A humane society is a group that aims to stop human or animal suffering due to cruelty or other reasons, although in many countries, it is now used mostly for societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCAs). In the United Kingdom, it may also be a society that provides a waterways rescue, prevention, and recovery service, or that gives awards for the saving of human life (see: Royal Humane Society).

MSPCA-Angell in Boston, Massachusetts was founded in 1868 and is the second oldest humane society in the United States^[1]

Australia[link]

The first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), based on the British Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), was set up in Victoria in 1871, followed by other SPCAs in Tasmania in 1872, New South Wales in 1873, South Australia in 1875, Queensland in 1883, and Western Australia in 1892, with the other territories following much later.^[2]

The SPCAs were given the Royal Warrant in 1923 and became known as the Royal Societies for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals, although they have no formal connection with the RSPCA UK. The national organisation, RSPCA Australia, was formed in 1981 to give a national voice on policy matters and advise the federal government on animal welfare issues.^[2]

Australia is a warm and sunny continent, so with that you should know that cats and dogs with out homes need to be adopted. Tell your friends and family and please help save these animals from death and loneliness. As you go to a local Humane Society in Australia, please keep in mind that without the love and care that is needed for these animals, they will end up going bananas.

Canada[link]

The first SPCA in Canada was the Canadian SPCA founded in Montreal in 1869. The other societies developed on a regional basis and now 123 societies are represented at a federal level by the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies.^[3]

New Zealand[link]

Early British settlers brought with them the laws of England, and the English Protection of Animals Act of 1835 was adopted by New Zealand. This was replaced by New Zealand's own Protection of Animals Act in 1878, and the first SPCA was formed in Dunedin in 1882 quickly followed by other societies. In 1933, all the societies amalgamated as a federation and this grew into the present day's Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.^[4]

The Humane Society of New Zealand was established as a registered charity in 1975.^[5]

United Kingdom[link]

The first humane societies were founded in the United Kingdom. They included the Royal Humane Society in 1774,^[6] the Glasgow Humane Society in 1790,^[7] and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in 1824.^[8]

The Royal Humane Society is a charity that grants awards for acts of bravery in the saving of human lives, and for the restoration of life by resuscitation. Since its foundation, the society has given more than 85,000 awards.^[6] The Glasgow Humane Society is a prevention, rescue, and recovery group set up to cover the waterways of Greater Glasgow, Scotland

The main animal humane societies in the UK are the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) (founded 1824) and its offshoots, the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) and the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (USPCA). There is also the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA), founded in 1917, to treat the sick and injured animals of the poor, and numerous other animal rescue charities for wildlife, working animals, and domestic pets.

United States[link]

The first SPCA in the United States was the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), founded by Henry Bergh in New York in 1866.^[9] Two years later, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in Boston by a group that included George Thorndike Angell, John Quincy Adams II, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Saltonstall, and William Gordon Weld.^[1][10] Examples of other national, nonsheltering humane animal societies include: American Humane, which was founded in 1877 as a network of local organizations to prevent cruelty to children and animals.

As of 2012, the Terre Haute Humane Society adopts the highest percentage of animals in the U.S. nationally with 96% overall.^[11]

National vs. Local Humane Societies[link]

Local humane societies in the U.S. are independent of similarly named national organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) or American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

While local organizations are concerned primarily with sheltering, adoption, and euthanasia of animals, these national organizations coordinate and address broader issues beyond the scope or resources of the smaller, independent groups.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) does not operate, control, or fund local humane societies. However, it does provide support through grants,^[12] training of animal care personnel, standards of care, and evaluation services.^[13] The HSUS frequently works with shelters in disaster operations and large-scale animal rescues, assisting in the evaluation, triage, handling, transport and care of rescued animals.^[14] The HSUS maintains the animalsheltering.com website for animal care professionals, and publishes a bi-monthly magazine, Animal Sheltering to which 12,300 shelters and rescue groups subscribe.^[15]

The HSUS provides national promotion of shelters and animal adoptions, alone or in partnership with other animal protection charities.^[16] The Shelter Pet Project is a joint venture of The HSUS, Maddie's Fund, and the Ad Council to promote awareness of shelters and encourage adoptions.

In 1994, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, an industry publication, released the results of the largest study of charitable and non-profit organization popularity and credibility. The study showed that the Humane Society was ranked as the 6th "most popular charity/non-profit in America" of over 100 charities researched with 42% of Americans over the age of 12 choosing "Love" and "Like a lot" for the Humane Society .^[17]

No kill policy[link]

Some local humane society shelters are referred to as "no kill." This is most commonly defined as a shelter in which animals are only euthanized when they are deemed unadoptable either because they suffer from an untreatable medical condition or have behavior problems that cannot be resolved.

See also[link]

• Animal shelter
• Animal welfare
• Cruelty to animals
• Dumb Friends League
• Humane Society of the United States
• Royal Humane Society

References[link]

External links[link]

• RSPCA International
• Humane Society of Canada
• Canadian Federation of Humane Societies
• Humane Society International: Australian Office
• World Society for the Protection of Animals
• Humane Society University: Educational Institution

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v t e

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification and/or dominance patterns in subgroups.

Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap.

A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology.

More broadly, a society may be described as an economic, social, or industrial infrastructure, made up of a varied collection of individuals. Members of a society may be from different ethnic groups. A society can be a particular ethnic group, such as the Saxons; a nation state, such as Bhutan; or a broader cultural group, such as a Western society. The word society may also refer to an organized voluntary association of people for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. A "society" may even, though more by means of metaphor, refer to a social organism such as an ant colony or any cooperative aggregate such as, for example, in some formulations of artificial intelligence.

Etymology and usage[link]

A half-section of the 12th-century Song Dynasty version of Night Revels of Han Xizai, original by Gu Hongzhong. The painting portrays servants, musicians, monks, children, guests, and hosts all in a single social environment. It serves as an in-depth look into the Chinese social structure of the time.

The term "society" came from the Latin word societas, which in turn was derived from the noun socius ("comrade, friend, ally"; adjectival form socialis) used to describe a bond or interaction among parties that are friendly, or at least civil. Without an article, the term can refer to the entirety of humanity (also: "society in general", "society at large", etc.), although those who are unfriendly or uncivil to the remainder of society in this sense may be deemed to be "antisocial". Adam Smith wrote that a society "may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility without any mutual love or affection, if only they refrain from doing injury to each other."^[1]

Used in the sense of an association, a society is a body of individuals outlined by the bounds of functional interdependence, possibly comprising characteristics such as national or cultural identity, social solidarity, language, or hierarchical organization.

Conceptions of society[link]

Society, in general, addresses the fact that an individual has rather limited means as an autonomous unit. The Great apes have always been more (Bonobo, Homo, Pan) or less (Gorilla, Pongo) social animals, so Robinson Crusoe-like situations are either fictions or unusual corner cases to the ubiquity of social context for humans, who fall between presocial and eusocial in the spectrum of animal ethology.

In anthropology[link]

Human societies are most often organized according to their primary means of subsistence. Social scientists have identified hunter-gatherer societies, nomadic pastoral societies, horticulturalist or simple farming societies, and intensive agricultural societies, also called civilizations. Some consider industrial and post-industrial societies to be qualitatively different from traditional agricultural societies.

Today, anthropologists and many social scientists vigorously oppose the notion of cultural evolution and rigid "stages" such as these. In fact, much anthropological data has suggested that complexity (civilization, population growth and density, specialization, etc.) does not always take the form of hierarchical social organization or stratification.^{[citation needed]}

Cultural relativism as a widespread approach or ethic has largely replaced notions of "primitive", better/worse, or "progress" in relation to cultures (including their material culture/technology and social organization).

According to anthropologist Maurice Godelier, one critical novelty in human society, in contrast to humanity's closest biological relatives (chimpanzees and bonobo), is the parental role assumed by the males, which supposedly would be absent in our nearest relatives for whom paternity is not generally determinable.^[2][3]

In political science[link]

Societies may also be organized according to their political structure. In order of increasing size and complexity, there are bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and state societies. These structures may have varying degrees of political power, depending on the cultural, geographical, and historical environments that these societies must contend with. Thus, a more isolated society with the same level of technology and culture as other societies is more likely to survive than one in closer proximity to others that may encroach on their resources. A society that is unable to offer an effective response to other societies it competes with will usually be subsumed into the culture of the competing society.

In sociology[link]

The social group enables its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis. Both individual and social (common) goals can thus be distinguished and considered. Ant (formicidae) social ethology.

Canis lupus social ethology

Sociologist Gerhard Lenski differentiates societies based on their level of technology, communication, and economy: (1) hunters and gatherers, (2) simple agricultural, (3) advanced agricultural, (4) industrial, and (5) special (e.g. fishing societies or maritime societies).^[4] This is similar to the system earlier developed by anthropologists Morton H. Fried, a conflict theorist, and Elman Service, an integration theorist, who have produced a system of classification for societies in all human cultures based on the evolution of social inequality and the role of the state. This system of classification contains four categories:

• Hunter-gatherer bands (categorization of duties and responsibilities).
• Tribal societies in which there are some limited instances of social rank and prestige.
• Stratified structures led by chieftains.
• Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments.

In addition to this there are:

• Humanity, mankind, upon which rest all the elements of society, including society's beliefs.
• Virtual society, a society based on online identity, which is evolving in the information age.

Over time, some cultures have progressed toward more complex forms of organization and control. This cultural evolution has a profound effect on patterns of community. Hunter-gatherer tribes settled around seasonal food stocks to become agrarian villages. Villages grew to become towns and cities. Cities turned into city-states and nation-states.^[5]

Many societies distribute largess at the behest of some individual or some larger group of people. This type of generosity can be seen in all known cultures; typically, prestige accrues to the generous individual or group. Conversely, members of a society may also shun or scapegoat members of the society who violate its norms. Mechanisms such as gift-giving, joking relationships and scapegoating, which may be seen in various types of human groupings, tend to be institutionalized within a society. Social evolution as a phenomenon carries with it certain elements that could be detrimental to the population it serves.

Some societies bestow status on an individual or group of people when that individual or group performs an admired or desired action. This type of recognition is bestowed in the form of a name, title, manner of dress, or monetary reward. In many societies, adult male or female status is subject to a ritual or process of this type. Altruistic action in the interests of the larger group is seen in virtually all societies. The phenomena of community action, shunning, scapegoating, generosity, shared risk, and reward are common to many forms of society.

Types of societies[link]

Societies are social groups that differ according to subsistence strategies, the ways that humans use technology to provide needs for themselves. Although humans have established many types of societies throughout history, anthropologists tend to classify different societies according to the degree to which different groups within a society have unequal access to advantages such as resources, prestige, or power. Virtually all societies have developed some degree of inequality among their people through the process of social stratification, the division of members of a society into levels with unequal wealth, prestige, or power. Sociologists place societies in three broad categories: pre-industrial, industrial, and postindustrial.

Pre-industrial societies[link]

In a pre-industrial society, food production, which is carried out through the use of human and animal labor, is the main economic activity. These societies can be subdivided according to their level of technology and their method of producing food. These subdivisions are hunting and gathering, pastoral, horticultural, agricultural, and feudal.

Starting fire by hand. Bushmen in Botswana.

Hunting and gathering societies[link]

The main form of food production in such societies is the daily collection of wild plants and the hunting of wild animals. Hunter-gatherers move around constantly in search of food. As a result, they do not build permanent villages or create a wide variety of artifacts, and usually only form small groups such as bands and tribes. However, some hunting and gathering societies in areas with abundant resources (such as the Tlingit) lived in larger groups and formed complex hierarchical social structures such as chiefdoms. The need for mobility also limits the size of these societies. They generally consist of fewer than 60 people and rarely exceed 100. Statuses within the tribe are relatively equal, and decisions are reached through general agreement. The ties that bind the tribe are more complex than those of the bands. Leadership is personal—charismatic—and used for special purposes only in tribal society. There are no political offices containing real power, and a chief is merely a person of influence, a sort of adviser; therefore, tribal consolidations for collective action are not governmental. The family forms the main social unit, with most societal members being related by birth or marriage. This type of organization requires the family to carry out most social functions, including production and education.

Pastoral societies[link]

Pastoralism is a slightly more efficient form of subsistence. Rather than searching for food on a daily basis, members of a pastoral society rely on domesticated herd animals to meet their food needs. Pastoralists live a nomadic life, moving their herds from one pasture to another. Because their food supply is far more reliable, pastoral societies can support larger populations. Since there are food surpluses, fewer people are needed to produce food. As a result, the division of labor (the specialization by individuals or groups in the performance of specific economic activities) becomes more complex. For example, some people become craftworkers, producing tools, weapons, and jewelry. The production of goods encourages trade. This trade helps to create inequality, as some families acquire more goods than others do. These families often gain power through their increased wealth. The passing on of property from one generation to another helps to centralize wealth and power. Over time emerge hereditary chieftainships, the typical form of government in pastoral societies.

Horticultural societies[link]

Fruits and vegetables grown in garden plots that have been cleared from the jungle or forest provide the main source of food in a horticultural society. These societies have a level of technology and complexity similar to pastoral societies. Some horticultural groups use the slash-and-burn method to raise crops. The wild vegetation is cut and burned, and ashes are used as fertilizers. Horticulturists use human labor and simple tools to cultivate the land for one or more seasons. When the land becomes barren, horticulturists clear a new plot and leave the old plot to revert to its natural state. They may return to the original land several years later and begin the process again. By rotating their garden plots, horticulturists can stay in one area for a fairly long period of time. This allows them to build semipermanent or permanent villages. The size of a village's population depends on the amount of land available for farming; thus villages can range from as few as 30 people to as many as 2000.

As with pastoral societies, surplus food leads to a more complex division of labor. Specialized roles in horticultural societies include craftspeople, shamans (religious leaders), and traders. This role specialization allows people to create a wide variety of artifacts. As in pastoral societies, surplus food can lead to inequalities in wealth and power within horticultural political systems are developed because of the settled nature of horticultural life.

Ploughing with oxen in the 15th century.

Agrarian societies[link]

Agrarian societies use agricultural technological advances to cultivate crops over a large area. Sociologists use the phrase Agricultural Revolution to refer to the technological changes that occurred as long as 8,500 years ago that led to cultivating crops and raising farm animals. Increases in food supplies then led to larger populations than in earlier communities. This meant a greater surplus, which resulted in towns that became centers of trade supporting various rulers, educators, craftspeople, merchants, and religious leaders who did not have to worry about locating nourishment.

Greater degrees of social stratification appeared in agrarian societies. For example, women previously had higher social status because they shared labor more equally with men. In hunting and gathering societies, women even gathered more food than men. However, as food stores improved and women took on lesser roles in providing food for the family, they increasingly became subordinate to men. As villages and towns expanded into neighboring areas, conflicts with other communities inevitably occurred. Farmers provided warriors with food in exchange for protection against invasion by enemies. A system of rulers with high social status also appeared. This nobility organized warriors to protect the society from invasion. In this way, the nobility managed to extract goods from “lesser” members of society.

Cleric, knight and Peasant; an example of feudal societies

Feudal societies[link]

Feudalism was a form of society based on ownership of land. Unlike today's farmers, vassals under feudalism were bound to cultivating their lord's land. In exchange for military protection, the lords exploited the peasants into providing food, crops, crafts, homage, and other services to the landowner. The caste system of feudalism was often multigenerational; the families of peasants may have cultivated their lord's land for generations.

Industrial societies[link]

Between the 15th and 16th centuries, a new economic system emerged that began to replace feudalism. Capitalism is marked by open competition in a free market, in which the means of production are privately owned. Europe's exploration of the Americas served as one impetus for the development of capitalism. The introduction of foreign metals, silks, and spices stimulated great commercial activity in European societies.

Industrial societies rely heavily on machines powered by fuels for the production of goods. This produced further dramatic increases in efficiency. The increased efficiency of production of the industrial revolution produced an even greater surplus than before. Now the surplus was not just agricultural goods, but also manufactured goods. This larger surplus caused all of the changes discussed earlier in the domestication revolution to become even more pronounced.

Once again, the population boomed. Increased productivity made more goods available to everyone. However, inequality became even greater than before. The breakup of agricultural-based feudal societies caused many people to leave the land and seek employment in cities. This created a great surplus of labor and gave capitalists plenty of laborers who could be hired for extremely low wages.

Post-industrial societies[link]

Postindustrial societies are societies dominated by information, services, and high technology more than the production of goods. Advanced industrial societies are now seeing a shift toward an increase in service sectors over manufacturing and production. The U.S. is the first country to have over half of its work force employed in service industries. Service industries include government, research, education, health, sales, law, banking, and so on. It is still too early to identify and understand all the ramifications this new kind of society will have for social life. In fact, even the phrase "postindustrial" belies the fact that we don't yet quite know what will follow industrial societies or the forms they will take.

Contemporary usage[link]

The term "society" is currently used to cover both a number of political and scientific connotations as well as a variety of associations.

Western society[link]

The development of the Western world has brought with it the emerging concepts of Western culture, politics, and ideas, often referred to simply as "Western society. Geographically, it covers at the very least the countries of Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. It sometimes also includes Eastern Europe, South America, and Israel.

The cultures and lifestyles of all of these stem from Western Europe. They all enjoy relatively strong economies and stable governments, allow freedom of religion, have chosen democracy as a form of governance, favor capitalism and international trade, are heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian values, and have some form of political and military alliance or cooperation.^[6]

Information society[link]

World Summit on the Information Society, Geneva

Although the concept of information society has been under discussion since the 1930s, in the modern world it is almost always applied to the manner in which information technologies have impacted society and culture. It therefore covers the effects of computers and telecommunications on the home, the workplace, schools, government, and various communities and organizations, as well as the emergence of new social forms in cyberspace.^[7]

One of the European Union's areas of interest is the information society. Here policies are directed towards promoting an open and competitive digital economy, research into information and communication technologies, as well as their application to improve social inclusion, public services, and quality of life.^[8]

The International Telecommunications Union's World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva and Tunis (2003 and 2005) has led to a number of policy and application areas where action is required.^[9] These include:

• promotion of ICTs for development;
• information and communication infrastructure;
• access to information and knowledge;
• capacity building;
• building confidence and security in the use of ICTs;
• enabling environment;
• ICT applications in the areas of government, business, learning, health, employment, environment, agriculture and science;
• cultural and linguistic diversity and local content;
• media;
• ethical dimensions of the information society; and
• international and regional cooperation.

Knowledge society[link]

The Seoul Cyworld control room

As access to electronic information resources increased at the beginning of the 21st century, special attention was extended from the information society to the knowledge society. An analysis by the Irish government stated, "The capacity to manipulate, store and transmit large quantities of information cheaply has increased at a staggering rate over recent years. The digitisation of information and the associated pervasiveness of the Internet are facilitating a new intensity in the application of knowledge to economic activity, to the extent that it has become the predominant factor in the creation of wealth. As much as 70 to 80 percent of economic growth is now said to be due to new and better knowledge."^[10]

The Second World Summit on the Knowledge Society, held in Chania, Crete, in September 2009, gave special attention to the following topics:^[11]

• business and enterprise computing;
• technology-enhanced learning;
• social and humanistic computing;
• culture, tourism and technology;
• e-government and e-democracy;
• innovation, sustainable development, and strategic management;
• service science, management, and engineering;
• intellectual and human capital development;
• ICTs for ecology and the green economy;
• future prospects for the knowledge society; and
• technologies and business models for the creative industries.

Other uses[link]

People of many nations united by common political and cultural traditions, beliefs, or values are sometimes also said to form a society (such as Judeo-Christian, Eastern, and Western). When used in this context, the term is employed as a means of contrasting two or more "societies" whose members represent alternative conflicting and competing worldviews.

Some academic, professional, and scientific associations describe themselves as societies (for example, the American Mathematical Society, the American Society of Civil Engineers, or the Royal Society).

In some countries, e.g. the United States, France, and Latin America, the term "society' is used in commerce to denote a partnership between investors or the start of a business. In the United Kingdom, partnerships are not called societies, but co-operatives or mutuals are often known as societies (such as friendly societies and building societies).

See also[link]

Society portal

	Book: Society
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Effland, R. 1998. The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations Mesa Community College.
• Jenkins, R. 2002. Foundations of Sociology. London: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 0-333-96050-5.
• Lenski, G. 1974. Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology. New York: McGraw- Hill, Inc.
• Raymond Williams, "www.flpmihai.blogspot.com", in: Williams, Key Words: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Fontana, 1976.

External links[link]

Look up Society in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Society

• Society at the Open Directory Project
• Definition of Society from the OED.
• Lecture notes on "Defining Society" from East Carolina University.
• Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Industrial Revolution
• "The Day the World Took Off" Six part video series from the University of Cambridge tracing the question "Why did the Industrial Revolution begin when and where it did."
• BBC History Home Page: Industrial Revolution
• National Museum of Science and Industry website: machines and personalities
• Industrial Revolution and the Standard of Living by Clark Nardinelli - the debate over whether standards of living rose or fell.
• Cliff Notes on Types of Societies
• Perceptions of Knowledge, Knowledge Society, and Knowledge Management

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2012)

Kaley Cuoco
Cuoco at The Big Bang Theory panel at the 2008 Comic-Con convention
Born	Kaley Christine Cuoco (1985-11-30) November 30, 1985 (age 26) Camarillo, California, US
Residence	San Fernando Valley, California
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actress, voice actress
Years active	1992–present
Known for	8 Simple Rules Charmed The Big Bang Theory
Website
Twitter

Kaley Christine Cuoco ( /ˈkeɪliː ˈkwoʊkoʊ/ KAY-lee KWOH-koh; born November 30, 1985)^[1] is an American film and television actress. She first came to attention for her role as Bridget Hennessy on the Emmy Award-winning sitcom 8 Simple Rules (2002–2005). She later starred as Billie Jenkins on the final season of the supernatural drama series Charmed (2005–2006). She has gained international acclaim and recognition for her current role as Penny on the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning comedy series The Big Bang Theory (2007–present),^[1] which became the highest rated comedy on television among adults 18–49 for the 2009–10 season.^[2] Cuoco's success within the television industry has launched her film career, appearing in films such as Lucky 13 (2005), The Penthouse (2010), Hop (2011), and The Last Ride (2011).

Career[link]

As a child, Cuoco was once a nationally-ranked amateur tennis player, a sport she took up when she was three years old but had to give up when she was six.^[1] Her role as Maureen McCormick in the 2000 TV movie Growing Up Brady brought her much attention, as well as a role on the CBS sitcom Ladies Man. In 2004 in addition to her role on 8 Simple Rules in which she played a teenager, she had starring roles on the NBC miniseries, 10.5, on the ABC Family original movie, Crimes of Fashion, and in the independent film, Debating Robert Lee.^[1] In 2000 she starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie Alley Cats Strike.

Cuoco was named number 77 on FHM-Us 100 Sexiest Women in 2005 and number 21 in 2008.^[3] She was also named number 28 on Maxim's annual Hot 100 list in 2010 and number 13 in 2011.

She began voicing the character of Brandy Harrington on the Disney Channel's cartoon, Brandy and Mr. Whiskers, later in 2004.

Cuoco played Bridget Hennessy on the ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules. Bridget was the eldest child, despite Cuoco being six years younger than her on-screen little sister (Amy Davidson), and was portrayed as "the most beautiful girl in the school." She had several boyfriends throughout the series and used her feminine wiles to exert significant control over the boys she encountered.

In the eighth season of the hit cult TV show Charmed, Cuoco appeared as Billie Jenkins a young powerful witch who was also one of whitelighter Paige Matthews' charges. Executive producer Brad Kern stated Kaley's character was initially brought in as a possible spin-off. In 2004 Cuoco co-starred in the movie The Hollow with Nick Carter and Kevin Zegers.

In September 2007, Cuoco began a starring role in the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. She plays Penny, an aspiring actress and employee at The Cheesecake Factory who lives across the hall from two nerdy scientists, Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki). Prior to the 2010–2011 season, she earned $60,000 an episode for the series, the same as Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons. In 2010 the cast negotiated a raise for each actor to make $200,000 per episode.^[4] On September 13, 2010, she broke her leg in a horse-riding accident and missed two episodes of the series.^[5]

Cuoco also starred in the Lifetime film To Be Fat Like Me, which premiered on January 8, 2007.^[6] She also played a minor role in the Prison Break episodes "The Message" and "Chicago" as well as taking the leading female role in the comedy horror spoof Killer Movie in 2008.

In 2011 Cuoco appeared in Allure magazine's annual "Naked Truth" feature. The photograph, which appeared in the May issue, was taken by Patrick Demarchelier.^[7] That same year, she appeared in the films Hop and The Last Ride.^[8] She was also chosen to host both the 2011 Teen Choice Awards^[9] and the 2012 People's Choice Awards.^[10]

Personal life[link]

While working on The Big Bang Theory, Cuoco dated co-star Johnny Galecki for two years. They kept their relationship private until they broke up.^[11][12]

In October 2011 Cuoco announced her engagement to boyfriend Josh Resnik, an addiction specialist and former bassist for Danzig.^[13] However, in March 2012 she revealed that she was no longer engaged.^[14]

Filmography[link]

Awards[link]

References[link]