Álmos

Álmos (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈaːlmoʃ]), also Almos or Almus, (c. 820–c. 895) was – according to the uniform account of Hungarian chronicles – the first head of the "loose federation" of the Hungarian tribes from around 850. Whether he was the sacred ruler (kende) of the Hungarians, or their military leader (gyula) is subject to scholarly debate. He apparently accepted the Khazar khagan's suzerainty in the first decade of his reign, but the Hungarians acted independently of the Khazars from around 860. The 14th-century Illuminated Chronicle narrates that he was murdered in Transylvania at the beginning of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 895.

Ancestry

Anonymus, the unknown author of the Gesta Hungarorum – who wrote his "historical romance" around 1200 or 1210 – states that Álmos descended "from the line" of Attila the Hun. A late 13th-century chronicler, Simon of Kéza wrote that Álmos was "of the Turul kindred". He also wrote of Attila the Hun's banner, which bore "the image of the bird the Hungarians call turul" – identified as either a gyrfalcon or a hawk. A bird has an important role in the legend about Álmos's birth, which was preserved both by the Gesta Hungarorum and by the Illuminated Chronicle. The legend says that Álmos's mother, already pregnant with him, dreamed of a bird of prey "which had the likeness of a hawk" impregnating her. Historians Gyula Kristó and Victor Spinei wrote that this story, which has close analogies in Turkic folklore, initially narrated the origin of Álmos's family from a totemic ancestor.

Sesame Street

Sesame Street is a long-running American children's television series created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett. The program is known for its educational content, and images communicated through the use of Jim Henson's Muppets, animation, short films, humor, and cultural references. The series premiered on November 10, 1969, to positive reviews, some controversy, and high viewership; it has aired on the U.S.'s national public television provider (PBS) since its debut, with its first run moving to premium channel HBO on January 16, 2016.

The show has undergone significant changes throughout its history. The format of Sesame Street consists of a combination of commercial television production elements and techniques which have evolved to reflect the changes in American culture and the audience's viewing habits. With the creation of Sesame Street, producers and writers of a children's television show used, for the first time, educational goals and a curriculum to shape its content. It was also the first time a show's educational effects were studied.

Elmo's World

"Elmo's World" is a fifteen-minute-long segment that was shown at the end of the children's television program Sesame Street. It premiered in late 1998 as part of the show's structural changes, designed to appeal to younger viewers and to increase ratings, which had fallen in the past decade. The segment was developed out of a series of workshops that studied the changes in the viewing habits of their audience, and the reasons for the show's lower ratings. "Elmo's World" used traditional elements of production, but had a more sustained narrative. It was presented from the perspective of a three-year-old child as represented by its host, the Muppet Elmo, who was performed by Kevin Clash. In 2002, Sesame Street's producers changed the rest of the show to reflect its younger demographic and the increase in their viewers' sophistication.

Long-time writer Judy Freudberg came up with the concept of "Elmo's World", and writer Tony Geiss and executive producer Arlene Sherman helped develop it. Instead of the realism of the rest of the show, the segment presented Elmo moving between and combining two worlds of live action and computer-generated animation, which looked like "a child's squiggly crayon drawing come to life" created by the host, and with "a stream-of-consciousness feel to it". Elmo's pet goldfish Dorothy and the members of the Noodle family were silent in order to allow Elmo to do all the talking, and to give children the opportunity to respond to what they saw on the screen.