X-Files, The
Created by executive producer Chris Carter and premiering September 10, 1993, the influential television series ran for nine seasons and earned 16 Emmy Awards, five Golden Globes and a Peabody Award along the way. The show followed FBI special agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder as they investigated unexplained cases, called “X-Files,” for which the explanations typically involved paranormal phenomena. Duchovny and Anderson will reunite on the air in January 2016 for a limited-run updated X-Files series, which remains one of the longest-running sci-fi series in network television history. The fan-favorite series spawned a big-screen movie, X-Files: I Want To Believe, in 2008, and six new television episodes in January and February 2016.
X-Men, The
Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics in September 1963, the characters first appeared in The X-Men #1 (September 1963)., the X-Men are a band of mutants, dedicated to protecting their fellow mutants, as well as the humans who sometimes fear or hate them.
X-ray
1. Any of the electromagnetic radiations that have shorter wavelengths than visible light (of less than 100 angstroms) and the capability to penetrate various thicknesses of solids, produce secondary radiations by impinging on material bodies, and to act on photographic films and plates as light does.
2. An image produced by X-ray beams after passing through a human body, which shows various internal components of the body, particularly the bones.
Xanadu
Mentioned in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1816 poem “Kublai Khan,” Xanadu was the name of the Mongol leader’s palace.
Xanadu, Madame
Madame Xanadu’s full name was once Nimue Inwudu. Youngest sister of famed Camelot figures Morgana (also known as Morgan Le Fay) and Vivienne (also known as the Lady of the Lake), the sisters were descendants of the Elder Folk, survivors of Atlantis who evolved into the race known as homo magi. She is the same Nimue who cast an imprisoning spell on her former lover Merlin, blaming him for manipulating Camelot and the course of history for his own gain. The mysterious Phantom Stranger influences her betrayal of Merlin and the two continue to meet throughout the centuries, sharing an complicated relationship. Nimue wanders around the world for some time, becoming an advisor to many great rulers. She spends time in Kublai Khan’s court at Xanadu, later borrowing its name for her alias. Again she meets the Phantom Stranger. It does not go as expected, for she learns the Stranger walks outside of the timestream. During the French Revolution, she attempts to advise Marie Antoinette. During this era, she is able to regain her immortality by besting Death in a card game. Madame Xanadu’s rapid aging intensified, and as a last effort to hold on, she looks into the future and saw that her team survives but her. After the ensuing war, the whole team survives and manages to come back to their own dimension. Upon returning, Madame Xanadu regains back her youth.
Madame Xanadu was created by David Michelinie, Val Mayerik and Michael William Kaluta. She debuted in Doorway to Nightmare #1, released by DC Comics on February 1, 1978. She has a supernatural sensitivity to occult activities and mystic phenomena. She uses tarot cards to interpret what she senses, and is also able to tell the future of others. She can levitate objects as well as herself. Through her own mystical prowess, she can teleport herself and others. Thanks to her deal with Death, Madame Xanadu is an immortal, never aging and unable to be killed in any manner.
Xbox
The notion that Microsoft should develop its own gaming console began gaining traction in 1998, after Kevin Bachus, Seamus Blackley, Otto Berkes and Ted Hase successfully pitched the idea to Bill Gates. Originally dubbed the “DirectX Box,” the console was intended to be the first game system built like a personal computer (PC), to bring all of the flexibility and power of a gaming rig to the console market. The system was to run on Windows 2000, to make it easy for traditional PC software developers to work within the console’s architecture, and feature more than twice the processing power of the industry-leading PlayStation 2. Two years later, Bill Gates went public with Microsoft’s console at the Game Developers Conference in March 2000. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo a few months later, the Xbox developer first connected with Bungie Studios, creators of a third-person shooter titled Halo: Combat Evolved. Microsoft’s $30 million purchase of Bungie a short time later made headlines in the game industry, but it was Bungie’s decision to adapt Halo in order to make the best use of the new console’s abilities (and turn it into a first-person shooter) that helped make history. Gates revealed the final Xbox design at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, along with the system’s official release date. On November 14, 2001, the Times Square branch of Toys ‘R’ Us played host to the official launch of the Xbox, and within three weeks, partially due to the popularity of its flagship game Halo, over 1 million Xbox consoles were sold. Despite high production costs, Microsoft slashed the price of the Xbox from $299 to $199 on April 18, 2002. While the dramatic reduction in price made it nearly impossible for the company to earn any profit whatsoever from sales of the system, the move succeeded in encouraging more households to bring home an Xbox.
Xenon
A colorless noble gas discovered in 1898 by Sir William Ramsay, the element was named after the Greek word for “stranger.” It is obtained from liquid air, and can be utilized in lamps and bubble chambers. Its atomic number on the Periodic Table of Elements is 54, and its symbol is Xe.
Xerxes
Xerxes I (pronounced “ZERK-seez”), also known as Xerxes the Great, lived from 519-465 BC. He was the grandson of Cyrus and the son of Darius I. Though he was not the first-born son of Darius, he was the first son of Darius’ wife Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, which made Xerxes the only son of royal blood, and therefore first in line for the throne. (Another explanation is that Xerxes was the first son born to Darius after he ascended to the throne, and therefore the first royal son.) Xerxes became king of the Persian Empire in 486 BC, following his father’s death from illness. During his reign, Xerxes suppressed a revolt in Egypt, fought against the Greeks in the Persian Wars (winning a victory at Thermopylae, but suffering defeat at Salamis), built a bridge across the Hellespont, and dug a canal across the Mt. Athos peninsula. Xerxes was stabbed to death, probably by his subordinate Artabanus, in 465 BC, and was succeeded by his son Artaxerxes I. In the popular 2006 film 300 and the 2014 follow-up, 300: Rise of an Empire, Xerxes was portrayed by Rodrigo Santoro.
Xindi
A group of related species, all of whom originated from the same homeworld, Xindus, located in the Delphic Expanse of the Star Trek universe. In 2153, the Xindi attacked Earth with a deadly probe, cutting a swath from Florida to Venezuela and killing 7 million. The small-scale test was to be followed by a larger weapon to destroy the planet entirely, in an attempt to pre-empt what the Xindi are told (through misinformation) would be an Earth attack on their own planet in 400 years. That “news,” however, was a lie by the Guardians to further their position in the war, and is finally realized by a majority of the Xindi in time to barely avoid the attack. In the mid-22nd Century, the Xindi Council was formed to reunify the surviving races, but their attention was diverted from a peaceful agenda to an aggressive one in order to address the alleged “human threat.” Despite their varied forms and typical mistrust, they all share a common physicality: a short vent-like opening in the “cheek.” The species was the focus of the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “The Xindi.”
Xipe Totec
Xipe Totec (pronounced SHEE-pah TOE-tek) or “Flayed One” in Nahuatl, was a major god for the Toltecs and Aztecs. He was considered the god of spring, the patron god of seeds and planting, and the patron of metal workers (especially goldsmiths) and gemstone workers. Possible origins include the Olmec culture and the Yope civilization. The first representations of the god in art, however, appear in the Mazapan culture at Texcoco. The god was a major Aztec deity, also worshipped by the Tlaxcaltecans, Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Tarascan and Huastecs.
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