Most viewed Wikipedia articles on December 7 , 2015
Kurt Georg Kiesinger was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1 December 1966 to 21 October 1969. Before he became Chancellor he served as Minister President of Baden-Württemberg from 1958 to 1966 and as President of the Federal Council from 1962 to 1963. He was Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1967 to 1971.
The Attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' formal entry into World War II the next day. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, and as Operation Z during its planning. Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with its planned military actions in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the course of seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
PBS Kids is the brand for most of the children's programming aired by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. Some public television children's programs are not produced by PBS member stations or transmitted by PBS which is produced by independent public television distributors such as American Public Television are not labeled as "PBS Kids" programming, and it is mainly a programming block branding.
The following is a list of characters in the Killer Instinct series of fighting games.
Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer, actor and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide.
Facebook is an American online social media and social networking service based in Menlo Park, California, and a flagship service of the namesake company Facebook, Inc. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.
Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. It is considered one of the Big Five technology companies in the U.S. information technology industry, alongside Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft.
Web scraping, web harvesting, or web data extraction is data scraping used for extracting data from websites. Web scraping software may access the World Wide Web directly using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or through a web browser. While web scraping can be done manually by a software user, the term typically refers to automated processes implemented using a bot or web crawler. It is a form of copying, in which specific data is gathered and copied from the web, typically into a central local database or spreadsheet, for later retrieval or analysis.
Mount Disappointment is an 800-metre (2,600 ft) mountain, located on the southern end of the Great Dividing Range, 9.5 kilometres (5.9 mi) north of Whittlesea, 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. It was named by explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell in 1824, and the mountain is now a popular hiking spot.
Hanukkah is a Jewish festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE. It is also known as the Festival of Lights.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, officially known as the Islamic State (IS) and also known by its Arabic acronym Daesh, is a militant Islamist group and a former unrecognized proto-state that follows a fundamentalist, Salafi jihadist doctrine of Sunni Islam. ISIL was founded in 1999 by Jordanian Salafi jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi under the name Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad and gained global prominence in early 2014 when it drove Iraqi government forces out of key cities in its Western Iraq offensive, followed by its capture of Mosul and the Sinjar massacre.
Java is a class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is a general-purpose programming language intended to let application developers write once, run anywhere (WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlying computer architecture. The syntax of Java is similar to C and C++, but has fewer low-level facilities than either of them. The Java runtime provides dynamic capabilities that are typically not available in traditional compiled languages. As of 2019, Java was one of the most popular programming languages in use according to GitHub, particularly for client-server web applications, with a reported 9 million developers.
Olympe de Gouges was a French playwright and political activist whose writings on women's rights and abolitionism reached a large audience in various countries.
Dulce María Espinosa Saviñón de Álvarez is a Mexican singer, songwriter, actress and author.
Krampus is a horned, anthropomorphic figure in Alpine folklore who during the Christmas season scares children who have misbehaved, assisting Saint Nicholas. The pair visit children on the night of the 5th December and Saint Nicholas rewards the well-behaved children with modest gifts such as oranges, dried fruit, walnuts and chocolate whilst the badly behaved ones only receive punishment with birch rods.
On December 2, 2015, a terrorist attack, consisting of a mass shooting and an attempted bombing, occurred at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. The perpetrators, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple living in the city of Redlands, targeted a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event and Christmas party of about 80 employees in a rented banquet room. 14 people were killed and 22 others were seriously injured. Farook was a U.S.-born citizen of Pakistani descent, who worked as a health department employee. Malik was a Pakistani-born green card holder.
Matthew Michael Hasselbeck is a former American football quarterback and current analyst for ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown. He played college football at Boston College and was drafted in the sixth round of the 1998 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers. After a season on the practice squad and two seasons backing up Brett Favre, he was traded to the Seattle Seahawks in 2001. Hasselbeck led Seattle to six playoff appearances, including a Super Bowl loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers during the 2005 season. He was selected to three Pro Bowls in his career. Hasselbeck also played for the Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts.
Jessica Campbell Jones Cage is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Michael Gaydos and first appeared in Alias #1, as part of Marvel's Max, an imprint for more mature content. Within the context of Marvel's shared universe, Jones is a former superhero who becomes the owner of Alias Private Investigations. Bendis originally envisioned the series centered on Jessica Drew and only decided to create Jones once he noticed that the main character had a distinct voice and background that differentiated her from Drew.
This is a list of notable deaths, organized by year. New deaths articles are added to their respective month, and then linked here.
Marvel's Jessica Jones, or simply Jessica Jones, is an American television series created by Melissa Rosenberg for the streaming service Netflix, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise, and is the second in a series of shows that led to The Defenders crossover miniseries. The series is produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios and Tall Girls Productions, with Rosenberg serving as showrunner. Scott Reynolds was a co-showrunner for the third season.
The sixth season of The Walking Dead, an American post-apocalyptic horror television series on AMC, premiered on October 11, 2015, and concluded on April 3, 2016, consisting of 16 episodes. Developed for television by Frank Darabont, the series is based on the eponymous series of comic books by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. The executive producers are Kirkman, David Alpert, Scott M. Gimple, Greg Nicotero, Tom Luse, and Gale Anne Hurd, with Gimple as showrunner for the third consecutive season. The sixth season received positive reviews by critics. It was nominated for multiple awards and won three, including Best Horror Television Series, at the 42nd Saturn Awards.
Hate Story 3 is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language erotic thriller film directed by Vishal Pandya. Produced by T-Series, it stars Sharman Joshi, Karan Singh Grover, Zareen Khan and Daisy Shah in lead roles, and Priyanshu Chatterjee in a pivotal role. Written by Vikram Bhatt and Madhuri Banerji, the film is part of the Hate Story film series. The film was released on 4 December 2015 and was a box office success.
Star Wars is an American epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various films and other media, including television series, video games, novels, comic books, theme park attractions, and themed areas, comprising an all-encompassing fictional universe. In 2020, its total value was estimated at US$70 billion, and it is currently the fifth-highest-grossing media franchise of all time.
Are You Being Served? is a British sitcom created and written by executive producer David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd, with contributions from Michael Knowles and John Chapman, for the BBC. Set in London, the show follows the misadventures and mishaps of the staff of the retail ladies' and gentlemen's clothing departments in the flagship department store of a fictional chain called Grace Brothers.
Krampus is a 2015 American Christmas comedy horror film based on the eponymous character from Austro-Bavarian folklore, written and directed by Michael Dougherty, and co-written by Todd Casey and Zach Shields. The film stars Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Allison Tolman, Conchata Ferrell, Emjay Anthony, Stefania LaVie Owen, and Krista Stadler. In the film, a dysfunctional family squabbling causes a young boy to lose his festive spirit. Doing so unleashes the wrath of Krampus, a fearsome, horned demonic beast in ancient European folklore who punishes naughty children at Christmastime. As Krampus lays siege to the neighborhood, the family must band together to save one another from a monstrous fate.
Seth Woodbury MacFarlane is an American actor, writer, producer, and singer. MacFarlane is the creator of the television series Family Guy (1999–present) and The Orville (2017–present), and co-creator of the television series American Dad! (2005–present) and The Cleveland Show (2009–2013). He also wrote, directed, and starred in the films Ted (2012), its sequel Ted 2 (2015), and A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014).
Scott Richard Weiland was an American musician, singer and songwriter. During a career spanning three decades, Weiland was best known as the lead singer of the band Stone Temple Pilots from 1989 to 2002 and 2008 to 2013, making six records with them. He was also lead vocalist of supergroup Velvet Revolver from 2003 to 2008, recording two albums, and recorded one album with another supergroup, Art of Anarchy. Weiland established himself as a solo artist as well and collaborated with several other musicians throughout his career.
The Mall of America is a shopping mall located in Bloomington, Minnesota, a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, United States. It lies southeast of the junction of Interstate 494 and Minnesota State Highway 77, north of the Minnesota River, and across the Interstate from the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport. It opened in 1992, and is the seventh largest shopping mall in the world.
The Walking Dead is an American post-apocalyptic television series based on the comic book of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, and developed for television by Frank Darabont. It premiered on the cable network AMC on October 31, 2010. The series focuses on Rick Grimes, a sheriff's deputy who slips into a coma after being shot. He awakens to find himself in a dangerous new world that has been overrun by "walkers". He joins a group of survivors as they try to survive in a world among the undead.
The Walking Dead is an American post-apocalyptic horror television series based on the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. The series features a large ensemble cast as survivors of a zombie apocalypse, trying to stay alive under near-constant threat of attacks from zombies, colloquially known as "walkers". However, with the fall of humanity, these survivors also face conflict from other living survivors who have formed groups and communities with their own sets of laws and morals, often leading to hostile conflict between the human communities. Andrew Lincoln played the series's lead character, Rick Grimes, until his departure during the ninth season. Other long-standing cast members have included Norman Reedus, Steven Yeun, Chandler Riggs, Melissa McBride, Lauren Cohan, Danai Gurira, Josh McDermitt and Christian Serratos.
Joy is a 2015 American biographical comedy-drama film, written and directed by David O. Russell and starring Jennifer Lawrence as Joy Mangano, a self-made millionaire who created her own business empire.
Michael Gerard Tyson is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 2005. Nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and later known as "The Baddest Man on the Planet", Tyson is considered one of the best heavyweight boxers of all time. He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990. Claiming his first belt at 20 years, four months, and 22 days old, Tyson holds the record as the youngest boxer to win a heavyweight title.
Quantico is an American thriller drama television series which aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) from September 27, 2015, to August 3, 2018, with 57 episodes broadcast over three seasons. Produced by ABC Studios, the series was created by Joshua Safran, who also served as the showrunner. Mark Gordon, Robert Sertner, Nicholas Pepper and Safran are its executive producers. Michael Seitzman replaced Safran as the new showrunner and an executive producer in its third season, with Safran remaining as an executive producer.
Into the Badlands is an American television series that premiered on November 15, 2015, on AMC. Into the Badlands has been described as "a high-octane sci-fi martial arts series" and as a "post-apocalyptic drama". The series follows a warrior and a young boy who journey through a dangerous feudal land together seeking enlightenment. On February 9, 2019, AMC canceled the show after three seasons. The series finale aired on May 6, 2019.
Cameron Jerrell Newton is an American football quarterback for the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). He previously played nine seasons with the Carolina Panthers, who selected him first overall in the 2011 NFL Draft. Newton had college football stints at Florida and Blinn before joining Auburn, where he won the Bowl Champion Series National Championship and Heisman Trophy in 2010. Nicknamed "Super Cam", he is the NFL career leader in quarterback rushing touchdowns at 70.
Anthony Dominick Benedetto, known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. He is also a painter, having created works under his birth name that are on permanent public display in several institutions. He is the founder of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York.
The Leftovers is an American supernatural mystery drama television series created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, that aired on HBO from June 29, 2014, to June 4, 2017. Based on Perrotta's 2011 novel of the same name, the series begins three years after the "Sudden Departure", a global event that resulted in 2% of the world's population disappearing. The lives of police chief Kevin Garvey and his family, along with grieving widow Nora Durst and her brother, reverend Matt Jamison, are the focal points of the series as they struggle to adjust to life after the Departure.
Holly Woodlawn was a transgender Puerto Rican actress and Warhol superstar who appeared in the movies Trash (1970) and Women in Revolt (1971). She is best known as the Holly in Lou Reed's hit glam rock song "Walk on the Wild Side".
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, is an English singer-songwriter. After graduating from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a recording contract with XL Recordings. In 2007, she received the Brit Awards Critics' Choice Award and won the BBC Sound of 2008 poll. Her debut album, 19, was released in 2008. It is certified 8× platinum in the UK and triple platinum in the US. The album contains her first song, "Hometown Glory", written when she was 16, which is based on her home suburb of West Norwood in London. An appearance she made on Saturday Night Live in late 2008 boosted her career in the US. At the 2009 Grammy Awards, Adele won the awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
James Arthur Lovell Jr. is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became one of the first three humans to fly to and orbit the Moon. He then commanded the 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission which, after a critical failure en route, circled around the Moon and returned safely to Earth through the efforts of the crew and mission control.
The Man in the High Castle is an American dystopian alternate history television series created for streaming service Prime Video, depicting a parallel universe where the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan rule the world after their victory in World War II. It was created by Frank Spotnitz and is produced by Amazon Studios, Scott Free Productions, Headline Pictures, Electric Shepherd Productions, and Big Light Productions. The series is based on Philip K. Dick's 1962 novel of the same name.
The Cuyahoga River is a river in the United States, located in Northeast Ohio, that bisects the city of Cleveland and feeds into Lake Erie.
One-Punch Man is a Japanese superhero franchise created by the artist ONE. It tells the story of Saitama, a superhero who can defeat any opponent with a single punch but seeks to find a worthy opponent after growing bored by a lack of challenge due to his overwhelming strength. ONE wrote the original webcomic version in early 2009.
The fifth season of the American television drama series Homeland premiered on October 4, 2015, and concluded on December 20, 2015, on Showtime, consisting of 12 episodes. The series started as a loosely based variation of the two-season run of the Israeli television series Hatufim created by Gideon Raff and is developed for American television by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa. The fifth season was released on Blu-ray and DVD on January 10, 2017.
Victoria Pattison is an English television and media personality. She is best known for appearing in the MTV shows Geordie Shore from 2011 until 2014, Ex on the Beach in 2014 and 2015 and her own show Judge Geordie in 2015.
Benjamin Todd Roethlisberger Sr., nicknamed "Big Ben", is an American football quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Miami University and was drafted by the Steelers in the first round of the 2004 NFL Draft.
December 7 is the 341st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 24 days remain until the end of the year.
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and leader of the Nazi Party. He rose to power as the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then as Führer in 1934. During his dictatorship from 1933 to 1945, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust, the genocide of about 6 million Jews and millions of other victims.
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States, or America, is a country primarily located in North America, consisting of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, it is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area. With a population of more than 328 million people, it is the third most populous country in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City.
Kimberly Noel Kardashian West is an American media personality, socialite, model, businesswoman, producer, and actress. Kardashian first gained media attention as a friend and stylist of Paris Hilton but received wider notice after a 2002 sex tape, Kim Kardashian, Superstar, with her then-boyfriend Ray J was released in 2007. Later that year, she and her family began to appear in the E! reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians (2007–2021). Its success soon led to the creation of the spin-off series Kourtney and Kim Take New York (2011–2012) and Kourtney and Kim Take Miami (2009–2013).
Wardell Stephen "Steph" Curry II is an American professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Many analysts and players have called him the greatest shooter in NBA history. He is credited with revolutionizing the game of basketball by inspiring teams to regularly utilize the three-point shot. A six-time NBA All-Star, Curry has been named the NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) twice and has won three NBA championships with the Warriors.
The common shrew, also known as the Eurasian shrew, is the most common shrew, and one of the most common mammals, throughout Northern Europe, including Great Britain, but excluding Ireland. It is 55 to 82 millimetres long and weighs 5 to 12 grams, and has velvety dark brown fur with a pale underside. Juvenile shrews have lighter fur until their first moult. The common shrew has small eyes, a pointed, mobile snout and red-tipped teeth. It has a life span of approximately 14 months.
Creed is a 2015 American sports drama film directed by Ryan Coogler from a story by Coogler and a screenplay written by Coogler, Aaron Covington, and Sylvester Stallone who uncreditedly wrote all the scenes and dialogues with his character in the film. Both a sequel and spin-off to the Rocky film series, serving as the seventh installment of the series and a sequel to 2006's Rocky Balboa, Michael B. Jordan stars as Adonis "Donnie" Johnson Creed, Apollo Creed's son, with Sylvester Stallone reprising the role of Rocky Balboa. It also features Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Tony Bellew, and Graham McTavish. The film reunites Jordan with 2013's Fruitvale Station writer-director Coogler, as well as Wood Harris, with whom Jordan had worked on the television series The Wire.
Carrie Frances Fisher was an American actress and writer. Fisher played Princess Leia in the Star Wars films, a role for which she was nominated for four Saturn Awards. Her other film credits include Shampoo (1975), The Blues Brothers (1980), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The 'Burbs (1989), When Harry Met Sally... (1989), Soapdish (1991), and The Women (2008). Fisher was nominated twice for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her performances on the television series 30 Rock and Catastrophe. She was posthumously made a Disney Legend in 2017, and in 2018 she was awarded a posthumous Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.
Timothy Thomas Hasselbeck is a retired American football quarterback who currently works as an analyst for ESPN. He played eight seasons in the NFL with the New York Giants, Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles, Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, and Arizona Cardinals as well as the Berlin Thunder of NFL Europe. He played college football at Boston College. He is the younger brother of former NFL quarterback Matt Hasselbeck.
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician and attorney who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.
Nancy Sandra Sinatra is an American singer and actress. She is the elder daughter of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra, and is widely known for her 1965 signature hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'".
Spectre is a 2015 spy film and the twenty-fourth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures. It is the fourth film to feature Daniel Craig as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond, and the second film in the series directed by Sam Mendes following Skyfall. It was written by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Jez Butterworth. It is the final James Bond film to be distributed theatrically by Sony Pictures Releasing through its Columbia Pictures label, as Universal Pictures will internationally distribute the next film in the series, No Time to Die.
The 58th Annual Grammy Awards was held on February 15, 2016, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The ceremony recognizes the best recordings, compositions and artists of the eligibility year, which was from October 1, 2014, to September 30, 2015. The "pre-telecast" ceremony, officially known as the Premiere Ceremony, in which the majority of awards were presented, was held at the nearby Microsoft Theater. It was the 16th Grammy ceremony to be held at the Staples Center, tying the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles for hosting the most Grammy ceremonies. It also marks the latest date for a Grammy ceremony since 2003, which were held on February 23.
Donald John Trump is an American politician who was the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality.
Google Translate is a free multilingual neural machine translation service developed by Google, to translate text and websites from one language into another. It offers a website interface, a mobile app for Android and iOS, and an application programming interface that helps developers build browser extensions and software applications. As of January 2021, Google Translate supports 109 languages at various levels and as of April 2016, claimed over 500 million total users, with more than 100 billion words translated daily.
Ryan Thomas Gosling is a Canadian actor and musician. He began his career as a child star on the Disney Channel's The Mickey Mouse Club (1993–1995), and went on to appear in other family entertainment programs, including Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1995) and Goosebumps (1996). His first starring film role was as a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer (2001), and he went on to star in several independent films, including Murder by Numbers (2002), The Slaughter Rule (2002), and The United States of Leland (2003).
Dilwale is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language romantic action comedy film produced by Gauri Khan and directed by Rohit Shetty. The film is distributed by Red Chillies Entertainment. The film's dialogue was written by Sajid-Farhad and the soundtrack was composed by Pritam. It stars Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in their seventh film together alongside Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon in the lead roles.
YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service, created in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—was bought by Google in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion and now operates as one of the company's subsidiaries. YouTube is the second most-visited website in the world after Google Search, according to Alexa Internet rankings.
El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific, including the area off the Pacific coast of South America. The ENSO is the cycle of warm and cold sea surface temperature (SST) of the tropical central and eastern Pacific Ocean. El Niño is accompanied by high air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific. El Niño phases are known to last close to four years, however, records demonstrate that the cycles have lasted between two and seven years. During the development of El Niño, rainfall develops between September–November. The cool phase of ENSO is La Niña, with SSTs in the eastern Pacific below average, and air pressure high in the eastern Pacific and low in the western Pacific. The ENSO cycle, including both El Niño and La Niña, causes global changes in temperature and rainfall.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. In a state of total war, directly involving more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, resulting in 70 to 85 million fatalities, with more civilians than military personnel killed. Tens of millions of people died due to genocides, premeditated death from starvation, massacres, and disease. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, including in strategic bombing of population centres, the development of nuclear weapons, and the only two uses of such in war.
Once Upon a Time is an American fantasy adventure drama television series that aired for seven seasons on ABC from October 23, 2011 to May 18, 2018. The action alternates between two main settings: a fantastical world where fairy tales happen; and a seaside town in Maine invented for the show, called Storybrooke. The "real-world" part of the story unfolds with the characters of Emma Swan and her 10-year-old son, Henry Mills. Henry discovers the other people of the town are fairy-tale characters; and the audience is shown the backstory of the town's people as fairy-tale characters, in conjunction with their unfolding stories in the "real-world". In the seventh and final season, the "real-world" portion of the story takes place in Seattle, Washington, with a new main narrative led by adult Henry, and his wife and daughter.
This is a list of Bollywood films that were released in 2015.
Francis Wayne Sinatra, professionally known as Frank Sinatra Jr., was an American singer, songwriter, and conductor.
Alicia Augello Cook, known professionally as Alicia Keys, is an American singer-songwriter. A classically-trained pianist, Keys began composing songs by age 12 and was signed at 15 years old by Columbia Records. After disputes with the label, she signed with Arista Records and later released her debut album, Songs in A Minor, with J Records in 2001. The album was critically and commercially successful, producing her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single "Fallin'" and selling over 12 million copies worldwide. The album earned Keys five Grammy Awards in 2002.
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it is preceded by the season of Advent or the Nativity Fast and initiates the season of Christmastide, which historically in the West lasts twelve days and culminates on Twelfth Night. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many of the world's nations, is celebrated religiously by a majority of Christians, as well as culturally by many non-Christians, and forms an integral part of the holiday season centered around it.
The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. Published and set in 1962, the novel takes place fifteen years after a different end to World War II, and depicts intrigues between the victorious Axis Powers—primarily, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany—as they rule over the Southern and Western United States.
Nicholas John Smith was an English comedy actor. He appeared in the BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?, playing original character Mr (Cuthbert) Rumbold, the manager of the fictional Grace Brothers department store.
Alejandro Villanueva Martínez is an American football offensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). Villanueva was a captain in the United States Army, who served in the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division and later as an Army Ranger in the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. During his time in the U.S. Army, Villanueva was decorated with a Bronze Star for valor. He played college football for the Army Black Knights, being recruited at one position and playing three others during the course of his career. After serving three tours of duty in Afghanistan, he signed a contract with the Philadelphia Eagles on May 5, 2014, after working out in a regional showcase. After being waived by Philadelphia, he was signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers and is currently the team's starting left tackle.
Prem Ratan Dhan Payo is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama film written and directed by Sooraj Barjatya, produced by Rajshri Productions and distributed by Fox Star Studios. The film stars Salman Khan and Sonam Kapoor. This is the fourth collaboration between Barjatya and Khan after their previous films Maine Pyar Kiya, Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, and Hum Saath Saath Hain. In the film, Salman Khan plays a double role for the second time in his career after Judwaa. With a budget of ₹1.80 billion (US$25 million), Prem Ratan Dhan Payo is one of the most expensive Hindi films.
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was a Colombian drug lord and narcoterrorist who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed "The King of Cocaine," Escobar is the wealthiest criminal in history, having amassed an estimated net worth of US$30 billion by the time of his death—equivalent to $59 billion as of 2019—while his drug cartel monopolized the cocaine trade into the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Joy Mangano is an American inventor and entrepreneur known for inventions such as the self-wringing Miracle Mop. She was the president of Ingenious Designs, LLC, and appeared regularly on the US television shopping channel HSN until her departure in late 2018.
Elisabeth DelPadre Hasselbeck is an American retired television personality and talk show host. Hasselbeck first rose to prominence in 2001 as a contestant on the second season of the American version of Survivor, where she finished in fourth place. She married NFL quarterback Tim Hasselbeck the following year.
Kathryn McKinnon Berthold is an American actress, comedienne, and writer. She is known for her character work and celebrity impressions on the sketch comedy series The Big Gay Sketch Show (2007–2010) and Saturday Night Live (2012–present). McKinnon has appeared in films such as Balls Out (2014), Ghostbusters (2016), Office Christmas Party (2016), Rough Night (2017), The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018), Yesterday (2019), and Bombshell (2019).
Sino-Roman relations comprised the mostly indirect contact, flow of trade goods, information, and occasional travellers between the Roman Empire and Han Empire of China, as well as between the later Eastern Roman Empire and various Chinese dynasties. These empires inched progressively closer in the course of the Roman expansion into the ancient Near East and simultaneous Han Chinese military incursions into Central Asia. Mutual awareness remained low, and firm knowledge about each other was limited. Only a few attempts at direct contact are known from records. Intermediate empires such as the Parthians and Kushans, seeking to maintain lucrative control over the silk trade, inhibited direct contact between these two Eurasian powers. In 97 AD, the Chinese general Ban Chao tried to send his envoy Gan Ying to Rome, but Gan was dissuaded by Parthians from venturing beyond the Persian Gulf. Several alleged Roman emissaries to China were recorded by ancient Chinese historians. The first one on record, supposedly from either the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius or his adopted son Marcus Aurelius, arrived in 166 AD. Others are recorded as arriving in 226 and 284 AD, with a long absence until the first recorded Byzantine embassy in 643 AD.
In the Heart of the Sea is a 2015 historical adventure-drama film directed and produced by Ron Howard and written by Charles Leavitt. It is based on Nathaniel Philbrick's 2000 non-fiction book of the same name, about the sinking of the American whaling ship Essex in 1820, an event that inspired Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. An international co-production between the United States and Spain, the film stars Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson.
Parliamentary elections were held in Venezuela on 6 December 2015 to elect the 164 deputies and three indigenous representatives of the National Assembly. They were the fourth parliamentary elections to take place after the 1999 constitution, which abolished the bicameral system in favour of a unicameral parliament, and the first to take place after the death of President Hugo Chávez. Despite claims from the opposition of a possible last-minute cancellation, the elections took place as scheduled, with the majority of polls showing the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) holding a wide lead over the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its wider alliance, the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP).
James Earl Carter Jr. is an American politician and philanthropist who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a Georgia State Senator from 1963 to 1967 and as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. Since leaving the presidency, Carter has remained engaged in political and social projects as a private citizen. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in co-founding the Carter Center.
Nora Fatehi (born 6 February 1992) is a Canadian dancer, model, actress, singer and producer who is best known for her work in the Indian film industry. She has appeared in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil language films. She made her film debut in the Bollywood film Roar: Tigers of the Sundarbans. She gained popularity in Telugu cinema by doing item numbers in films like Temper, Baahubali: The Beginning and Kick 2 and has also starred in two Malayalam films, Double Barrel and Kayamkulam Kochunni.
Céline Marie Claudette Dion is a Canadian singer. She is renowned for her powerful, technically skilled vocals, and remains the best-selling Canadian recording artist and one of the best-selling artists of all time with record sales of over 200 million worldwide. Born into a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, she emerged as a teen star in her home country with a series of French-language albums during the 1980s. She first gained international recognition by winning both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest, where she represented Switzerland. After learning to speak English, she signed on to Epic Records in the United States. In 1990, Dion released her debut English-language album, Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.
Once Upon a Time is an American fairy tale drama television series created by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, who also serve as executive producers alongside Steve Pearlman. It debuted on ABC on October 23, 2011. The first season introduces a bail bond agent, Emma Swan and her birth-son, Henry Mills, who discover that a New England town named Storybrooke, Maine is actually a remnant of a parallel world that was cursed by Henry's adoptive mother the Evil Queen/Mayor Regina Mills and that all the characters from the fairy tales have no memories of who they were, including the parents of Emma: Snow White/Mary Margaret Blanchard and Prince Charming/David Nolan, who sent her to the real world to save their world and break the curse.
The fifth season of the American ABC fantasy-drama Once Upon a Time was ordered on May 7, 2015. It began airing on September 27, 2015, and ended on May 15, 2016. On June 9, 2015, the promotion of Rebecca Mader and Sean Maguire to series regulars was announced for the fifth season, portraying their characters Zelena / Wicked Witch of the West and Robin Hood, respectively, while a few days later, Michael Socha was confirmed to not be returning as a series regular as Will Scarlet / Knave of Hearts. The fifth season also saw the series reach its 100th episode, which aired on March 6, 2016 as the mid-season premiere.
Antonio Tavaris Brown Sr. is an American football wide receiver for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL). Raised in Liberty City, Miami, Brown attended Miami Norland High School, where he competed in both football and track. He played college football at Central Michigan University, where he earned All-American honors in 2008 and 2009 as a punt returner. A sixth-round pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers, Brown amassed more receptions than any other player in the league from his rookie season in 2010 through 2018.
USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) is a guided missile destroyer of the United States Navy. She is the lead ship of the Zumwalt class and the first ship to be named after Admiral Elmo Zumwalt. Zumwalt has stealth capabilities, having a radar cross-section similar to a fishing boat despite her large size. On 7 December 2015, Zumwalt began her sea trial preparatory to joining the Pacific Fleet. The ship was commissioned in Baltimore on 15 October 2016. Her home port is San Diego, California.
This is a list of the longest winning streaks in National Basketball Association (NBA) history. The list includes streaks that started at the end of one season and carried over into the following season. There are two lists, streaks that consist entirely of regular-season games and streaks made up of playoff games only. The Los Angeles Lakers hold the record for the longest winning streak in NBA history. They won 33 straight games in the 1971–72 season, compiling a season-best 69–13 record and went on to win the NBA Finals. In the 2016–17 season, the Golden State Warriors posted a season-best 67–15 regular-season record and began the 2017 playoffs with a 15-game win-streak, the most consecutive wins in NBA playoff history. They went on to win the NBA Championship with a 16–1 record, the best playoff record in NBA history.
"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is an English Christmas carol that enumerates in the manner of a cumulative song a series of increasingly numerous gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas. The song, published in England in 1780 without music as a chant or rhyme, is thought to be French in origin. "The Twelve Days of Christmas" has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 68. The tunes of collected versions vary. The standard tune now associated with it is derived from a 1909 arrangement of a traditional folk melody by English composer Frederic Austin, who introduced the familiar prolongation of the verse "five gold rings".
Karen Anne Carpenter was an American drummer and singer who, along with her elder brother Richard, was part of the duo the Carpenters. She was praised for her three-octave contralto vocal range and drumming abilities. Her struggles with eating disorders would later raise awareness of anorexia and body dysmorphia.
Conor Anthony McGregor is an Irish professional mixed martial artist and boxer. He is a former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) featherweight and lightweight champion. As of 25 January 2021, he is ranked #15 in the UFC men's pound-for-pound rankings and as of 24 December 2020, he is #6 in the UFC lightweight rankings.
Diana, Princess of Wales, was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales—the heir apparent to the British throne—and was the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana's activism and glamour made her an international icon and earned her enduring popularity as well as unprecedented public scrutiny, exacerbated by her tumultuous private life.
The Oppau explosion occurred on September 21, 1921, when approximately 4,500 tonnes of a mixture of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate fertilizer stored in a tower silo exploded at a BASF plant in Oppau, now part of Ludwigshafen, Germany, killing 500–600 people and injuring about 2,000 more.
The Syrian civil war is an ongoing multi-sided civil war in Syria fought between the Ba'athist Syrian Arab Republic led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, along with domestic and foreign allies, and various domestic and foreign forces opposing both the Syrian government and each other in varying combinations.
2015 in film is an overview of events, including the highest-grossing films, award ceremonies, festivals, and a list of films released and notable deaths.
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the second-most populous country, the seventh-largest country by land area, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
UFC 194: Aldo vs. McGregor was a mixed martial arts event held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship on December 12, 2015 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.