1.
Tehran
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Tehran is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. It is ranked 29th in the world by the population of its metropolitan area, in the Classical era, part of the present-day city of Tehran was occupied by a Median city that in the Avesta occurs as Rhaga. It was destroyed by the Mongols in the early 13th century, the capital has been moved several times throughout the history, and Tehran is the 32nd national capital of Iran. The city was the seat of the Qajars and Pahlavis, the two last imperial dynasties of Iran. It is home to historical collections, such as the royal complexes of Golestan, Sadabad. Large scale demolition and rebuilding began in the 1920s, and Tehran has been a destination for the migrations from all over Iran since the 20th century. Tabiat Bridge, which was completed in 2014, is considered the third symbol of the city. There have been plans to relocate Irans capital from Tehran to another area, due mainly to air pollution, to date, no definitive plans have been approved. A2016 survey of 230 cities by consultant Mercer ranked Tehran 203rd for quality of living, according to the Global Destinations Cities Index in 2016, Tehran is among the top ten fastest growing destinations. The origin of the name Tehran is uncertain, the settlement of Tehran dates back over 7,000 years. The present-day city of Tehran was a suburb of an important Median city that was known as Rhaga in Old Persian, in the Avestas Videvdat, Rhaga is mentioned as the twelfth sacred place created by the Ohrmazd. In Old Persian inscriptions, Rhaga appears as a province and it was a major area for the Iranian tribes of Medes and Achaemenids. From Rhaga, Darius the Great sent reinforcements to his father Hystaspes, in some Middle Persian texts, Rhaga is given as the birthplace of Zoroaster, although modern historians generally place the birth of Zoroaster in Khorasan. Derived into Modern Persian as Rey, it now as a city located towards the southern end of the modern-day city of Tehran. Mount Damavand, the highest peak of Iran, which is located near Tehran, is an important location in Ferdowsis Shahname, the long Iranian epic poem that is based on the ancient epics of Iran. It appears in the epics as the birthplace of Manuchehr, the residence of Keyumars, the place where Freydun binds the dragon fiend Aži Dahāka, during the Sassanid era, in 641, Yazdgerd III issued his last appeal to the nation from Rey, before fleeing to Khorasan. Rey was dominated by the Parthian Mihran family, and Siyavakhsh—the son of Mihran the son of Bahram Chobin—who resisted the Muslim Invasion, because of this resistance, when the Arabs captured Rey, they ordered the town to be destroyed and ordered Farrukhzad to rebuild the town anew. In the 9th century, Tehran was a well known village, but less known than the city of Rey, the medieval writer Najm od Din Razi declared the population of Rey about 500,000 before the Mongol Invasion
2.
Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
3.
Freestyle wrestling
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Freestyle wrestling is a style of amateur wrestling that is practiced throughout the world. Along with Greco-Roman, it is one of the two styles of wrestling contested in the Olympic games, American high school and college wrestling is conducted under different rules and is termed scholastic and collegiate wrestling. Freestyle and collegiate wrestling, unlike Greco-Roman, allow the use of the wrestlers or his opponents legs in offense and defense, Freestyle wrestling brings together traditional wrestling, judo, and sambo techniques. According to wrestlings world governing body, United World Wrestling, freestyle wrestling is one of the four forms of amateur competitive wrestling that are practiced internationally today. The other main forms of wrestling are Greco-Roman and grappling, the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee recommended dropping wrestling as a sport from the 2020 Olympic Games, but the decision was later reversed by the IOC. Modern freestyle wrestling, according to UWW, is said to have originated in Great Britain, catch-as-catch-can wrestling had a particular following in Great Britain and the variant developed in Lancashire had a particular effect on freestyle wrestling. Catch-as-catch-can wrestling gained popularity in fairs and festivals during the 19th century. In catch-as-catch-can wrestling, both started out standing and then a wrestler sought to hold his opponents shoulder to the ground. If no fall was scored, both wrestlers continued grappling on the ground, and almost all holds and techniques were allowable. Also, there was the Irish collar-and-elbow style, where started out on their feet with both wrestlers grasping each other by the collar with one hand and by the elbow with the other. If neither wrestler then achieved a fall, the contestants would continue both standing and on the ground until a fall was made, the 1896 Olympic Games had only one wrestling bout, a heavyweight Greco-Roman match. Freestyle wrestling first emerged as an Olympic sport in the Saint Louis Olympics of 1904, all 40 wrestlers who participated in the 1904 Olympics were American. The 1904 Olympics sanctioned the rules used for catch-as-catch can. Wrestling by seven classes,47.6 kg,52.2 kg,56.7 kg,61.2 kg,65.3 kg,71.7 kg. These were later adopted by the Amateur Athletic Union for its freestyle matches, Freestyle wrestling gained great popularity in the United States after the Civil War. By the 1880s, tournaments drew hundreds of wrestlers, the rise of cities, increased industrialization, and the closing of the frontier provided the affable environment for amateur wrestling, along with boxing, to increase in esteem and popularity. Amateur wrestling teams soon emerged, such as the team of the New York Athletic Club. Professional wrestling also developed, and by the 1870s, professional championship matches offered allowances of up to $1,000
4.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
5.
Actor
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An actor is a person who portrays a character in a performance. Simplistically speaking, the person denominated actor or actress is someone beautiful who plays important characters, the actor performs in the flesh in the traditional medium of the theatre, or in modern mediums such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής, literally one who answers, the actors interpretation of their role pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is playing themselves, as in forms of experimental performance art, or, more commonly, to act, is to create. Formerly, in societies, only men could become actors. When used for the stage, women played the roles of prepubescent boys. The etymology is a derivation from actor with ess added. However, when referring to more than one performer, of both sexes, actor is preferred as a term for male performers. Actor is also used before the name of a performer as a gender-specific term. Within the profession, the re-adoption of the term dates to the 1950–1960s. As Whoopi Goldberg put it in an interview with the paper, Im an actor – I can play anything. The U. K. performers union Equity has no policy on the use of actor or actress, an Equity spokesperson said that the union does not believe that there is a consensus on the matter and stated that the. subject divides the profession. In 2009, the Los Angeles Times stated that Actress remains the term used in major acting awards given to female recipients. However, player remains in use in the theatre, often incorporated into the name of a group or company, such as the American Players. Also, actors in improvisational theatre may be referred to as players, prior to Thespis act, Grecian stories were only expressed in song, dance, and in third person narrative. In honor of Thespis, actors are commonly called Thespians, the exclusively male actors in the theatre of ancient Greece performed in three types of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans, as the Western Roman Empire fell into decay through the 4th and 5th centuries, the seat of Roman power shifted to Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. Records show that mime, pantomime, scenes or recitations from tragedies and comedies, dances, from the 5th century, Western Europe was plunged into a period of general disorder
6.
History of the Iranian Air Force
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The history of the Iranian Air Force can be divided into two phases — before the Islamic Revolution, and after it. The Imperial Iranian Air Force was a branch of the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces and was established by Reza Shah and it became operational with its first fully trained pilots on February 25,1925. Irans first attempt to procure aircraft from the United States in the 1920s failed due to Washingtons refusal to supply equipment because of a World War I treaty, until World War II, the IIAFs aircraft inventory consisted entirely of European aircraft, mainly British and German. A few Iranian planes did manage to get airborne during the invasion, a roughly 1946 order of battle for the Air Force can be found in Janes Fighting Aircraft of World War II. Two regiments were reported to be based near Tehran. After World War II, the IIAF began to rebuild its inventory, with aircraft mainly supplied by the United States. A national, aerobatic team was formed in 1958. Called Golden Crown, and a part of the IIAF, this lasted until 1978, in the 1960s, the IIAF acquired 90 Canadair Sabre fighters from the RCAF, but they were flipped over to the Pakistan Air Force. In the 1960s and 1970s, the air force was used as part of a joint, aerial espionage programme of Iran and this was in two parts, known as Project Dark Gene and Project Ibex. The IIAF deployed aircraft to Oman in the 1970s, when Iran provided military assistance to that country, during this conflict, one Iranian F-4 Phantom II was shot down by rebels. In 1976, the Imperial Iranian Air Force responded to a UFO incident over the Iranian capital, later in the 1970s, the IIAF became the only military force other than the United States Navy to be equipped with the F-14 Tomcat. Consequently, it became the only other operator of the AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missile. Some were brought back into service, due to localised production of reverse-engineered, Iranian-made, spare parts, during this era, the United States instituted the Spellout, Peace Ruby and Peace Net programmes to improve/upgrade, the air-defence system of Iran. As well as air defence radars, the network was linked using microwave LOS and troposcatter communications networks. The IIAF had also placed an order for over 150 F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter aircraft in 1976 and these aircraft would go on to serve in the Israeli Air Force. The overthrow of the Shah in the Islamic Revolution of February 1979, was followed by changes to the organization of the Iranian military, the air force was renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, and largely inherited the equipment and structure of the former IIAF. Due to strained relations with the west, Iran had to procure new equipment from Brazil, the Soviet Union/Russia and its other personnel were also decimated by the purges, with many pilots removed or leaving the air force. This left the air force ill-prepared for the Iran–Iraq War, intense Iranian activity inside Iraqi air space during the first week of the war managed to prove so successful that it eventually forced the Iraqi Air Force onto the defensive
7.
Iranian Revolution
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Demonstrations against the Shah commenced in October 1977, developing into a campaign of civil resistance that included both secular and religious elements and which intensified in January 1978. Between August and December 1978 strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country, the Shah left Iran for exile on 16 January 1979, as the last Persian monarch, leaving his duties to a regency council and an opposition-based prime minister. Ayatollah Khomeini was invited back to Iran by the government, the royal reign collapsed shortly after on 11 February when guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting, bringing Khomeini to official power. It was a relatively non-violent revolution, and helped to redefine the meaning, the Shahs regime became increasingly oppressive, brutal, corrupt, and extravagant. It also suffered from basic functional failures that brought economic bottlenecks, shortages, the Shah was perceived by many as beholden to – if not a puppet of – a non-Muslim Western power whose culture was affecting that of Iran. The Shia clergy had a significant influence on Iranian society, the clergy first showed itself to be a powerful political force in opposition to the monarchy with the 1891 Tobacco Protest. On 20 March 1890, Nasir al-Din Shah granted a concession to Major G. F. Talbot for a monopoly over the production, sale. The boycotts and protests against it were widespread and extensive because of Mirza Hasan Shirazis fatwa, finally Nasir al-Din Shah found himself powerless to stop the popular movement and cancelled the concession. The Tobacco Protest was the first significant Iranians resistance against the Shah and foreign interests, and revealed the power of the people, the growing discontent continued until the Constitutional Revolution. The revolution led to the establishment of a Parliament and approval of the first constitution, although the constitutional revolution was successful in weakening the autocracy of the Qajar regime, it failed to provide a powerful alternative government. Consequently, within the following the establishment of the new parliament. Many of these events can be viewed as a continuation of the struggle between the constitutionalists and the Shahs of Persia, many of whom were backed by foreign powers against the parliament. He established a monarchy, deposing the last of the Qajar shah in 1925 and introduced many social, economic. A number of reforms led to public discontent which provides circumstances for an Iranian revolution. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavis father, Reza Shah, replaced Islamic laws with Western ones, police forcibly removed and tore chadors off women who resisted his ban on the public hijab. In 1935, dozens were killed and hundreds injured in the Goharshad Mosque rebellion, on the other hand, in the early rise of Reza Shah, Abdul-Karim Haeri Yazdi founded the Qom Seminary and created important changes in seminaries. However, he would avoid entering into political issues, as did other leaders who followed him. Hence, no widespread anti-government attempts were organized by clergy during the Reza Shah Rule, however, the future Ayatollah Khomeini was a student of Sheikh Abdul Karim Ha’eri
8.
IMDb
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In 1998 it became a subsidiary of Amazon Inc, who were then able to use it as an advertising resource for selling DVDs and videotapes. As of January 2017, IMDb has approximately 4.1 million titles and 7.7 million personalities in its database, the site enables registered users to submit new material and edits to existing entries. Although all data is checked before going live, the system has open to abuse. The site also featured message boards which stimulate regular debates and dialogue among authenticated users, IMDb shutdown the message boards permanently on February 20,2017. Anyone with a connection can read the movie and talent pages of IMDb. A registration process is however, to contribute info to the site. A registered user chooses a name for themselves, and is given a profile page. These badges range from total contributions made, to independent categories such as photos, trivia, bios, if a registered user or visitor happens to be in the entertainment industry, and has an IMDb page, that user/visitor can add photos to that page by enrolling in IMDbPRO. Actors, crew, and industry executives can post their own resume and this fee enrolls them in a membership called IMDbPro. PRO can be accessed by anyone willing to pay the fee, which is $19.99 USD per month, or if paid annually, $149.99, which comes to approximately $12.50 per month USD. Membership enables a user to access the rank order of each industry personality, as well as agent contact information for any actor, producer, director etc. that has an IMDb page. Enrolling in PRO for industry personnel, enables those members the ability to upload a head shot to open their page, as well as the ability to upload hundreds of photos to accompany their page. Anyone can register as a user, and contribute to the site as well as enjoy its content, however those users enrolled in PRO have greater access and privileges. IMDb originated with a Usenet posting by British film fan and computer programmer Col Needham entitled Those Eyes, others with similar interests soon responded with additions or different lists of their own. Needham subsequently started an Actors List, while Dave Knight began a Directors List, and Andy Krieg took over THE LIST from Hank Driskill, which would later be renamed the Actress List. Both lists had been restricted to people who were alive and working, the goal of the participants now was to make the lists as inclusive as possible. By late 1990, the lists included almost 10,000 movies and television series correlated with actors and actresses appearing therein. On October 17,1990, Needham developed and posted a collection of Unix shell scripts which could be used to search the four lists, at the time, it was known as the rec. arts. movies movie database
9.
Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
