document_title: Great Britain

question_text: when did the term great britain come into use

text: Great Britain

text: Terminology

text: Toponymy

text: The archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years: the term 'British Isles' derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles.[11] However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, and later Roman-occupied Britain south of Caledonia.[12][13][14]

text: The earliest known name for Great Britain is Albion (Greek: Ἀλβίων) or insula Albionum, from either the Latin albus meaning "white" (referring to the white cliffs of Dover, the first view of Britain from the continent) or the "island of the Albiones", first mentioned in the Massaliote Periplus in the 6th century BC, and by Pytheas.[15]

text: The oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle (c. 384–322 BC), or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, "There are two very large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne".[16]

text: Pliny the Elder (c. AD 23–79) in his Natural History records of Great Britain: "Its former name was Albion; but at a later period, all the islands, of which we shall just now briefly make mention, were included under the name of 'Britanniæ.'"[17]

text: The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, the land of the Britons. Old French Bretaigne (whence also Modern French Bretagne) and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten (also Breoton-lond, Breten-lond). Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. It is derived from the travel writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC, which described various islands in the North Atlantic as far north as Thule (probably Norway).

text: Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the island group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι (the Prettanic Isles).[18]

text: The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni or Pretani.[15] Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland.[19] The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans.

text: Derivation of "Great"

text: The Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain (μεγάλης Βρεττανίας - megális Brettanias) and to Ireland as little Britain (μικρής Βρεττανίας - mikris Brettanias) in his work Almagest (147–148 AD).[20] In his later work, Geography (c. 150 AD), he gave the islands the names Alwion, Iwernia, and Mona (the Isle of Man),[21] suggesting these may have been the names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing Almagest.[22] The name Albion appears to have fallen out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain, after which Britain became the more commonplace name for the island.[15]

text: After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a historical term only. Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136) refers to the island as Britannia major ("Greater Britain"), to distinguish it from Britannia minor ("Lesser Britain"), the continental region which approximates to modern Brittany, which had been settled in the fifth and sixth centuries by migrants from Britain.[23] The term Great Britain was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Cecily the daughter of Edward IV of England, and James the son of James III of Scotland, which described it as "this Nobill Isle, callit Gret Britanee". It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself "King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland".

text: Modern use of the term Great Britain

text: Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination.[24] However, it is sometimes used loosely to refer to the whole of the United Kingdom.[25]

text: Similarly, Britain, can refer to either all islands in Great Britain, the largest island, or the political grouping of counties.[26] There is no clear distinction, even in government documents: the UK government yearbooks have used both "Britain"[27] and "United Kingdom".[28]

text: GB and GBR are used instead of UK in some international codes to refer to the United Kingdom, including the Universal Postal Union, international sports teams, NATO, the International Organization for Standardization country codes ISO 3166-2 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-3, and international licence plate codes.

text: On the Internet, .uk is the country code top-level domain for the United Kingdom. A .gb top-level domain was used to a limited extent, but is now obsolete because the domain name registrar will not take new registrations.

text: In the Olympics, Team GB is used by the British Olympic Association to represent the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic team.

text: Political definition

text: Politically, Great Britain refers to the whole of England, Scotland and Wales in combination,[29] but not Northern Ireland; it includes islands, such as the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland, that are part of England, Wales, or Scotland. It does not include the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, which are self-governing dependent territories.[29][30]

text: The political union that joined the kingdoms of England and Scotland happened in 1707 when the Acts of Union ratified the 1706 Treaty of Union and merged the parliaments of the two nations, forming the Kingdom of Great Britain, which covered the entire island. Before this, a personal union had existed between these two countries since the 1603 Union of the Crowns under James VI of Scotland and I of England.

text: History

text: Prehistoric period

text: The island was first inhabited by people who crossed over the land bridge from the European mainland. Human footprints have been found from over 800,000 years ago in Norfolk[31] and traces of early humans have been found (at Boxgrove Quarry, Sussex) from some 500,000 years ago[32] and modern humans from about 30,000 years ago.

text: Until about 14,000 years ago, Great Britain was connected to Ireland, and as recently as 8,000 years ago it retained a land connection to the continent, with an area of mostly low marshland joining it to what are now Denmark and the Netherlands.[33] In Cheddar Gorge, near Bristol, the remains of animal species native to mainland Europe such as antelopes, brown bears, and wild horses have been found alongside a human skeleton, 'Cheddar Man', dated to about 7150 BC. Thus, animals and humans must have moved between mainland Europe and Great Britain via a crossing.[34] Great Britain became an island at the end of the last glacial period when sea levels rose due to the combination of melting glaciers and the subsequent isostatic rebound of the crust.

text: Great Britain's Iron Age inhabitants are known as Britons; they spoke Celtic languages.

text: Roman and medieval period

text: The Romans conquered most of the island (up to Hadrian's Wall, in northern England) and this became the Ancient Roman province of Britannia. In the course of the 500 years after the Roman Empire fell, the Britons of the south and east of the island were assimilated or displaced by invading Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, often referred to collectively as Anglo-Saxons). At about the same time, Gaelic tribes from Ireland invaded the north-west, absorbing both the Picts and Britons of northern Britain, eventually forming the Kingdom of Scotland in the 9th century. The south-east of Scotland was colonised by the Angles and formed, until 1018, a part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. Ultimately, the population of south-east Britain came to be referred to as the English people, so-named after the Angles.

text: Germanic speakers referred to Britons as Welsh. This term came to be applied exclusively to the inhabitants of what is now Wales, but it also survives in names such as Wallace and in the second syllable of Cornwall. Cymry, a name the Britons used to describe themselves, is similarly restricted in modern Welsh to people from Wales, but also survives in English in the place name of Cumbria. The Britons living in the areas now known as Wales, Cumbria and Cornwall were not assimilated by the Germanic tribes, a fact reflected in the survival of Celtic languages in these areas into more recent times.[35] At the time of the Germanic invasion of Southern Britain, many Britons emigrated to the area now known as Brittany, where Breton, a Celtic language closely related to Welsh and Cornish and descended from the language of the emigrants, is still spoken. In the 9th century, a series of Danish assaults on northern English kingdoms led to them coming under Danish control (an area known as the Danelaw). In the 10th century, however, all the English kingdoms were unified under one ruler as the kingdom of England when the last constituent kingdom, Northumbria, submitted to Edgar in 959. In 1066, England was conquered by the Normans, who introduced a Norman-speaking administration that was eventually assimilated. Wales came under Anglo-Norman control in 1282, and was officially annexed to England in the 16th century.

text: Early modern period

text: On 20 October 1604 King James, who had succeeded separately to the two thrones of England and Scotland, proclaimed himself "King of Great Brittaine, France, and Ireland".[36] When James died in 1625 and the Privy Council of England was drafting the proclamation of the new king, Charles I, a Scottish peer, Thomas Erskine, 1st Earl of Kellie, succeeded in insisting that it use the phrase "King of Great Britain", which James had preferred, rather than King of Scotland and England (or vice versa).[37] While that title was also used by some of James's successors, England and Scotland each remained legally separate countries, each with its own parliament, until 1707, when each parliament passed an Act of Union to ratify the Treaty of Union that had been agreed the previous year. This created a single kingdom out of two, with a single parliament, with effect from 1 May 1707. The Treaty of Union specified the name of the new all-island state as "Great Britain", while describing it as "One Kingdom" and "the United Kingdom". To most historians, therefore, the all-island state that existed between 1707 and 1800 is "Great Britain" or the "Kingdom of Great Britain".

text: Geography

text: Great Britain lies on the European continental shelf, part of the Eurasian Plate. Situated off the north-west coast of continental Europe, it is separated from the mainland by the North Sea and by the English Channel, which narrows to 34 km (18 nmi; 21 mi) at the Straits of Dover.[38] It stretches over about ten degrees of latitude on its longer, north-south axis and occupies an area of 209,331 km2 (80,823 sq mi), excluding the smaller surrounding islands.[39] The North Channel, Irish Sea, St George's Channel and Celtic Sea separate the island from the island of Ireland to its west.[40] The island is physically connected with continental Europe via the Channel Tunnel, the longest undersea rail tunnel in the world, completed in 1993. The island is marked by low, rolling countryside in the east and south, while hills and mountains predominate in the western and northern regions. It is surrounded by over 1,000 smaller islands and islets. The greatest distance between two points is 968.0 km (601 1⁄2 mi) (between Land's End, Cornwall and John o' Groats, Caithness), 838 miles (1,349 km) by road.

text: The English Channel is thought to have been created between 450,000 and 180,000 years ago by two catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods caused by the breaching of the Weald-Artois Anticline, a ridge that held back a large proglacial lake, now submerged under the North Sea.[41] Around 10,000 years ago, during the Devensian glaciation with its lower sea level, Great Britain was not an island, but an upland region of continental northwestern Europe, lying partially underneath the Eurasian ice sheet. The sea level was about 120 metres (390 ft) lower than today, and the bed of the North Sea was dry and acted as a land bridge, now known as Doggerland, to the Continent. It is generally thought that as sea levels gradually rose after the end of the last glacial period of the current ice age, Doggerland became submerged beneath the North Sea, cutting off what was previously the British peninsula from the European mainland by around 6500 BC.[42]

text: Geology

text: Great Britain has been subject to a variety of plate tectonic processes over a very extended period of time. Changing latitude and sea levels have been important factors in the nature of sedimentary sequences, whilst successive continental collisions have affected its geological structure with major faulting and folding being a legacy of each orogeny (mountain-building period), often associated with volcanic activity and the metamorphism of existing rock sequences. As a result of this eventful geological history, the island shows a rich variety of landscapes.

text: The oldest rocks in Great Britain are the Lewisian gneisses, metamorphic rocks found in the far north west of the island and in the Hebrides (with a few small outcrops elsewhere), which date from at least 2,700 Ma (Ma = million years ago). South of the gneisses are a complex mixture of rocks forming the North West Highlands and Grampian Highlands in Scotland. These are essentially the remains of folded sedimentary rocks that were deposited between 1,000 Ma and 670 Ma over the gneiss on what was then the floor of the Iapetus Ocean.

text: At the present time the north of the island is rising as a result of the weight of Devensian ice being lifted. Southern and eastern Britain is sinking, generally estimated at 1 mm (1/25 inch) per year, with the London area sinking at double the speed partly due to the continuing compaction of the recent clay deposits.

text: Fauna

text: Animal diversity is modest, as a result of factors including the island's small land area, the relatively recent age of the habitats developed since the last glacial period and the island's physical separation from continental Europe, and the effects of seasonal variability.[44] Great Britain also experienced early industrialisation and is subject to continuing urbanisation, which have contributed towards the overall loss of species.[45] A DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) study from 2006 suggested that 100 species have become extinct in the UK during the 20th century, about 100 times the background extinction rate. However, some species, such as the brown rat, red fox, and introduced grey squirrel, are well adapted to urban areas.

text: Rodents make up 40% of the mammal species.[citation needed] These include squirrels, mice, voles, rats and the recently reintroduced European beaver.[45] There is also an abundance of rabbits, hares, hedgehogs, shrews, moles and several species of bat.[45] Carnivorous mammals include the fox, badger, otter, weasel, stoat and elusive wildcat.[46] Various species of seal, whale and dolphin are found on or around British shores and coastlines. The largest land-based wild animals today are deer. The red deer is the largest species, with roe deer and fallow deer also prominent; the latter was introduced by the Normans.[46][47] Sika deer and two more species of smaller deer, muntjac and Chinese water deer, have been introduced, muntjac becoming widespread in England and parts of Wales while Chinese water deer are restricted mainly to East Anglia. Habitat loss has affected many species. Extinct large mammals include the brown bear, grey wolf and wild boar; the latter has had a limited reintroduction in recent times.[45]

text: There is a wealth of birdlife, 583 species in total,[48] of which 258 breed on the island or remain during winter.[49] Because of its mild winters for its latitude, Great Britain hosts important numbers of many wintering species, particularly ducks, geese and swans.[50] Other well known bird species include the golden eagle, grey heron, kingfisher, pigeon, sparrow, pheasant, partridge, and various species of crow, finch, gull, auk, grouse, owl and falcon.[51] There are six species of reptile on the island; three snakes and three lizards including the legless slowworm. One snake, the adder, is venomous but rarely deadly.[52] Amphibians present are frogs, toads and newts.[45]

text: Flora

text: In a similar sense to fauna, and for similar reasons, the flora is impoverished compared to that of continental Europe.[53] The flora comprises 3,354 vascular plant species, of which 2,297 are native and 1,057 have been introduced.[54] The island has a wide variety of trees, including native species of birch, beech, ash, hawthorn, elm, oak, yew, pine, cherry and apple.[55] Other trees have been naturalised, introduced especially from other parts of Europe (particularly Norway) and North America. Introduced trees include several varieties of pine, chestnut, maple, spruce, sycamore and fir, as well as cherry plum and pear trees.[55] The tallest species are the Douglas firs; two specimens have been recorded measuring 65 metres or 212 feet.[56] The Fortingall Yew in Perthshire is the oldest tree in Europe.[57]

text:
There are at least 1,500 different species of wildflower.[58] Some 107 species are particularly rare or vulnerable and are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It is illegal to uproot any wildflowers without the landowner's permission.[58][59] A vote in 2002 nominated various wildflowers to represent specific counties.[60] These include red poppies, bluebells, daisies, daffodils, rosemary, gorse, iris, ivy, mint, orchids, brambles, thistles, buttercups, primrose, thyme, tulips, violets, cowslip, heather and many more.[61][62][63][64]
There are also many species of algae and mosses across the island.

text: Fungi

text: There are many species of fungi including lichen-forming species, and the mycobiota is less poorly known than in many other parts of the world. The most recent checklist of Basidiomycota (bracket fungi, jelly fungi, mushrooms and toadstools, puffballs, rusts and smuts), published in 2005, accepts over 3600 species.[65] The most recent checklist of Ascomycota (cup fungi and their allies, including most lichen-forming fungi), published in 1985, accepts another 5100 species.[66] These two lists did not include conidial fungi (fungi mostly with affinities in the Ascomycota but known only in their asexual state) or any of the other main fungal groups (Chytridiomycota, Glomeromycota and Zygomycota). The number of fungal species known very probably exceeds 10,000. There is widespread agreement among mycologists that many others are yet to be discovered.

text: Demographics

text: Settlements

text: Capitals

text: London is the capital of England and the whole of the United Kingdom, and is therefore the seat of the United Kingdom's government. Edinburgh and Cardiff are the capitals of Scotland and Wales, respectively, and house their devolved governments.

text:
Rank
City-region
Built-up area[67]
Population (2011 Census)
Area (km²)
Density (people/km²)

1
London
Greater London Built-up area
9,787,426
1,737.9
5,630

2
Manchester
Greater Manchester Built-up area
2,553,379
630.3
4,051

3
Birmingham–Wolverhampton
West Midlands Built-up area
2,440,986
598.9
4,076

4
Leeds–Bradford
West Yorkshire Built-up area
1,777,934
487.8
3,645

5
Glasgow
Greater Glasgow Built-up area
1,209,143
368.5
3,390

6
Liverpool
Liverpool Built-up area
864,122
199.6
4,329

7
Southampton–Portsmouth
South Hampshire Built-up area
855,569
192.0
4,455

8
Newcastle upon Tyne–Sunderland
Tyneside Built-up area
774,891
180.5
4,292

9
Nottingham
Nottingham Built-up area
729,977
176.4
4,139

10
Sheffield
Sheffield Built-up area
685,368
167.5
4,092

text: Language

text: In the Late Bronze Age, Britain was part of a culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age, held together by maritime trading, which also included Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal. In contrast to the generally accepted view[68] that Celtic originated in the context of the Hallstatt culture, since 2009, John T. Koch and others have proposed that the origins of the Celtic languages are to be sought in Bronze Age Western Europe, especially the Iberian Peninsula.[69][70][71][72] Koch et al.'s proposal has failed to find wide acceptance among experts on the Celtic languages.[68]

text: All the modern Brythonic languages (Breton, Cornish, Welsh) are generally considered to derive from a common ancestral language termed Brittonic, British, Common Brythonic, Old Brythonic or Proto-Brythonic, which is thought to have developed from Proto-Celtic or early Insular Celtic by the 6th century AD.[73] Brythonic languages were probably spoken before the Roman invasion at least in the majority of Great Britain south of the rivers Forth and Clyde, though the Isle of Man later had a Goidelic language, Manx. Northern Scotland mainly spoke Pritennic, which became Pictish, which may have been a Brythonic language. During the period of the Roman occupation of Southern Britain (AD 43 to c. 410), Common Brythonic borrowed a large stock of Latin words. Approximately 800 of these Latin loan-words have survived in the three modern Brythonic languages. Romano-British is the name for the Latinised form of the language used by Roman authors.

text: British English is spoken in the present day across the island, and developed from the Old English brought to the island by Anglo-Saxon settlers from the mid 5th century. Some 1.5 million people speak Scots—a variety of English which some consider to be a distinct language.[74][75] An estimated 700,000 people speak Welsh,[76] an official language in Wales.[77] In parts of north west Scotland, Scottish Gaelic remains widely spoken. There are various regional dialects of English, and numerous languages spoken by some immigrant populations.

text: Religion

text: Christianity has been the largest religion by number of adherents since the Early Middle Ages: it was introduced under the ancient Romans, developing as Celtic Christianity. According to tradition, Christianity arrived in the 1st or 2nd century. The most popular form is Anglicanism (known as Episcopalism in Scotland). Dating from the 16th century Reformation, it regards itself as both Catholic and Reformed. The Head of the Church is the monarch of the United Kingdom, as the Supreme Governor. It has the status of established church in England. There are just over 26 million adherents to Anglicanism in Britain today,[78] although only around one million regularly attend services. The second largest Christian practice is the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, which traces its history to the 6th century with Augustine's mission and was the main religion for around a thousand years. There are over 5 million adherents today, 4.5 million in England and Wales[79] and 750,000 in Scotland,[80] although fewer than a million Catholics regularly attend mass.[81]

text: The Church of Scotland, a form of Protestantism with a Presbyterian system of ecclesiastical polity, is the third most numerous on the island with around 2.1 million members.[82] Introduced in Scotland by clergyman John Knox, it has the status of national church in Scotland. The monarch of the United Kingdom is represented by a Lord High Commissioner. Methodism is the fourth largest and grew out of Anglicanism through John Wesley.[83] It gained popularity in the old mill towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, also amongst tin miners in Cornwall.[84] The Presbyterian Church of Wales, which follows Calvinistic Methodism, is the largest denomination in Wales. There are other non-conformist minorities, such as Baptists, Quakers, the United Reformed Church (a union of Congregationalists and English Presbyterians), Unitarians.[85] The first patron saint of Great Britain was Saint Alban.[86] He was the first Christian martyr dating from the Romano-British period, condemned to death for his faith and sacrificed to the pagan gods.[87] In more recent times, some have suggested the adoption of St Aidan as another patron saint of Britain.[88] From Ireland, he worked at Iona amongst the Dál Riata and then Lindisfarne where he restored Christianity to Northumbria.[88]

text: The three constituent countries of the United Kingdom have patron saints: Saint George and Saint Andrew are represented in the flags of England and Scotland respectively.[89] These two flags combined to form the basis of the Great Britain royal flag of 1604.[89] Saint David is the patron saint of Wales.[90] There are many other British saints. Some of the best known are Cuthbert, Columba, Patrick, Margaret, Edward the Confessor, Mungo, Thomas More, Petroc, Bede, and Thomas Becket.[90]

text: Numerous other religions are practised.[91] Jews have inhabited Britain since 1070. Jews were expelled from England in 1290 but allowed to return in 1656.[92] There were also Jewish migrations from Lithuania.[93] The 2001 census recorded that Islam had around 1.5 million adherents.[94] More than 1 million people practise either Hinduism, Sikhism, or Buddhism–religions introduced from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.[95]


document_title: List of countries by unemployment rate

question_text: country with the lowest unemployment rate in the world

root

text: List of countries by unemployment rate

text: This is a list of countries by unemployment rate. Methods of calculation and presentation of unemployment rate vary from country to country. Some countries count insured unemployed only, some count those in receipt of welfare benefit only, some count the disabled and other permanently unemployable people, some countries count those who choose (and are financially able) not to work, supported by their spouses and caring for a family, some count students at college and so on. There may also be differences in the minimum requirements and some consider people employed even if only marginally associated with employment market (for example, working only one hour per week).[1] There can be differences in the age limit. For example, Eurostat uses 15 to 74 years old when calculating unemployment rate, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses anyone 16 years of age or older (in both cases, people who are under education, retired, on maternity/paternity leave, prevented from working due to health, or do not work but have been inactive in seeking employment in the last four weeks are excluded from the workforce, and therefore not counted as unemployed).[2][3] Unemployment rates are often seasonally adjusted to avoid variations that depend on time of year.[2][3] Employment rate as a percentage of total population in working age is sometimes used instead of unemployment rate.

tag: p

text: For purposes of comparison, harmonized values are published by International Labour Organization (ILO) and by OECD. The ILO harmonized unemployment rate refers to those who are currently not working but are willing and able to work for pay, currently available to work, and have actively searched for work. The OECD harmonized unemployment rate gives the number of unemployed persons as a percentage of the labour force.

text:
Name of Countries
Unemployment rate (%)
Source / date of information

 Afghanistan
35.0
2008[4]

 Albania
14.2
2016 (Q3)[5]

 Algeria
11.2
2015(September)[6]

 American Samoa (United States)
49.9
2011 (April)[7]

 Andorra
2.9
2013

 Anguilla (United Kingdom)
7.8
2013 (July)[8]

 Antigua and Barbuda
11.0
2014[4]

 Argentina
8.7
2017 (Q2)[9]

 Armenia
18.5
2015[10]

 Aruba (Netherlands)
15.7
2012[11]

 Australia
5.8
2017 (February)[12]

 Austria
8.6
2016 (October )[13]

 Azerbaijan
6.4
2016[4]

 Bahrain
4.1
2014[4]

 Bangladesh
4.9
2016[4]

 Barbados
11.0
2016 (Q2)[4]

 Belarus
0.7
2014[14]

 Belgium
7.6
2016 (December)[15]

 Belize
12.9
2014[4]

 Bermuda
9.0
2014[4]

 Bhutan
2.6
2014[4]

 Bolivia
7.4
2015[4]

 Bosnia and Herzegovina
20.5
2017[16]

 Botswana
20.0
2013[4]

 Brazil
13.1
2017 (June)[17]

 British Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
3.1
2007[18]

 Brunei
6.9
2014[4]

 Bulgaria
7.7
2016 (August)[19]

 Burma
4.8
2016[4]

 Cambodia
0.5
2015[20]

 Cameroon
4.4 (underemployment – 75.8) 30.0[4] (CIA estimate)
2005[21]

 Canada
6.6
2017 (February)[22]

 Cape Verde
15.8
2014[23]

 Cayman Islands (United Kingdom)
4.2
fall 2016[24]

 Central African Republic
8.0
2001[4]

 Chad
22.6
2006[25]

 Chile
5.9
2015 (March)[26]

 China, People's Republic of
4.1
2015[27]

 Cocos (Keeling) Islands (Australia)
6.7
2011[28]

 Colombia
8.9
2015 (March)[29]

 Comoros
6.5
2014[4]

 Cook Islands
13.1
2005 [4]

 Costa Rica
9.7
2014 (December)[30]

 Croatia
10.8
2017 (July)[31]

 Cuba
3.3
2014 [32]

 Cyprus
12.0
2016 (September)[15]

 Czech Republic
5.2
2016 (June)[33]

 Denmark
5.8 (4.3)
2016 (March) by Eurostat[15](2017 (July) by Statistics Denmark[34])

 Djibouti
60.0
2014[4]

 Dominica
23.0
2000[4]

 Dominican Republic
14.4
2010 (April)[35]

 East Timor
20.0
2006

 Ecuador
5.5
2016[4]

 Egypt
8.1
2013 (Q2)[36]

 El Salvador
5.5
2016[4]

 Equatorial Guinea
22.3
2009[4]

 Estonia
6.3
2016 (February)[37]

 Europe
9.6
2016[38]

 Faroe Islands (Denmark)
2.2
2017 (August)[39]

 Fiji
8.6
2007[40][41]

 Finland
7.9
2016 (December)[42]

 France
9.6
2016 (December)[43]

 French Polynesia (France)
11.7
2007[44]

 Gabon
28.0
2015[4]

 Gaza Strip (Palestinian territories)
41.5
2015 (Q2)[45][46]

 Georgia
11.8
2016[47]

 Germany
3.7
2017 (August)[48]

 Ghana
3.6
2008 (September)[49]

 Gibraltar (United Kingdom)
1.8
2011[50]

 Greece
21.2
2017 (June)[51]

 Greenland (Denmark)
7.8
2009[52]

 Grenada
24.5
2009 (June)[53]

 Guam (United States)
7.4
2014 (March)[54]

 Guatemala
2.9
2014[4]

 Guernsey (United Kingdom)
1.5
2010 (Q2)[55]

 Guyana
9.0
2009 (July)[56]

 Honduras
3.9
2016[4]

 Hong Kong (People's Republic of China)
3.3
2014 (October–December)[57]

 Hungary
4.2
2017 (May-July)[58]

 Iceland
2.8
2016 (December)[59]

 India
3.4
2017 (January)[60][61]

 Indonesia
5.33
2017 (February)[62]

 Iran
10.7
2016[4]

 Iraq
16.0
2012[4]

 Ireland
6.2
2017 (April)[63]

 Isle of Man
1.8
2010 (August)[64]

 Israel
4.1
2017 (June)[65]

 Italy
11.6
2016 (October)[15]

 Jamaica
13.8
2016[4]

 Japan
3.0
2016 (July)[66]

 Jersey (United Kingdom)
2.7
2009 (July)[67]

 Jordan
11.1
2014 [32]

 Kazakhstan
6.1
2010 (May)[68]

 Kenya
42.0
2009[69]

 Kiribati
38.2
2006[70]

 Kosovo
27.5
2016 (Q3)[71]

 Kuwait
3.0
2016[4]

 Kyrgyzstan
8.0
2013[4]

 Laos
1.4
2013[4]

 Latvia
9.8
2015 (Q4)[72]

 Lebanon
10.0
2009 (July)[73]

 Lesotho
28.1
2014[4]

 Libya
13.0
2005 (May)[74]

 Liechtenstein
2.3
2012[4]

 Lithuania
9.2
2016 (March)[75]

 Luxembourg
6.5
2016 (March)[76]

 Macau (People's Republic of China)
1.9
2013[4]

 Macedonia
22.9
2017 (Q1)[77]

 Malaysia
3.5
2017 (March)[78]

 Mali
30.0
2015[4]

 Malta
5.2
2015 (December)[79]

 Marshall Islands
36.0
2006[4]

 Mauritania
31.0
2013[4]

 Mauritius
7.8
2016[4]

 Mayotte (France)
25.4
2005[4]

 Mexico
3.7
2016 (December)[80]

 Federated States of Micronesia
22.0
2000[81]

 Moldova
4.2
2015 (Q4)[82]

 Monaco
2.0
2012[4]

 Mongolia
7.7
2014[4]

 Montenegro
18.3
2016 (March)[83]

 Montserrat (United Kingdom)
6.0
1998[4]

 Morocco
10.7
2017 (Q1)[84]

 Mozambique
17.0
2007[4]

 Namibia
28.1
2014[4]

 Nauru
23.0
2011[85]

   Nepal
3.3
2008[4]

 Netherlands
4.7
2017 (August)[86]

 Netherlands Antilles (Netherlands)
10.0
2008[87]

 New Caledonia (France)
17.1
2004[4]

 New Zealand
5.1
2016 (June quarter)[88]

 Nicaragua
6.0
2014[4]

 Nigeria
13.9
2016 (Q3)[89]

 North Korea
25.6
2013[4]

 Northern Mariana Islands (United States)
11.2
2010[4]

 Norway
4.8
2016 (September)[90]

 Niue
10.7
2006[91]

 Pakistan
6.7
2016[4]

 Palau
4.2
2005[4]

 Panama
4.5
2015[4]

 Papua New Guinea
1.9
2008[4]

 Paraguay
6.2
2016[4]

 Peru
6.1
2015 (August)[92]

 Philippines
5.6
2015 (October)[93]

 Poland
4.8
2017 (June)[94]

 Portugal
10.2
2016 (December)[95]

 Puerto Rico (United States)
13.7
2014 (December)[96]

 Qatar
0.4
2015[4]

 Romania
6.4
2016 (March)[97]

 Russia
6.0
2016 (March)[98]

 Rwanda
13.2
2017 (May)[99]

 Saint Helena (United Kingdom)
14.0
1998[4]

 Saint Kitts and Nevis
5.1
2006[100]

 Saint Lucia
15.7
2006[101]

 Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France)
9.9
2008[4]

 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
18.0
2009 (June)[53]

 San Marino
8.7
2014[4]

 Saudi Arabia
12.8
2017(Q2)[102]

 Senegal
48.0 (30.0 among adults aged 24 and under[103])
2007[4]

 Serbia
13.0
2016[104]

 Sierra Leone
8.6
2015[105]

 Singapore
2.2
2017(Q2)

 Slovakia
8.8
2016 (November)[106]

 Slovenia
7.1
2017 (July)[107]

 South Africa
26.5
2016 (Q4)[108]

 South Korea
4.9
2016 (February)[109]

 Spain
17.2
2017 (July)[110]

 Sri Lanka
4.2
2012 (Q1)[111]

 Sudan
13.6
2014[4]

 Suriname
8.9
2014[4]

 Swaziland
40.6
2007[112]

 Sweden
6.1
2016 (September)[113]

  Switzerland
5.2
2017 (March)

 Syria
40.0
2014[4]

 Taiwan
3.9
2016 (April)[114]

 Tajikistan
2.4
2015 (March)[115]

 Thailand
0.9
2014 (May)[116]

 The Bahamas
15.0
2014[4]

 Tonga
6.5
2011[117]

 Trinidad and Tobago
3.7
2013 (Q1)[118]

 Tunisia
15.2
2014[119]

 Turkey
11.8
2016 (October)[120]

 Turkmenistan
3.5
2013 (November)[121]

 Turks and Caicos Islands
5.4
2007[122]

 Ukraine
9.9
2015 (Q4)[123]

 United Arab Emirates
4.3
2010[124]

 United Kingdom
4.3
2017 (August)[125]

 United States
4.4[126] (8.6)[1]
2017 (June)[126]

 Uruguay
9.0
2017 (March)[127]

 Uzbekistan
8.0
2008 (December)[128]

 Vanuatu
4.6
2009[129]

 Venezuela
25.3
2017[130]

 Vietnam
3.4
2014[4]

 U.S. Virgin Islands (United States)
12.3
2014 (December)[131]

 Wallis and Futuna (France)
12.2
2008[132]

 West Bank (Palestinian territories)
15.4
2015 (Q2)[45][46]

 Yemen
35.0
2009 (June)[133]

 Zambia
15.0
2008 [4]

 Zimbabwe
95.0
2009 [4]

tag: table


document_title: The Little Mermaid (1989 film)

question_text: when was the little mermaid released on vhs

text: The Little Mermaid (1989 film)

text: Plot

text: Ariel, a sixteen-year-old mermaid princess, is dissatisfied with underwater life in the kingdom of Atlantica, and is curious about the human world. With her best friend Flounder, Ariel collects human artifacts in her grotto, and often goes to the surface of the ocean to visit Scuttle, a seagull who offers very inaccurate knowledge of human culture. She ignores the warnings of her father King Triton, the ruler of Atlantica, and Sebastian, a crab who serves as Triton's adviser and court composer, that contact between merpeople and humans is forbidden.

text: One night, Ariel, Flounder, and Sebastian travel to the ocean surface to watch a celebration for the birthday of Prince Eric on a ship. Ariel instantly becomes enamored with Eric. A violent storm arrives, with a bolt of lightning striking the ship, engulfing it in flames and eventually destroying it, tossing Eric overboard. She rescues Eric and brings him to shore. Ariel sings to Eric, but immediately leaves just as he regains consciousness to avoid being discovered. Fascinated by the memory of her voice, Eric vows to find who saved and sang to him, and Ariel vows to find a way to join him and his world. When Triton discovers Ariel's love for Eric, Triton confronts her in the grotto and destroys most of the artifacts with his trident. After Triton leaves, two eels named Flotsam and Jetsam convince Ariel to visit Ursula, a sea witch.

text: Ursula tricks Ariel into making a deal to transform her into a human for three days in exchange for Ariel's voice, which Ursula puts in a nautilus shell. Within these three days, Ariel must receive the "kiss of true love" from Eric. If Ariel gets Eric to kiss her, she will remain a human permanently. Otherwise, she will transform back into a mermaid and be captured by Ursula. Ariel accepts, and is given human legs to emerge to the land above. Eric finds Ariel on the beach and takes her to his castle, unaware that she is the one who had rescued him earlier. Ariel spends time with Eric, and at the end of the second day, they almost kiss, but are disrupted by Flotsam and Jetsam. Furious at their narrow escape, Ursula sets a trap for Eric and Ariel: she disguises herself as a beautiful young woman named Vanessa and hypnotizes Eric with her singing voice.

text: Discovering that Vanessa is actually Ursula in disguise, Scuttle informs Ariel of Ursula's plan to marry Eric while Sebastian informs Triton about Ursula's actions. Assisted by her friends, Ariel stops Eric's wedding to Ursula, destroying the nautilus shell around Ursula's neck and restoring Ariel's voice. Realizing that Ariel is the girl who saved his life, Eric rushes to kiss her, but the sun sets, and Ariel transforms back into a mermaid before Ursula kidnaps her. Triton furiously confronts Ursula and demands Ariel's release, but the deal is inviolable. Ursula tricks Triton into taking Ariel's place as Ursula's prisoner, giving up his trident. Ariel is released as Triton is transformed into a polyp. Ursula steps forward as the new queen, but before she can use the trident, Eric intervenes with a harpoon. Ursula attempts to attack Eric, but inadvertently kills Flotsam and Jetsam in the process. Enraged, Ursula uses the trident to expand into monstrous proportions.

text: Ariel and Eric reunite on the surface before Ursula gains full control of the entire ocean, creating a storm and bringing sunken ships to the surface. In her attempt to murder Ariel, Ursula herself is impaled to death by one of the wrecked ships. With Ursula slain, Triton and the other polyps are restored to their original forms. Realizing that Ariel truly loves Eric, Triton willingly changes her from a mermaid into a human and approves her marriage to Eric. Ariel and Eric marry on a ship and depart.

text: Cast

text:
Jodi Benson as Princess Ariel[9]
Christopher Daniel Barnes as Prince Eric[10]
Pat Carroll as Ursula[10]

tag: ul

text: Jodi Benson as Vanessa (Ursula's human alter-ego)

text:
Samuel E. Wright as Sebastian[10]
Jason Marin as Flounder[10]
Kenneth Mars as King Triton[10]
Buddy Hackett as Scuttle[10]
Ben Wright as Grimsby[10]
Paddi Edwards as Flotsam and Jetsam[10]
Edie McClurg as Carlotta the maid[10]
Kimmy Robertson and Caroline Vasicek as Ariel's Sisters[10]
Will Ryan as Harold the Seahorse[10]
Frank Welker as Max the Sheepdog[10]
René Auberjonois as Chef Louis[10]

text: Production

text: Story development

text: The Little Mermaid was originally planned as part of one of Walt Disney's earliest feature films, a proposed package film featuring vignettes of Hans Christian Andersen tales.[11] Development started soon after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the late 1930s, but was delayed due to various circumstances.[12]

text: In 1985, Ron Clements became interested in a film adaptation of The Little Mermaid while he was serving as a director on The Great Mouse Detective (1986) alongside John Musker.[13] Clements discovered the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale while browsing through a bookstore.[14] Believing the story provided an "ideal basis" for an animated feature film and keen on creating a film that took place underwater,[13] Clements wrote and presented a two-page treatment of Mermaid to Disney CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg at a "gong show" idea suggestion meeting. Katzenberg passed the project over, because at that time the studio was in development on a sequel to their live-action mermaid comedy Splash (1984) and felt The Little Mermaid would be too similar a project.[14] The next day, however, Katzenberg approved of the idea for possible development, along with Oliver & Company. While in production in the 1980s, the staff found, by chance, original story and visual development work done by Kay Nielsen for Disney's proposed 1930s Andersen feature.[11] Many of the changes made by the staff in the 1930s to Hans Christian Andersen's original story were coincidentally the same as the changes made by Disney writers in the 1980s.[14]

text: That year Clements and Musker expanded the two-page idea into a 20-page rough script, eliminating the role of the mermaid's grandmother and expanding the roles of the Merman King and the sea witch. However, the film's plans were momentarily shelved as Disney focused its attention on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Oliver & Company as more immediate releases.[14] In 1987, songwriter Howard Ashman became involved with the writing and development of Mermaid after he was asked to contribute a song to Oliver & Company. He proposed changing the minor character Clarence, the English-butler crab, to a Jamaican crab and shifting the music style throughout the film to reflect this. At the same time, Katzenberg, Clements, Musker, and Ashman revised the story format to make Mermaid a musical with a Broadway-style story structure, with the song sequences serving as the tentpoles of the film.[11] Ashman and composer Alan Menken, both noted for their work as the writers of the successful Off-Broadway stage musical Little Shop of Horrors, teamed up to compose the entire song score. In 1988, with Oliver out of the way, Mermaid was slated as the next major Disney release.[15]

text: Animation

text: More money and resources were dedicated to Mermaid than any other Disney animated film in decades.[11] Aside from its main animation facility in Glendale, California, Disney opened a satellite feature animation facility during the production of Mermaid in Lake Buena Vista, Florida (near Orlando, Florida), within Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park at Walt Disney World.[16] Opening in 1989, the Disney-MGM facility's first projects were to produce an entire Roger Rabbit cartoon short, Roller Coaster Rabbit, and to contribute ink and paint support to Mermaid.[16] Another first for recent years was the filming of live actors and actresses for motion reference material for the animators, a practice used frequently for many of the Disney animated features produced under Walt Disney's supervision. Sherri Lynn Stoner, a former member of Los Angeles' Groundlings improvisation comedy group, and Joshua Finkel, a Broadway actor, performed key scenes as Ariel and Eric respectively.[14][17] Jodi Benson had already been cast as Ariel's voice actor by this time, and her recorded dialogue was used as playback to guide these live-action references.[17]

text: Mermaid's supervising animators included Glen Keane and Mark Henn on Ariel, Duncan Marjoribanks on Sebastian, Andreas Deja on King Triton, and Ruben Aquino on Ursula.[11] Originally, Keane had been asked to work on Ursula, as he had established a reputation for drawing large, powerful figures, such as the bear in The Fox and the Hound (1981) and Professor Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective (1986). Keane, however, was assigned as one of the two lead artists on the petite Ariel and oversaw the "Part of Your World" musical number. He jokingly stated that his wife looks exactly like Ariel "without the fins."[18] The character's body type and personality were based upon that of Alyssa Milano, then starring on TV's Who's the Boss? and the effect of her hair underwater was based on both footage of Sally Ride when she was in space,[11] and scenes of Stoner in a pool for guidance in animating Ariel's swimming.[19]

text: The design of the villainous Ursula was based upon drag performer Divine.[11] An additional early inspiration before Divine was Joan Collins in her role as Alexis Carrington in the television show Dynasty, due to a suggestion from Howard Ashman, who was a fan of the series.[20] Pat Carroll was not Clements and Musker's first choice to voice Ursula; the original script had been written with Bea Arthur of the Disney-owned TV series The Golden Girls in mind. After Arthur turned the part down, actresses such as Nancy Marchand, Nancy Wilson, Roseanne, Charlotte Rae, and Elaine Stritch were considered for the part.[21] Stritch was eventually cast as Ursula, but clashed with Howard Ashman's style of music production and was replaced by Carroll.[21] Various actors auditioned for additional roles in the film, including Jim Carrey for the role of Prince Eric, and comedians Bill Maher and Michael Richards for the role of Scuttle.[20]

text: The underwater setting required the most special effects animation for a Disney animated feature since Fantasia in 1940. Effects animation supervisor Mark Dindal estimated that over a million bubbles were drawn for this film, in addition to the use of other processes such as airbrushing, backlighting, superimposition, and some computer animation. The artistic manpower needed for Mermaid required Disney to farm out most of the underwater bubble effects animation in the film to Pacific Rim Productions, a China-based firm with production facilities in Beijing.[11] An attempt to use Disney's famed multiplane camera for the first time in years for quality "depth" shots failed because the machine was reputedly in dilapidated condition. The multiplane shots were instead photographed at an outside animation camera facility.[11]

text: The Little Mermaid was the last Disney feature film to use the traditional hand-painted cel method of animation. Disney's next film, The Rescuers Down Under, used a digital method of coloring and combining scanned drawings developed for Disney by Pixar called CAPS (Computer Animation Production System), which would eliminate the need for cels, the multiplane camera, and many of the optical effects used for the last time in Mermaid. A CAPS prototype was used experimentally on a few scenes in Mermaid, and one shot produced using CAPS—the penultimate shot in the film, of Ariel and Eric's wedding ship sailing away under a rainbow—appears in the finished film. Computer-generated imagery was used to create some of the wrecked ships in the final battle, a staircase behind a shot of Ariel in Eric's castle, and the carriage Eric and Ariel are riding in when she bounces it over a ravine. These objects were animated using 3D wireframe models, which were plotted as line art to cels and painted traditionally.[11]

text: Music

text: The Little Mermaid was considered by some as "the film that brought Broadway into cartoons".[22] Alan Menken wrote the Academy Award winning score, and collaborated with Howard Ashman on the songs. One of the film's most prominent songs, "Part of Your World", was nearly cut from the film when it seemingly tested poorly with an audience of school children, who became rowdy during the scene. This caused Jeffrey Katzenberg to feel that the song needed to be cut, an idea that was resisted by Musker, Clements, and Keane. Both Muscker and Clements cited the similar situation of the popular song "Over the Rainbow" nearly being cut from 1939's The Wizard of Oz when appealing to Katzenberg. Keane pushed for the song to remain until the film was in a more finalized state. During a second test screening, the scene, now colorized and further developed, tested well with a separate child audience, and the musical number was kept.[20]

text: Release

text: The film was originally released on November 17, 1989, followed by a November 14, 1997, reissue. After the success of the 3D re-release of The Lion King, Disney announced a 3D re-release of The Little Mermaid scheduled for September 13, 2013,[23] but this was cancelled on January 14, 2013, due to the under-performances of other Disney 3D re-releases.[24] The 3D version was released on Blu-ray instead,[25][26] but it did play a limited engagement at the El Capitan Theatre from September to October 2013.[27] On September 20, 2013, The Little Mermaid began playing in select theaters where audiences could bring iPads and use an app called Second Screen Live.[28] The film was also screened out of competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.[29]

text: Home media

text: In a then atypical and controversial move for a new Disney animated film, The Little Mermaid was released as part of the Walt Disney Classics line of VHS and Laserdisc home video releases in May 1990, six months after the release of the film.[15][30] Before Mermaid, only a select number of Disney's catalog animated films had been released to home video, as the company was afraid of upsetting its profitable practice of theatrically reissuing each film every seven years.[15] Mermaid became that year's top-selling title on home video, with over 10 million units sold (including 7 million in its first month).[31] This success led future Disney films to be released soon after the end of their theatrical runs, rather than delayed for several years.[15]

text: Following Mermaid's 1997 re-release in theaters, a new VHS version was released in March 1998 as part of the Masterpiece Collection and included a bonus music video of Jodi Benson singing "Part of Your World" during the end credits, replacing "Under the Sea" as the end credit song.[32] The VHS sold 13 million units and ranked as the third best-selling video of the year.[33][34]

text: The Little Mermaid was released in a Limited Issue "bare-bones" DVD in 1999, with a standard video transfer.[35] The film was re-released on DVD on October 3, 2006, as part of the Walt Disney Platinum Editions line of classic Walt Disney animated features, including the song "Kiss the Girl" performed by Ashley Tisdale.[36] Deleted scenes and several in-depth documentaries were included, as well as an Academy Award-nominated short film intended for the shelved Fantasia 2006, The Little Match Girl.[37] The DVD sold 1.6 million units on its first day of release,[38] and over 4 million units during its first week, making it the biggest animated DVD debut for October. By year's end, the DVD had sold about 7 million units and was one of the year's top ten selling DVDs.[39] The Platinum Edition DVD was released as part of a "Little Mermaid Trilogy" boxed set on December 16, 2008.[40] The Platinum Edition of the film, along with its sequels, went on moratorium in January 2009. The film was re-released on 3-disc Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy Combo, a 2-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo and 3D Blu-ray on October 1, 2013, as part of the Walt Disney Diamond Editions line.[25][41]

text: Live presentations

text: In June 2016, Disney held special presentations of the film at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, entitled The Little Mermaid in Concert. The performances combined a screening of The Little Mermaid with live accompaniment by guest musicians, including Sara Bareilles (who performed as Ariel), Tituss Burgess, Darren Criss, Rebel Wilson and Norm Lewis (who performed as King Triton as a reprisal of his role in the stage adaptation). The four additional songs written for the stage adaptation were also incorporated into the presentation, accompanied by scenes of the film's original concept art. During the third and final performance, Jodi Benson joined the cast in lieu of Bareilles to reprise her original role as Ariel. The final performance also featured special appearances by Brad Kane (the singing voice of the title character of Aladdin) and Susan Egan (who played Belle in the stage adaptation of Beauty and the Beast), who sang songs from their respective films, and a duet of A Whole New World.[42][43]

text: On May 16, 2017, ABC announced that it planned to air a special broadcast of the film, The Wonderful World of Disney: The Little Mermaid Live, on October 3, 2017. The special was to feature a presentation of the film intertwined with live performances of its songs by guest musicians, in a similar fashion to the Hollywood Bowl concerts.[44] However, on August 3, 2017, it was announced that the special was postponed due to budget constraints.[45]

text: Reception

text: Box office

text: Early in the production of The Little Mermaid, Jeffrey Katzenberg cautioned Clements, Musker, and their staff, reminding them that since Mermaid was a "girl's film", it would make less money at the box office than Oliver & Company, which had been Disney's biggest animated box office success in a decade.[14][15] However, by the time the film was closer to completion, Katzenberg was convinced Mermaid would be a hit and the first animated feature to earn more than $100 million and become a "blockbuster" film.[14][15]

text: During its original 1989 theatrical release, Mermaid earned $84.4 million at the North American box office,[3] falling just short of Katzenberg's expectations but earning 64% more than Oliver.[15] The film was theatrically reissued on November 14, 1997, on the same day as Anastasia, a Don Bluth animated feature for Fox Animation Studios. The reissue brought $27.2 million in additional gross. The film also drew $99.8 million in box office earnings outside the United States and Canada between both releases, resulting in a total international box office figure of $211 million.[3]

text: Critical reception

text: The Little Mermaid received largely positive reviews from critics. Review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film has a 93% "Certified Fresh" score based on 67 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's consensus reads "The Little Mermaid ushered in a new golden era for Disney animation with warm and charming hand-drawn characters and catchy musical sequences".[46] Roger Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, was enthusiastic about the film and wrote that, "The Little Mermaid is a jolly and inventive animated fantasy—a movie that's so creative and so much fun it deserves comparison with the best Disney work of the past." Ebert also commented positively on the character of Ariel, stating, "... Ariel is a fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently, even rebelliously, instead of hanging around passively while the fates decide her destiny."[47] The staff of TV Guide wrote a positive review, praising the film's return to the traditional Disney musical as well as the film's animation. Yet they also wrote that the film is detracted by the juvenile humor and the human characters' eyes. While still giving a positive review, they stated that the film "can't compare to the real Disney classics (which appealed equally to both kids and adults)."[48] The staff of Variety praised the film for its cast of characters, Ursula in particular, as well as its animation, stating that the animation "proves lush and fluid, augmented by the use of shadow and light as elements like fire, sun and water illuminate the characters." They also praised the musical collaboration between Howard Ashman and Alan Menken "whose songs frequently begin slowly but build in cleverness and intensity."[49]

text: Todd Gilchrist of IGN wrote a positive review of the film, stating that the film is "an almost perfect achievement." Gilchrist also praised how the film revived interest in animation as it was released at a time when interest in animation was at a lull.[50] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post wrote a mixed review of the film, referring to it as a "likably unspectacular adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen classic." Hinson went on to write that the film is average even at its highest points. He wrote that while there is nothing wrong with the film, it would be difficult for children to identify with Ariel and that the characters seemed bland. Hinson concluded his review saying that the film is "accomplished but uninspiring, The Little Mermaid has enough to please any kid. All that's missing is the magic."[51] Empire gave a positive review of the film, stating that "[The Little Mermaid is] a charmer of a movie, boasting all the ingredients that make a Disney experience something to treasure yet free of all the politically correct, formulaic elements that have bogged down the more recent productions."[52]

text: In April 2008 – almost 20 years after the film's initial release in 1989 – Yahoo! users voted "The Little Mermaid" as No. 14 on the top 30 animated films of all time. Later, when Yahoo! updated the list in June of the same year, the film remained on the list but dropped six slots to end at #20. (Only three other traditionally animated Disney animated films - Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King, respectively - scored above it in the poll even after the update.)[53] In 2011, Richard Corliss of TIME Magazine named it one of "The 25 All-TIME Best Animated Films".[54]

text: The Little Mermaid, Disney's first animated fairy tale since Sleeping Beauty (1959),[14] is an important film in animation history for many reasons. Chief among these are its re-establishment of animation as a profitable venture for The Walt Disney Company, as the company's theme parks, television productions, and live-action features had overshadowed the animated output since the 1950s.[15] Mermaid was the second film, following Oliver & Company, produced after Disney began expanding its animated output following its successful live action/animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and became Disney's first animated major box office and critical hit since The Rescuers in 1977.[15] Walt Disney Feature Animation was further expanded as a result of Mermaid and increasingly successful follow-ups — Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994). The staff increased from 300 members in 1988 to 2,200 in 1999 spread across three studios in Burbank, California, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, and Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.[16]

text: In addition, Mermaid signaled the re-establishment of the musical film format as a standard for Disney animated films. The majority of Disney's most popular animated films from the 1930s on had been musicals, though by the 1970s and 1980s the role of music had been de-emphasized in the films.[14] 1988's Oliver & Company had served as a test of sorts to the success of the musical format before Disney committed to the Broadway-style structure of The Little Mermaid.[14]

text: Accolades

text: In January 1990, The Little Mermaid earned three Academy Award nominations, making it the first Disney animated film to earn an Academy Award nomination since The Rescuers in 1977. The film won two of the awards, for Best Song ("Under the Sea") and Best Score. The film also earned four Golden Globe nominations, including Best Picture—Comedy or Musical, and won the awards for Best Song ("Under the Sea") and Best Score.[55]

text: In addition to the box office and critical success of the film itself, the Mermaid soundtrack album earned two awards at the 33rd Grammy Awards in 1991: the Grammy Award for Best Album for Children and the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.[56] Bolstered by the film's success and the soundtrack's Oscars, Golden Globes and Grammy Awards, was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in September 1990 for shipments of two million copies of the soundtrack album, an unheard of feat for an animated film at the time.[57] To date, the soundtrack has been certified six times platinum.[57]

text: The Little Mermaid won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score as well as Best Song for Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's "Under the Sea", sung by Samuel E. Wright in a memorable scene.[58] Another song from the film, "Kiss the Girl", was nominated but lost to "Under the Sea".[58] The film also won two Golden Globes for Best Original Score as well Best Original Song for "Under the Sea". It was also nominated in two other categories, Best Motion Picture and another Best Original Song. Menken and Ashman also won a Grammy Award in 1991 for "Under the Sea."[59]

text: The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

text:
2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – Nominated[60]
2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:

Ursula – Nominated Villain[61]

2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:

"Under the Sea" – Nominated[62]

2006: AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – Nominated[63]
2008: AFI's 10 Top 10:

Nominated Animation Film[64]

text: Controversy

text: Controversy arose regarding the artwork for the cover for the Classics VHS cassette when the film was first released on video when close examination of the artwork revealed an oddly shaped structure on the castle, closely resembling a human penis.[65][66] Disney and the cover designer insist it was an accident, resulting from a late night rush job to finish the cover artwork. The questionable object does not appear on the cover of the second releasing of the movie.[65] A second allegation is that a clergyman is seen with an erection during a scene late in the film.[67][68][69] The clergyman is a short man, dressed in Bishop's clothing, and a small bulge is slightly noticeable in a few of the frames that are actually later shown to be the stubby-legged man's knees, but the image is small and is very difficult to distinguish. The combined incidents led an Arkansas woman to file suit against The Walt Disney Company in 1995, though she dropped the suit two months later.[68][69][70][71][72]

text: Live-action adaptation

text: In May 2016, Deadline Hollywood reported that Disney is in early development for a live-action version of the film.[73] Three months later, it was announced that Alan Menken would return as the film's composer and write new songs alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda, who will also co-produce the movie with Marc Platt.[74] Studio veteran Lindsay Lohan has expressed interest in starring in the adaption.[75][76]


document_title: A Cinderella Story

question_text: who plays the evil stepmother in a cinderella story

text: A Cinderella Story

text: Plot[edit]

text: Sam Montgomery lives in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, with her widowed father Hal, who runs a popular sports-themed diner. Hal soon marries a vain and selfish gold digger named Fiona, who has socially-awkward fraternal twin daughters, Brianna and Gabriella. During the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Hal is killed when he runs to save Fiona. Having supposedly left no will, Fiona receives all of his belongings, including the house, the diner, and to her dismay, Sam.

text: Eight years later, Sam is employed as a waitress at the diner to save money to attend Princeton University, but she is regularly tormented by her stepfamily, who constantly insult her and treat her as if they were popular, despite being regarded as obnoxious. Sam struggles to cope socially at North Valley High School, where queen bee cheerleader Shelby Cummings also torments her and calls her "Diner Girl", along with other members of the popular clique.

text: Sam confides in her online pen pal "Nomad" about her dream to attend Princeton, a dream which he also shares. However, Nomad's true identity is Austin Ames, the popular, yet unhappy, quarterback of the school's football team and Shelby's ex-boyfriend, although she refuses to accept that he has broken up with her. The reason why he is unhappy is because Austin's father planned for him to go to the University of Southern California with a football scholarship rather than going to Princeton. Nomad proposes that they meet in person at the school's Halloween themed homecoming dance. On the night of the dance, Fiona orders Sam to work the night shift at the diner, then leaves to drive Brianna and Gabriella to the dance. Initially reluctant, Sam is convinced by her best friend, Carter Ferrell, to go to the dance and meet her mysterious online friend.

text: Rhonda, Sam's other best friend, and the rest of the diner staff also convince her to disobey Fiona and go to the dance anyway. Sam, wearing a mask and a beautiful white dress, meets Nomad at the dance, and is surprised to learn that he is Austin, who had become smitten with her upon her entrance. The two decide to leave the party to walk alone and get to know each other a little better. While sharing a romantic dance, Sam and Austin begin to fall in love. But just as Austin is about to unmask her, Sam's cell phone alarm goes off, warning her to return to the diner before Fiona returns at midnight. She leaves without revealing her identity to Austin, and drops her phone on the way out.

text: Austin picks up her phone and begins a desperate search to figure out who his "Cinderella" really is, but every girl at school claims to be the mysterious owner of the phone. Sam is reluctant to reveal her identity to Austin, feeling that he will not accept her due to her being ordinary and Austin being popular. When Austin comes into the diner one day, Sam is forced to help him and, after a talk, she attempts to reveal her identity to him, but is cut off by Fiona. Sam's stepsisters later discover Sam and Austin's email relationship, and (after failing to convince Austin that one of them is the owner of the phone) convince Shelby that Sam tried to steal Austin from her. During a pep rally, they and the other cheerleaders humiliate Sam in front of the entire school and expose her identity as well as naming her an impostor. Austin, hurt by Sam's secrecy, does not step up to defend her, and Sam leaves the pep rally in tears.

text: Like Austin, Sam had been accepted at Princeton, only to be duped by Fiona into believing she was rejected by having a fake rejection letter made. Sam then decides to give up on her dreams and resigns herself to working at the diner, but Rhonda gives Sam a pep talk not to lose hope. When her stepsisters come into the diner, they slam the door, causing a guitar to fall off the wall, tearing the wallpaper down with it, and blame it on Sam. Sam then sees her father's words, "Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game," on the wall and regains her confidence (in real life, this quote came from Babe Ruth). She stands up to Fiona and her stepsisters stating that she will no longer put up with their emotional abuse, quits her job at the diner, and moves in with Rhonda, who also quits along with the entire diner staff, all of whom had only put up with so many years of Fiona's abuse after Hal's death for Sam's sake. The customers, who witness the entire scene, promptly leave in disgust as well.

text: Before the school's homecoming football game, Sam confronts Austin about his cowardice and not defending her at the pep rally. Before the final play of the game, he sees Sam making her way out of the stands, and finally stands up to his father, saying he wants to attend Princeton rather than simply play football all his life. He chases after Sam and apologizes. She accepts his apology, and they share their first kiss as rain falls over the drought-plagued valley (at the same time, the North Valley Fighting Frogs win the football game). Soon after, Sam finds Hal's will hidden in her childhood fairy-tale book, stating that all of his money & possessions actually belong to her. Since this leaves her as the rightful and legal owner, Sam sells her stepfamily's fancy cars so that she can pay for college, and Fiona, who signed the will as a witness but claims to have never seen it before, is arrested for financial fraud and violating California's child labor laws for all the times she made Sam work long hours at the diner in spite of her being a minor.

text: Sam finds that she was in fact accepted at Princeton; the acceptance letter is retrieved from the garbage by her stepsisters, who knew where Fiona hid it. Fiona, Brianna, and Gabriella are made by the District Attorney to work off the money they stole from Sam at the diner, which is restored to its former glory by its new owners, Sam and Rhonda. Also, Austin's father comes to accept his son's desire to attend Princeton. Things even work out in the end for Carter as he makes a commercial for acne medication. Shelby, having previously rejected Carter for being an outcast even after he was a proper gentleman to her at the Halloween dance, aims to pursue him since he is now popular, but after finally seeing her true shallow and cruel nature, he turns her down for Astrid, the high school's goth DJ and announcer. The film ends with Sam and Austin, now officially a couple, driving off to Princeton together after Sam gets her phone back from Austin.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Hilary Duff as Samantha "Sam" Montgomery

Hannah Robinson as Young Sam

Chad Michael Murray as Austin Ames
Whip Hubley as Harold "Hal" Montgomery, Sam's dad
Jennifer Coolidge as Fiona, Sam's stepmom
Regina King as Rhonda
Dan Byrd as Carter Farrell
Madeline Zima as Brianna

Carlie Westerman as Young Brianna

Andrea Avery as Gabriella

Lilli Babb as Young Gabriella

Julie Gonzalo as Shelby Cummings
Brad Bufanda as David
Simon Helberg as Terry
J. D. Pardo as Ryan Hanson
Aimee Lynn Chadwick as Astrid, the campus DJ
Erica Hubbard as Madison
Kady Cole as Caitlyn
Mary Pat Gleason as Eleanor
Paul Rodriguez as Bobby
Lin Shaye as Mrs. Wells
Kevin Kilner as Andy Ames, Austin's dad
James Eckhouse as Mr. Farrell, Carter's dad

text: Reception[edit]

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 11% based on 103 reviews, with an average rating of 3.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "An uninspired, generic updating of the classic fairy tale."[2] On Metacritic, the film has a score on 25 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[3] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.[4]

text: Roger Ebert called A Cinderella Story "a lame, stupid movie".[5] The film was nominated for five Teen Choice Awards at the 2005 ceremony, winning the award for Choice Movie Blush Scene, the same year Duff won the Kids Choice Awards for Favorite Movie Actress. In 2005, Duff also received a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress nomination.

text: Box office[edit]

text: In its opening weekend, the film grossed $13,623,350 in 2,625 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #4 at the box office, behind I, Robot, Spider-Man 2 and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. By the end of its run, A Cinderella Story grossed $51,438,175 domestically and $18,629,734 internationally, totaling $70,067,909 worldwide.[1]

text: Soundtrack[edit]

text: Sequels[edit]

text: The film was followed by three direct-to-video sequels, Another Cinderella Story (2008), A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song (2011) and A Cinderella Story: If the Shoe Fits (2016). The sequels use the themes and situations but do not contain any characters from the first film. Unlike the first film, the sequels also include musical and dance themes.


document_title: Sangamon River

question_text: where does the sangamon river start and end

text: Sangamon River

text: Description[edit]

text: The river rises from several short headstreams in southern McLean County that arise from a glacial moraine southeast of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Part of the moraine is publicly owned as the Moraine View State Recreation Area. The river's course forms a large arc through central Illinois, first flowing east into Champaign County, Illinois, south through Mahomet, then west through Monticello and Decatur, then turning northwest to flow along the north side of Springfield. It receives Salt Creek at 40°7′33.24″N 89°49′30.36″W / 40.1259000°N 89.8251000°W / 40.1259000; -89.8251000, approximately 25 miles (40 km) north-northwest of Springfield; then the river turns west, forming the southern boundary of Mason County with Menard and Cass counties. It joins the Illinois River from the east just north of Beardstown.[2]

text: The Sangamon is impounded in Decatur to form Lake Decatur, constructed in 1920–1922 to provide a water supply for Decatur. This lake, formed by damming the main stem of the river, with no control over upstream land uses, has had major problems with siltation and agricultural pollution. The lake often has excessive nitrate levels from agricultural runoff. Many times the city was forced to warn people not to allow babies to consume water in Decatur because of "blue baby syndrome", Methemoglobinemia. Decatur has now installed nitrate treatment to avoid this problem.[citation needed]

text: The upper Sangamon, between Mahomet and Monticello, runs along the face of a terminal moraine within the Lake Michigan Glacial Lobe, which ranges in age from 28,000 to 12,000 BP.[3] During the glacial Woodfordian Substage (middle Wisconsin Stage), ice of the Lake Michigan Glacial Lobe advanced rapidly, leaving a terminal moraine parallel to the modern Sangamon River.[3] The ice stagnated and melted behind this moraine, without the meltwater overtopping the terminal moraine. Along this stretch, the eastern part of the watershed of the Sangamon therefore consists of short creeks, two to three miles (3–5 km) in length, that drain the face of the moraine. This forms an asymmetric watershed typical of rivers formed along the face of a terminal moraine.

text: History[edit]

text: The river was home to many different groups of Native Americans in the centuries before the arrival of Europeans. The name of the river comes from a Pottawatomie word Sain-guee-mon (pronounced "sang gä mun")[needs IPA] meaning "where there is plenty to eat." In the 18th century, groups of the Kickapoo settled along the river. In the middle 18th century, the region near the river was the scene of a conflict between the Illini and Fox as part of the larger French and Iroquois Wars. French traders were active in the region throughout the middle 18th century when it was part of the Illinois Country.

text: The first U.S. settlers arrived in the region in the 1810s. In 1821, Elijah Iles built a log-framed store, the first commercial building in Springfield. Groups of Cumberland Presbyterians settled the river valley beginning in 1825, giving the region a distinctive culture identified and described at the turn of the 20th century by Edgar Lee Masters.

text: Abraham Lincoln arrived with his family in the area in 1830 to settle a section of government land bisected by the river. The site, now Lincoln Trail Homestead State Memorial, was selected by Lincoln's father after the family had economic and land-title difficulties in Indiana. The 21-year-old Lincoln helped build a 16 foot by 16 foot (4.8 m by 4.8 m) cabin along the river. The following year in 1831, he canoed down the river to homestead on his own near New Salem in Menard County northwest of Springfield. Later that year he floated down the river with companions on a flatboat to the Illinois River, and then following the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

text: Lincoln was impressed by the navigational difficulties on the river, especially during the arrival of the first steamship, the Talisman, a 150-ton steamer, up the river to Springfield in March 1832. Some sources state that Lincoln himself piloted the first steamship up the Sangamon to Springfield, accomplishing this feat with many men, almost as large as Lincoln, with axes to chop through whatever trees impeded the journey. More likely Lincoln acted as a guide and axeman.[4] In later years, he told of taking a steamship three miles (5 km) into the prairie after losing his way on the Sangamon during a flood. During his first campaign for the Illinois General Assembly in 1832, he made navigational improvements on the river a centerpiece of his platform.

text: The Potawatomi Trail of Death passed through here in 1838.

text: The river today[edit]

text: Despite its environmental problems, the Sangamon River is a focus of recreation for the people of Central Illinois. Key parklands along the river, moving from upstream to downstream, include Shady Rest, Robert Allerton Park, the parks bordering Lake Decatur, Rock Springs Conservation Area, Lincoln Trail Homestead State Park, Springfield's Carpenter Park and Riverside Park, the Sangamon River State Fish and Wildlife Area, Lincoln's New Salem, Saybrook, and the Sanganois State Fish and Wildlife Area.

text: The river was mentioned in Sufjan Stevens's song "Decatur, Or, Round Of Applause For Your Stepmother!". Singer songwriter Ben Bedford references the Sangamon in several of his songs, one of which is titled after it.