spikes of brightness during stellar occultations. Amplitude of these heterogeneities is estimated to be  on the scale of a few km. They can be caused by atmospheric gravity waves or turbulence, which can be related to convection or wind.

Interaction with the atmosphere significantly influences the temperature of the surface. Calculations show that the atmosphere, despite its very low pressure, can significantly diminish diurnal variations in temperature. But there still remain temperature variations of about  – partly because of cooling of the surface due to sublimation of ices.

Pressure
Pressure of the atmosphere of Pluto is very low and strongly time-dependent. Observations of stellar occultations by Pluto show that it increased about 3 times between 1988 and 2015, even though Pluto has been moving away from the Sun since 1989. This is probably caused by Pluto's north pole coming into sunlight in 1987, which intensified evaporation of nitrogen from the northern hemisphere, whereas its southern pole is still too warm for condensation of nitrogen. Absolute values of surface pressure are difficult to obtain from occultation data, because this data does not usually reach the lowest layers of the atmosphere. So, surface pressure has to be extrapolated, and this is somewhat ambiguous due to the height dependence of temperature and, consequently, pressure not being completely clear . The radius of Pluto must also be known, but it was poorly constrained before 2015. So, precise values of Pluto's surface pressure were impossible to calculate in previous times. For some occultations since 1988, pressure was calculated for a reference level of  from the center of Pluto (which later turned out to be 88±4 km from the surface).

Curves of pressure vs. distance from the center, obtained from occultations in 1988 and 2002, in combination with the now known radius of Pluto () give values of about  for 1988 and  for 2002. Spectral data provided values  in 2008 and  in 2012 for the distance from the center  (1±4 km from the surface). An occultation on 4 May 2013 gave data almost precisely for the surface level (1190 km from the center, or 3±4 km from the surface): . An occultation on 29/30 June 2015, just 2 weeks before New Horizons encounter, provided a surface pressure of .

The first direct and reliable data about the lowermost layers of the atmosphere of Pluto were obtained by New Horizons on 14 July 2015 due to radio-occultation measurements. The surface pressure was estimated to be  ( at entry of the spacecraft behind Pluto and  at the exit). This is consistent with occultation data from previous years, although some of the previous calculations based on this data gave about 2 times higher results.

The stellar occultation 17 July 2019 have shown the Pluto`s atmospheric pressure have dropped about 30% from maximal values in 2015, reaching 0.967 Pa. 6 June 2020 further pressure decline to 0.91 Pa was measured.

The scale height of pressure in Pluto's atmosphere varies significantly with height (in other words, the height dependence of the pressure deviates from exponential). This is caused by strong height variations of temperature. For the lowermost layer of the atmosphere the scale height is about , and for heights  — .

Seasonal changes
Due to orbital eccentricity, in the aphelion Pluto receives 2.8 times less heat than in perihelion. It should cause strong changes in its atmosphere, although details of these processes are not clear. Firstly it was thought that in aphelion the atmosphere must largely freeze out and fall on the surface (this is suggested by strong temperature dependence of sublimation pressure of its compounds), but more elaborated models predict that Pluto has a significant atmosphere year-round.

Pluto's last passage through its perihelion was on 5 September 1989. As of 2015, it is moving away from the Sun and its overall surface illumination is decreasing. However, the situation is complicated by its big axial tilt (122.5°), which results in long polar days and nights on large parts of its surface. Shortly before the perihelion, on 16 December 1987, Pluto underwent equinox, and its north pole came out of the polar night, which had lasted 124 Earth years.

Data, existing as of 2014, allowed the scientists to build a model of seasonal changes in Pluto's atmosphere. During the previous aphelion (1865) significant quantity of volatile ices were present in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Approximately at the same time, the equinox occurred and the southern hemisphere became tilted towards the Sun. Local ices began to migrate to the northern hemisphere, and around 1900 the southern Hemisphere became largely devoid of ices. After the following equinox (1987), the southern hemisphere turned away from the Sun. Nonetheless, its surface was already substantially heated, and its big thermal inertia (provided by non-volatile water ice) greatly slowed down its cooling. That is why gases, which now intensively evaporate from northern hemisphere, cannot quickly condense in the southern, and keep accumulating in the atmosphere, increasing its pressure. Around , the southern hemisphere will cool enough to permit intensive condensation of the gases, and they will migrate there from the northern hemisphere, where is polar day. It will last till equinox near aphelion (about 2113). The northern hemisphere will not lose its volatile ices completely, and their evaporation will supply the atmosphere even at the aphelion. The overall change of atmospheric pressure in this model is about 4 times; the minimum was reached near , and the maximum will be near 2030. The full temperature range is only several degrees.

In July 2019, an occultation by Pluto showed that its atmospheric pressure, against expectations, had fallen by 20% since 2016. In 2021, astronomers at the Southwest Research Institute confirmed the result using data from an occultation in 2018, which showed that light was appearing less gradually from behind Pluto's disc, indicating a thinning atmosphere.

Escape

Early data suggested that Pluto's atmosphere loses  molecules () of nitrogen per second, an amount corresponding to the loss of a surface layer of volatile ices several hundred meters or several kilometers thick during the lifetime of the Solar System. However, subsequent data from New Horizons revealed that this figure was overestimated by at least four orders of magnitude; Pluto's atmosphere is currently losing only 1×1023 molecules of nitrogen and 5×1025 molecules of methane every second. This presumes a loss of several centimeters of nitrogen ice and several dozen meters of methane ice during the lifetime of the Solar System.

Molecules with high enough velocity, which escape into outer space, are ionized by solar ultraviolet radiation. As the solar wind encounters the obstacle formed by the ions, it is slowed and diverted, possibly forming a shock wave upstream of Pluto. The ions are "picked up" by the solar wind and carried in its flow past the dwarf planet to form an ion or plasma tail. The Solar Wind around Pluto (SWAP) instrument on the New Horizons spacecraft made the first measurements of this region of low-energy atmospheric ions shortly after its closest approach on 14 July 2015. Such measurements will enable the SWAP team to determine the rate at which Pluto loses its atmosphere and, in turn, will yield insight into the evolution of the Pluto's atmosphere and surface.

The reddish-brown cap of the north pole of Charon, the largest of Pluto's moons (Mordor Macula), may be composed of tholins, organic macromolecules produced from methane, nitrogen and other gases released from the atmosphere of Pluto and transferred over about  distance to the orbiting moon. Models show that Charon can receive about 2.5% of gases lost by Pluto.

History of study
As early as the 1940s, Gerard Kuiper searched for evidence of the atmosphere in the spectrum of Pluto, without success. In the 1970s, some astronomers forwarded the hypothesis of a thick atmosphere and even oceans of neon: according to some views of those times, all other gases that are abundant in the Solar System would either freeze or escape. However, this hypothesis was based on a heavily overestimated mass of Pluto. No observational data about its atmosphere and chemical composition existed at the time.

The first strong, though indirect evidence of the atmosphere appeared in 1976. Infrared photometry by the 4-meter Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope revealed methane ice on Pluto's surface, which must sublimate significantly at Plutonian temperatures.

Existence of the atmosphere of Pluto was proven via stellar occultation. If a star is occulted by a body without an atmosphere, its light disappears sharply, but occultations by Pluto show a gradual decrease. This is mainly due to atmospheric refraction (not absorption or scattering). The first such observations were made on 19 August 1985 by Noah Brosch and Haim Mendelson of the Wise Observatory in Israel. But quality of the data was rather low due to unfavorable observational conditions (in addition, the detailed description was published only 10 years later). On 9 June 1988 the existence of the atmosphere was convincingly proven by occultation observations from eight sites (the best data were obtained by the Kuiper Airborne Observatory). Scale height of the atmosphere was measured, making it possible to calculate the ratio of the temperature to the mean molecular mass. The temperature and pressure themselves were impossible to calculate at the time due to an absence of data on the chemical composition of the atmosphere and a large uncertainty in the radius and mass of Pluto.

The question of composition was answered in 1992 via infrared spectra of Pluto by the 3.8-meter United Kingdom Infrared Telescope. The surface of Pluto turned out to be covered mainly by nitrogen ice. Since nitrogen is, in addition, more volatile than methane, this observation implied a prevalence of nitrogen also in the atmosphere (although gaseous nitrogen was not seen in the spectrum). Furthermore, a small admixture of frozen carbon monoxide was discovered. The same year observations by the 3.0-meter NASA Infrared Telescope Facility revealed the first conclusive evidence of gaseous methane.

Understanding the state of the atmosphere requires knowing the surface temperature. Best estimates are derived from measurements of thermal emission of Pluto. The first values, calculated in 1987 from observations by IRAS, were about , with subsequent studies suggesting . In 2005, observations by the Submillimeter Array succeeded in distinguishing the emissions of Pluto and Charon, and the average temperature of Pluto's surface was measured to be  (). It was approximately  colder than expected; the difference may be due to cooling from the sublimation of nitrogen ice,. Further research revealed that the temperature is strongly different in different regions: from 40 to .

Around the year 2000, Pluto entered star-rich fields of the Milky Way, where it will reside until the 2020s. The first stellar occultations after 1988 were on 20 July and 21 August 2002 by teams led by Bruno Sicardy of the Paris Observatory and James L. Elliot of MIT. Atmospheric pressure turned out to be about 2 times higher than in 1988. The next occultation observed was on 12 June 2006, with later ones occurring more frequently. Processing of these data shows that the pressure continues to increase. An occultation of an exceptionally bright star, about 10 times brighter than the Sun itself, was observed on 29/30 June 2015 – only 2 weeks before the New Horizons encounter.

On 14 July 2015 the New Horizons spacecraft made the first explorations of the atmosphere of Pluto from close distance, including radio occultation measurements and observations of weakening of solar radiation during flight through Pluto's shadow. It provided the first direct measurements of parameters of the lower atmosphere. The surface pressure turned out to be .

Notes

See also

 Climate zones on Pluto

References

External links
 Some literature in the Astrophysics Data System
 Video (00:17) of Alice occultation (Pluto's atmosphere passes in front of sun) (NASA; New Horizons, 14 July 2015).

 Some of raw images of New Horizons showing sun-lighted atmosphere: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Discoveries by James L. Elliot
Pluto
Pluto