217

Year 217 (CCXVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Praesens and Extricatus (or, less frequently, year 970 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 217 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Events

By place

Roman Empire

Mario Kart

Mario Kart (マリオカート, Mario Kāto) is a series of go-kart-style racing video games developed and published by Nintendo as spin-offs from its trademark Super Mario series. The first in the series, Super Mario Kart, was launched in 1992 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System to critical and commercial success.

There have been five Mario Kart games released for home consoles, three portable games, and three Namco co-developed arcade games, for a total of eleven. The latest title in the series, Mario Kart 8, was released on Wii U in May 2014. The series has sold over 100 million copies worldwide to date.

History

The first title in the Mario Kart series is Super Mario Kart and was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992. The development of the first game was overseen by Shigeru Miyamoto, the Japanese video game designer who helped create the original Super Mario Bros., as well as many other successful games for Nintendo. Darran Jones of NowGamer suggests that the original success of Super Mario Kart was the result of including characters previously seen in Mario Bros. games, while also being a new type of racing game.

Mario Kart 8

Mario Kart 8 (Japanese: マリオカート8, Hepburn: Mario Kāto Eito) is a 2014 kart racing game and the eighth major installment in the Mario Kart series, developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii U video game console. First announced at E3 2013, the game was released worldwide in late May 2014.

Like other games in the series, in Mario Kart 8, players control characters from the Mario franchise and participate in kart racing on various race tracks, using items to hinder opponents or gain advantages. While incorporating game mechanics originally featured in earlier Mario Kart games, Mario Kart 8 introduces anti-gravity sections that allow players to drive on walls or ceilings. The game features multiple single-player and multiplayer game modes. The game incorporates Miiverse functionality and online multiplayer supported via Nintendo Network.

Mario Kart 8 was a critical and commercial success upon its release, currently holding aggregate critical scores of 88.52% and 88% on GameRankings and Metacritic, respectively. It is the fastest selling Wii U game as of June 30, 2014, with 1.2 million copies sold within the first four days of its release, and 2.82 million copies during its first month. It is the best-selling Wii U game with 7.24 million copies sold. The game has continued to receive post-release patches and downloadable content, including additional characters, vehicles, and tracks, and support for Nintendo's Amiibo line of figurines.

Crash Course

Crash Course (also known as Driving Academy) is a 1988 made for television teen film directed by Oz Scott.

Plot

Crash Course centers on a group of high schoolers in a driver’s education class; many for the second or third time. The recently divorced teacher, super-passive Larry Pearl, is on thin ice with the football fanatic principal, Principal Paulson, who is being pressured by the district superintendent to raise driver’s education completion rates or lose his coveted football program. With this in mind, Principal Paulson and his assistant, with a secret desire for his job, Abner Frasier, hire an outside driver’s education instructor with a very tough reputation, Edna Savage, aka E.W. Savage, who quickly takes control of the class.

The plot focuses mostly on the students and their interactions with their teachers and each other. In the beginning, Rico is the loner with just a few friends, Chadley is the bookish nerd with few friends who longs to be cool and also longs to be a part of Vanessa’s life who is the young, friendly and attractive girl who had to fake her mother’s signature on her driver’s education permission slip. Kichi is the hip-hop Asian kid who often raps what he has to say and constantly flirts with Maria, the rich foreign girl who thinks that the right-of-way on the roadways always goes to (insert awesomely fake foreign Latino accent) “my father’s limo”. Finally you have stereotypical football meathead J.J., who needs to pass his English exam to keep his eligibility and constantly asks out and gets rejected by Alice, the tomboy whose father owns “Santini & Son” Concrete Company. Alice is portrayed as being the “son” her father wanted.

Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire (Urdu: مغلیہ سلطنت‎, Mug̱ẖliyah Salṭanat) or Mogul Empire, self-designated as Gurkani (Persian: گورکانیان‎‎, Gūrkāniyān, meaning "son-in-law"), was an empire based in the Indian Subcontinent, established and ruled by a Muslim Persianatedynasty of Chagatai Turco-Mongol origin that extended over large parts of the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan.

The beginning of the empire is conventionally dated to the founder Babur's victory over Ibrahim Lodi, the last ruler of the Delhi Sultanate in the First Battle of Panipat (1526). The Mughal emperors were Central Asian Turco-Mongols belonging to the Timurid dynasty, who claimed direct descent from both Genghis Khan (founder of the Mongol Empire, through his son Chagatai Khan) and Timur (Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire). During the reign of Humayun, the successor of Babur, the empire was briefly interrupted by the Sur Empire. The "classic period" of the Mughal Empire started in 1556 with the ascension of Akbar the Great to the throne. Under the rule of Akbar and his son Jahangir, the region enjoyed economic progress as well as religious harmony, and the monarchs were interested in local religious and cultural traditions. Akbar was a successful warrior. He also forged alliances with several Hindu Rajput kingdoms. Some Rajput kingdoms continued to pose a significant threat to the Mughal dominance of northwestern India, but most of them were subdued by Akbar. All Mughal emperors were Muslims; while Akbar was Muslim most of this life, he followed a new religion in the latter part of his life called Deen-i-Ilahi, as recorded in historical books like Ain-e-Akbari and Dabestan-e Mazaheb.