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A HDI below 0.5 is considered to represent "low development". All 22 countries in that category are located in Africa. The highest-scoring Sub-Saharan countries, Gabon and South Africa, are ranked 119th and 121st, respectively. Nine countries departed from this category this year and joined the "medium development" gro...
A HDI of 0.8 or more is considered to represent "high development". This includes all developed countries, such as those in North America, Western Europe, Oceania, and Eastern Asia, as well as some developing countries in Eastern Europe, Central and South America, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and the oil-rich Arabian...
On the following table, green arrows () represent an increase in ranking over the previous study, while red arrows () represent a decrease in ranking. They are followed by the number of spaces they moved. Blue dashes () represent a nation that did not move in the rankings since the previous study.
The list below displays the top-ranked country from each year of the Human Development Index. Norway has been ranked the highest twelve times, Canada eight times, followed by Japan which has been ranked highest three times. Iceland has been ranked highest twice.
The Human Development Index has been criticized on a number of grounds including alleged ideological biases towards egalitarianism and so-called "Western models of development", failure to include any ecological considerations, lack of consideration of technological development or contributions to the human civilizatio...
Economists Hendrik Wolff, Howard Chong and Maximilian Auffhammer discuss the HDI from the perspective of data error in the underlying health, education and income statistics used to construct the HDI. They identified three sources of data error which are due to (i) data updating, (ii) formula revisions and (iii) thresh...
The HDI has extended its geographical coverage: David Hastings, of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, published a report geographically extending the HDI to 230+ economies, whereas the UNDP HDI for 2009 enumerates 182 economies and coverage for the 2010 HDI dropped to 169 countr...
Some definitions of southern Europe, also known as Mediterranean Europe, include the countries of the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal), the Italian peninsula, southern France and Greece. Other definitions sometimes include the Balkan countries of southeast Europe, which are geographically in the southern part of ...
Different methods can be used to define southern Europe, including its political, economic, and cultural attributes. Southern Europe can also be defined by its natural features — its geography, climate, and flora.
Southern Europe's most emblematic climate is that of the Mediterranean climate, which has become a typically known characteristic of the area. The Mediterranean climate covers much of Portugal, Spain, Southeast France, Italy, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Greece, the Western and Southern coastal regions of Turkey as we...
Cooler climates can be found in certain parts of Southern European countries, for example within the mountain ranges of Spain and Italy. Additionally, the north coast of Spain experiences a wetter Atlantic climate.
Southern Europe's flora is that of the Mediterranean Region, one of the phytochoria recognized by Armen Takhtajan. The Mediterranean and Submediterranean climate regions in Europe are found in much of Southern Europe, mainly in Southern Portugal, most of Spain, the southern coast of France, Italy, the Croatian coast, m...
The period known as classical antiquity began with the rise of the city-states of Ancient Greece. Greek influence reached its zenith under the expansive empire of Alexander the Great, spreading throughout Asia.
The Roman Empire came to dominate the entire Mediterranean basin in a vast empire based on Roman law and Roman legions. It promoted trade, tolerance, and Greek culture. By 300 AD the Roman Empire was divided into the Western Roman Empire based in Rome, and the Eastern Roman Empire based in Constantinople. The attacks o...
During the Middle Ages, the Eastern Roman Empire survived, though modern historians refer to this state as the Byzantine Empire. In Western Europe, Germanic peoples moved into positions of power in the remnants of the former Western Roman Empire and established kingdoms and empires of their own.
The period known as the Crusades, a series of religiously motivated military expeditions originally intended to bring the Levant back into Christian rule, began. Several Crusader states were founded in the eastern Mediterranean. These were all short-lived. The Crusaders would have a profound impact on many parts of Eur...
The Late Middle Ages represented a period of upheaval in Europe. The epidemic known as the Black Death and an associated famine caused demographic catastrophe in Europe as the population plummeted. Dynastic struggles and wars of conquest kept many of the states of Europe at war for much of the period. In the Balkans, t...
Beginning roughly in the 14th century in Florence, and later spreading through Europe with the development of the printing press, a Renaissance of knowledge challenged traditional doctrines in science and theology, with the Arabic texts and thought bringing about rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman knowledge.
The Reconquista of Portugal and Spain led to a series of oceanic explorations resulting in the Age of Discovery that established direct links with Africa, the Americas, and Asia, while religious wars continued to be fought in Europe, which ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. The Spanish crown maintained its heg...
European overseas expansion led to the rise of colonial empires, producing the Columbian Exchange. The combination of resource inflows from the New World and the Industrial Revolution of Great Britain, allowed a new economy based on manufacturing instead of subsistence agriculture.
The period between 1815 and 1871 saw a large number of revolutionary attempts and independence wars. Balkan nations began to regain independence from the Ottoman Empire. Italy unified into a nation state. The capture of Rome in 1870 ended the Papal temporal power. Rivalry in a scramble for empires spread in what is kno...
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 was precipitated by the rise of nationalism in Southeastern Europe as the Great Powers took up sides. The Allies defeated the Central Powers in 1918. During the Paris Peace Conference the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, especially the Treaty of Versailles.
The Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, and along with Mussolini's Italy sought to gain control of the continent by the Second World War. Following the Allied victory in the Second World War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain. The countries in Southeastern Europe were dominated by the Soviet Unio...
Italy became a major industrialized country again, due to its post-war economic miracle. The European Union (EU) involved the division of powers, with taxation, health and education handled by the nation states, while the EU had charge of market rules, competition, legal standards and environmentalism. The Soviet econo...
The most widely spoken family of languages in southern Europe are the Romance languages, the heirs of Latin, which have spread from the Italian peninsula, and are emblematic of Southwestern Europe. (See the Latin Arch.) By far the most common romance languages in Southern Europe are: Italian, which is spoken by over 50...
The Hellenic languages or Greek language are widely spoken in Greece and in the Greek part of Cyprus. Additionally, other varieties of Greek are spoken in small communities in parts of other European counties.
Several South Slavic languages are spoken by millions of people in Southern Europe. Serbian is spoken in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia; Bulgarian is spoken in Bulgaria; Croatian is spoken in Croatia and Bosnia; Bosnian is spoken in Bosnia; Slovene is spoken in Slovenia; and Macedonian is spoken in Macedonia.
English is used as a second language in parts of Southern Europe. As a primary language, however, English has only a small presence in Southern Europe, only in Gibraltar (alongside Spanish) and Malta (secondary to Maltese).
There are other language groupings in Southern Europe. Albanian is spoken in Albania, Kosovo, Macedoonia, and parts of Greece. Maltese is a Semitic language that is the official language of Malta. The Basque language is spoken in the Basque Country, a region in northern Spain and southwestern France.
The predominant religion is southern Europe is Christianity. Christianity spread throughout Southern Europe during the Roman Empire, and Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the year 380 AD. Due to the historical break of the Christian Church into the western half based in Rome and t...
For its official works and publications, the United Nations Organization groups countries under a classification of regions. The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories by...
European Travel Commission divides the European region on the basis of Tourism Decision Metrics (TDM) model. Countries which belong to the Southern/Mediterranean Europe are:
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 Novem...
The domestic TV BBC television channels are broadcast without any commercial advertising and collectively they account for more than 30% of all UK viewing. The services are funded by a television licence.
The BBC operates several television networks, television stations (although there is generally very little distinction between the two terms in the UK), and related programming services in the United Kingdom. As well as being a broadcaster, the corporation also produces a large number of its own programmes in-house, th...
Baird Television Ltd. made Britain's first television broadcast, on 30 September 1929 from its studio in Long Acre, London, via the BBC's London transmitter, using the electromechanical system pioneered by John Logie Baird. This system used a vertically-scanned image of 30 lines – just enough resolution for a close-up ...
The BBC began its own regular television programming from the basement of Broadcasting House, London, on 22 August 1932. The studio moved to larger quarters in 16 Portland Place, London, in February 1934, and continued broadcasting the 30-line images, carried by telephone line to the medium wave transmitter at Brookman...
After a series of test transmissions and special broadcasts that began in August, regular BBC television broadcasts officially resumed on 1 October 1936, from a converted wing of Alexandra Palace in London, which housed two studios, various scenery stores, make-up areas, dressing rooms, offices, and the transmitter its...
The two systems were to run on a trial basis for six months; early television sets supported both resolutions. However, the Baird system, which used a mechanical camera for filmed programming and Farnsworth image dissector cameras for live programming, proved too cumbersome and visually inferior, and ended with closedo...
Initially, the station's range was officially a 40 kilometres radius of the Alexandra Palace transmitter—in practice, however, transmissions could be picked up a good deal further away, and on one occasion in 1938 were picked up by engineers at RCA in New York, who were experimenting with a British television set.
Mechanically scanned, 30-line television broadcasts by John Logie Baird began in 1929, using the BBC transmitter in London, and by 1930 a regular schedule of programmes was transmitted from the BBC antenna in Brookmans Park. Television production was switched from Baird's company to what is now known as BBC One on 2 Au...
On 1 September 1939, two days before Britain declared war on Germany, the station was taken off air with little warning; the government was concerned that the VHF transmissions would act as a beacon to enemy aircraft homing in on London. Also, many of the television service's technical staff and engineers would be need...
According to figures from Britain's Radio Manufacturers Association, 18,999 television sets had been manufactured from 1936 to September 1939, when production was halted by the war.
BBC Television returned on 7 June 1946 at 15:00. Jasmine Bligh, one of the original announcers, made the first announcement, saying, 'Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh?'. The Mickey Mouse cartoon of 1939 was repeated twenty minutes later.[unreliable source?] Alexandra Palace was t...
Postwar broadcast coverage was extended to Birmingham in 1949 with the opening of the Sutton Coldfield transmitting station, and by the mid-1950s most of the country was covered, transmitting a 405-line interlaced image on VHF.[original research?]
Television transmissions resumed from Alexandra Palace in 1946. The BBC Television Service (renamed "BBC tv" in 1960) showed popular programming, including drama, comedies, documentaries, game shows, and soap operas, covering a wide range of genres and regularly competed with ITV to become the channel with the highest ...
BBC TV was renamed BBC1 in 1964, after the launch of BBC2 (now BBC Two), the third television station (ITV was the second) for the UK; its remit, to provide more niche programming. The channel was due to launch on 20 April 1964, but was put off the air by a massive power failure that affected much of London, caused by ...
On 1 July 1967, BBC Two became the first television channel in Europe to broadcast regularly in colour, using the West German PAL system that is still in use today although being gradually superseded by digital systems. (BBC One and ITV began 625-line colour broadcasts simultaneously on 15 November 1969). Unlike other ...
In 1967 Tom and Jerry cartoons first aired on BBC One, with around 2 episodes shown every evening at 17:00, with occasional morning showings on CBBC. The BBC stopped airing the famous cartoon duo in 2000.
David Attenborough was later granted sabbatical leave from his job as Controller to work with the BBC Natural History Unit which had existed since the 1950s. This unit is now famed throughout the world for producing high quality programmes with Attenborough such as Life on Earth, The Private Life of Plants, The Blue Pl...
National and regional variations also occur within the BBC One and BBC Two schedules. England's BBC One output is split up into fifteen regions (such as South West and East), which exist mainly to produce local news programming, but also occasionally opt out of the network to show programmes of local importance (such a...
Programmes, such as the politically fuelled Give My Head Peace (produced by BBC Northern Ireland) and the soap opera River City (produced by BBC Scotland), have been created specifically to cater for some viewers in their respective nations, who may have found programmes created for English audiences irrelevant. BBC Sc...
The BBC is also renowned for its production of costume dramas, such as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and contemporary social dramas such as Boys from the Blackstuff and Our Friends in the North. The BBC has come under pressure to commission more programmes from independent British production companies, and indeed i...
The BBC also introduced Ceefax, the first teletext service, starting in 1974. This service allows BBC viewers to view textual information such as the latest news on their television. CEEFAX has not made a full transition to digital television, instead being replaced by the new interactive BBCi service.
In March 2003 the BBC announced that from the end of May 2003 (subsequently deferred to 14 July) it intended to transmit all eight of its domestic television channels (including the 15 regional variations of BBC 1) unencrypted from the Astra 2D satellite. This move was estimated to save the BBC £85 million over the nex...
While the "footprint" of the Astra 2D satellite was smaller than that of Astra 2A, from which it was previously broadcast encrypted, it meant that viewers with appropriate equipment were able to receive BBC channels "free-to-air" over much of Western Europe. Consequently, some rights concerns have needed to be resolved...
On 5 July 2004, the BBC celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its television news bulletins (although it had produced the Television Newsreel for several years before 1954). This event was marked by the release of a DVD, which showed highlights of the BBC's television coverage of significant events over the half-centu...
The BBC Television department headed by Jana Bennett was absorbed into a new, much larger group; BBC Vision, in late 2006. The new group was part of larger restructuring within the BBC with the onset of new media outlets and technology.
In 2008, the BBC began experimenting with live streaming of certain channels in the UK, and in November 2008, all standard BBC television channels were made available to watch online.
In February 2016, it was confirmed by BBC Worldwide that Keeping Up Appearances is the corporation's most exported television programme, being sold nearly 1000 times to overseas broadcasters.
The BBC domestic television channels do not broadcast advertisements; they are instead funded by a television licence fee which TV viewers are required to pay annually. This includes viewers who watch real-time streams of the BBC's channels online or via their mobile phone. The BBC's international television channels a...
As a division within the BBC, Television was formerly known as BBC Vision for a few years in the early 21st century, until its name reverted to Television in 2013. It is responsible for the commissioning, producing, scheduling and broadcasting of all programming on the BBC's television channels, and is led by Danny Coh...
BBC Japan was a general entertainment channel, which operated between December 2004 and April 2006. It ceased operations after its Japanese distributor folded.
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (/ˈʃwɔːrtsənˌɛɡər/; German: [ˈaɐ̯nɔlt ˈalɔʏs ˈʃvaɐ̯tsn̩ˌɛɡɐ]; born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian-American actor, filmmaker, businessman, investor, author, philanthropist, activist, former professional bodybuilder and politician. He served two terms as the 38th Governor of California from 200...
Schwarzenegger began weight training at the age of 15. He won the Mr. Universe title at age 20 and went on to win the Mr. Olympia contest seven times. Schwarzenegger has remained a prominent presence in bodybuilding and has written many books and articles on the sport. He is widely considered to be among the greatest b...
As a Republican, he was first elected on October 7, 2003, in a special recall election to replace then-Governor Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger was sworn in on November 17, to serve the remainder of Davis's term. Schwarzenegger was then re-elected on November 7, 2006, in California's 2006 gubernatorial election, to serve a ...
Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, a village bordering the city of Graz in Styria, Austria and christened Arnold Alois. His parents were Gustav Schwarzenegger (August 17, 1907 – December 13, 1972), and Aurelia Schwarzenegger (née Jadrny; July 29, 1922 – August 2, 1998). Gustav was the local chief of police, and had serve...
Gustav had a preference for his elder son, Meinhard (July 17, 1946 – May 20, 1971), over Arnold. His favoritism was "strong and blatant," which stemmed from unfounded suspicion that Arnold was not his biological child. Schwarzenegger has said his father had "no patience for listening or understanding your problems." Sc...
As a boy, Schwarzenegger played several sports, heavily influenced by his father. He picked up his first barbell in 1960, when his soccer coach took his team to a local gym. At the age of 14, he chose bodybuilding over soccer as a career. Schwarzenegger has responded to a question asking if he was 13 when he started we...
On May 20, 1971, his brother, Meinhard, died in a car accident. Meinhard had been drinking and was killed instantly. Schwarzenegger did not attend his funeral. Meinhard was due to marry Erika Knapp, and the couple had a three-year-old son, Patrick. Schwarzenegger would pay for Patrick's education and help him to emigra...
In an interview with Fortune in 2004, Schwarzenegger told how he suffered what "would now be called child abuse" at the hands of his father: "My hair was pulled. I was hit with belts. So was the kid next door. It was just the way it was. Many of the children I've seen were broken by their parents, which was the German-...
Schwarzenegger served in the Austrian Army in 1965 to fulfill the one year of service required at the time of all 18-year-old Austrian males. During his army service, he won the Junior Mr. Europe contest. He went AWOL during basic training so he could take part in the competition and spent a week in military prison: "P...
Charles "Wag" Bennett, one of the judges at the 1966 competition, was impressed with Schwarzenegger and he offered to coach him. As Schwarzenegger had little money, Bennett invited him to stay in his crowded family home above one of his two gyms in Forest Gate, London, England. Yorton's leg definition had been judged s...
Schwarzenegger, who dreamed of moving to the U.S. since the age of 10, and saw bodybuilding as the avenue through which to do so, realized his dream by moving to the United States in September 1968 at the age of 21, speaking little English. There he trained at Gold's Gym in Venice, Los Angeles, California, under Joe We...
Immigration law firm Siskind & Susser have stated that Schwarzenegger may have been an illegal immigrant at some point in the late 1960s or early 1970s because of violations in the terms of his visa. LA Weekly would later say in 2002 that Schwarzenegger is the most famous immigrant in America, who "overcame a thick Aus...
In 1977, Schwarzenegger's autobiography/weight-training guide Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder was published and became a huge success. After taking English classes at Santa Monica College in California, he earned a BA by correspondence from the University of Wisconsin–Superior, where he graduated with a degree i...
He tells that during this time he ran into a friend who told him that he was teaching Transcendental Meditation (TM), which prompted Schwarzenegger to reveal he had been struggling with anxiety for the first time in his life: "Even today, I still benefit from [the year of TM] because I don't merge and bring things toge...
Schwarzenegger is considered among the most important figures in the history of bodybuilding, and his legacy is commemorated in the Arnold Classic annual bodybuilding competition. Schwarzenegger has remained a prominent face in the bodybuilding sport long after his retirement, in part because of his ownership of gyms a...
For many years, he wrote a monthly column for the bodybuilding magazines Muscle & Fitness and Flex. Shortly after being elected Governor, he was appointed executive editor of both magazines, in a largely symbolic capacity. The magazines agreed to donate $250,000 a year to the Governor's various physical fitness initiat...
One of the first competitions he won was the Junior Mr. Europe contest in 1965. He won Mr. Europe the following year, at age 19. He would go on to compete in, and win, many bodybuilding contests. His bodybuilding victories included five Mr. Universe (4 – NABBA [England], 1 – IFBB [USA]) wins, and seven Mr. Olympia wins...
Schwarzenegger continues to work out even today. When asked about his personal training during the 2011 Arnold Classic he said that he was still working out a half an hour with weights every day.
In 1967, Schwarzenegger won the Munich stone-lifting contest, in which a stone weighing 508 German pounds (254 kg/560 lbs.) is lifted between the legs while standing on two foot rests.
Schwarzenegger's goal was to become the greatest bodybuilder in the world, which meant becoming Mr. Olympia. His first attempt was in 1969, when he lost to three-time champion Sergio Oliva. However, Schwarzenegger came back in 1970 and won the competition, making him the youngest ever Mr. Olympia at the age of 23, a re...
He continued his winning streak in the 1971–74 competitions. In 1975, Schwarzenegger was once again in top form, and won the title for the sixth consecutive time, beating Franco Columbu. After the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest, Schwarzenegger announced his retirement from professional bodybuilding.
Months before the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest, filmmakers George Butler and Robert Fiore persuaded Schwarzenegger to compete, in order to film his training in the bodybuilding documentary called Pumping Iron. Schwarzenegger had only three months to prepare for the competition, after losing significant weight to appear in ...
Schwarzenegger came out of retirement, however, to compete in the 1980 Mr. Olympia. Schwarzenegger was training for his role in Conan, and he got into such good shape because of the running, horseback riding and sword training, that he decided he wanted to win the Mr. Olympia contest one last time. He kept this plan a ...
Schwarzenegger has admitted to using performance-enhancing anabolic steroids while they were legal, writing in 1977 that "steroids were helpful to me in maintaining muscle size while on a strict diet in preparation for a contest. I did not use them for muscle growth, but rather for muscle maintenance when cutting up." ...
In 1999, Schwarzenegger sued Dr. Willi Heepe, a German doctor who publicly predicted his early death on the basis of a link between his steroid use and his later heart problems. As the doctor had never examined him personally, Schwarzenegger collected a US$10,000 libel judgment against him in a German court. In 1999, S...
Schwarzenegger wanted to move from bodybuilding into acting, finally achieving it when he was chosen to play the role of Hercules in 1970's Hercules in New York. Credited under the name "Arnold Strong," his accent in the film was so thick that his lines were dubbed after production. His second film appearance was as a ...
Schwarzenegger drew attention and boosted his profile in the bodybuilding film Pumping Iron (1977), elements of which were dramatized; in 1991, he purchased the rights to the film, its outtakes, and associated still photography. In 1977, he also appeared in an episode of the ABC situation comedy The San Pedro Beach Bum...
Schwarzenegger's breakthrough film was the sword-and-sorcery epic Conan the Barbarian in 1982, which was a box-office hit. This was followed by a sequel, Conan the Destroyer, in 1984, although it was not as successful as its predecessor. In 1983, Schwarzenegger starred in the promotional video, Carnival in Rio. In 1984...
During the 1980s, audiences had an appetite for action films, with both Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone becoming international stars. Schwarzenegger's roles reflected his sense of humor, separating him from more serious action hero films, such as the alternative universe poster for Terminator 2: Judgment Day star...
Twins (1988), a comedy with Danny DeVito, also proved successful. Total Recall (1990) netted Schwarzenegger $10 million and 15% of the film's gross. A science fiction script, the film was based on the Philip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". Kindergarten Cop (1990) reunited him with director I...
Schwarzenegger's commercial peak was his return as the title character in 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which was the highest-grossing film of 1991. In 1993, the National Association of Theatre Owners named him the "International Star of the Decade". His next film project, the 1993 self-aware action comedy spoof L...
That same year, the comedy Junior was released, the last of Schwarzenegger's three collaborations with Ivan Reitman and again co-starring Danny DeVito. This film brought him his second Golden Globe nomination, this time for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy. It was followed by the action thriller Eraser (1996), the Christ...
In tribute to Schwarzenegger in 2002, Forum Stadtpark, a local cultural association, proposed plans to build a 25-meter (82 ft) tall Terminator statue in a park in central Graz. Schwarzenegger reportedly said he was flattered, but thought the money would be better spent on social projects and the Special Olympics.
His film appearances after becoming Governor of California included a three-second cameo appearance in The Rundown, and the 2004 remake of Around the World in 80 Days. In 2005, he appeared as himself in the film The Kid & I. He voiced Baron von Steuben in the Liberty's Kids episode "Valley Forge". He had been rumored t...
In January 2011, just weeks after leaving office in California, Schwarzenegger announced that he was reading several new scripts for future films, one of them being the World War II action drama With Wings as Eagles, written by Randall Wallace, based on a true story. On March 6, 2011, at the Arnold Seminar of the Arnol...
On May 20, 2011, Schwarzenegger's entertainment counsel announced that all movie projects currently in development were being halted: "Schwarzenegger is focusing on personal matters and is not willing to commit to any production schedules or timelines". On July 11, 2011, it was announced that Schwarzenegger was conside...
Schwarzenegger has been a registered Republican for many years. As an actor, his political views were always well known as they contrasted with those of many other prominent Hollywood stars, who are generally considered to be a liberal and Democratic-leaning community. At the 2004 Republican National Convention, Schwar...