Dora
Dora Márquez is the titular protagonist of the American children's animated television series Dora the Explorer, a bilingual Latina girl depicted as a seven-year-old explorer residing in a fantastical tropical setting.[1][2] Created by Nickelodeon and premiering on August 14, 2000, the series follows Dora's interactive quests with her monkey companion Boots, backpack, and map, where viewers are prompted to participate in solving puzzles, counting objects, and reciting Spanish phrases to overcome obstacles posed by antagonists like the thief Swiper.[3][4] This format emphasizes basic cognitive skills, cultural familiarity with Latin American elements, and direct address to the audience, distinguishing it from passive viewing in preschool programming.[5] The franchise achieved commercial success as one of Nickelodeon's flagship properties, spanning eight seasons until 2019, spawning merchandise, spin-offs like Dora and Friends: Into the City!, and a 2019 live-action film Dora and the Lost City of Gold, while drawing praise for pioneering representation of a Latina lead in mainstream U.S. children's media alongside critiques of repetitive structure and over-commercialization.[3][6]Arts and entertainment
Television
Dora the Explorer is an American animated children's television series produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio, featuring a bilingual Latina protagonist who leads interactive adventures aimed at preschool audiences.[7] The show debuted on Nickelodeon on August 14, 2000, and originally aired through June 5, 2014, spanning eight seasons and 178 episodes, with six additional unaired episodes broadcast in 2019.[8] Created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh Valdes, and Eric Weiner, it centers on seven-year-old Dora Marquez and her monkey companion Boots as they navigate problem-solving quests in a fantastical rainforest setting, incorporating Spanish vocabulary, mapping skills, and viewer participation prompts like repeating phrases or identifying objects.[4] The interactive format encourages children to engage directly, such as calling out directions to characters or selecting paths on a magical map, fostering early language acquisition and cognitive development.[9] The series received widespread acclaim for its educational value and cultural representation, earning a Daytime Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, NAACP Image Awards, ALMA Awards, and multiple Imagen Awards across its run.[10] It normalized bilingualism for young viewers by seamlessly blending English and Spanish without subtitles, contributing to its status as Nickelodeon's longest-running preschool series at the time.[11] Principal voice actors included Kathleen Herles as Dora from 2000 to 2010, followed by Fatima Ptacek, with Harrison Chad voicing Boots until 2010.[12] Spin-offs expanded the franchise, including Dora and Friends: Into the City! (2014–2017), which shifted focus to an older Dora in an urban environment with gadget-assisted adventures, and Go, Diego, Go!, centering on Dora's cousin Diego and animal rescue themes.[13] In 2024, Paramount+ launched a new original animated preschool series titled Dora, continuing the character's exploratory spirit with Boots and updated rainforest escapades; its second season premiered on September 13, 2024.[10] This iteration maintains the core bilingual and interactive elements while targeting modern streaming audiences.[14]Film
Dora and the Lost City of Gold is a 2019 American live-action adventure comedy film directed by James Bobin and written by Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robinson.[15] The film stars Isabela Moner as Dora Márquez, a teenage girl raised in the Peruvian jungle who attends high school in the United States before embarking on a quest with classmates and her monkey companion Boots to rescue her parents and locate the lost Incan city of gold, Parapata.[15] Produced by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies with a budget of $49 million, it earned $60.5 million in North America and $120.6 million worldwide.[16] Critics gave it mixed reviews, with a 63% approval rating on Metacritic, praising its self-aware humor and Moner's performance while noting uneven pacing.[17] A sequel, Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado, was released in 2025 as a live-action family adventure featuring Samantha Lorraine as Dora, alongside Diego and new characters, on a treasure hunt through the Amazon jungle.[18] Directed for Paramount+, it received a 5.4/10 average user rating on IMDb from over 1,500 votes, with viewers citing its family-friendly appeal but criticizing formulaic elements.[18] Dora (2017) is an Indian Tamil-language supernatural horror thriller directed by Doss Ramasamy, starring Nayanthara as a woman who acquires a possessed vintage car that seeks vengeance against criminals.[19] The film, produced by A. Sarkunam, follows the car's influence on a police officer and others, blending possession tropes with revenge motifs, and holds a 5.3/10 IMDb rating based on user feedback highlighting Nayanthara's strong lead role amid predictable plotting.[19] Dora (1933) is a British comedy short film directed by St. John Legh Clowes, depicting an American visitor in England navigating absurd restrictions under the Defence of the Realm Act.[20] Starring Sydney Fairbrother and Moore Marriott, it satirizes wartime regulations through humorous social frustrations.[20]Other uses in arts and entertainment
"Dora" serves as the title of a novel by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, first published in 1877, which follows the story of a young orphan girl named Dora, whose father dies from wounds sustained in war, exploring themes of loss, family, and resilience in 19th-century Switzerland.[21] Another literary work bearing the name is Dora: A Headcase (2012) by American author Lidia Yuknavitch, a postmodern retelling of Sigmund Freud's early 20th-century case study of his patient "Dora," narrated from her viewpoint and blending elements of adolescent rebellion, psychoanalysis critique, and experimental prose.[22] In the performing arts, the Dora Mavor Moore Awards—commonly known as the Doras—are Canada's oldest and largest professional honors for theatre, dance, and opera, administered annually by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts since their inception in 1978 to recognize excellence across Toronto's stages, with nominations drawn from over 150 eligible productions each year.[23][24] The 2025 edition, marking the 45th anniversary, featured 243 nominations across categories including outstanding production and individual performances.[25] Independent video games titled or featuring "Dora" include Dora Diginoid (2022), a free Metroidvania-style action-adventure developed using the Godot engine, in which players control secret agent Dora navigating Base 17, equipping weapons to combat cyborg enemies in a sci-fi setting.[26]Military
Weapons and equipment
The Dora, formally designated as the second Krupp K(E) 80 cm railway gun of the Schwerer Gustav class, was a super-heavy siege artillery piece designed for breaching fortified positions with extreme destructive power. Developed by Friedrich Krupp AG in the late 1930s under contract from the German Army Ordnance Office, it featured a 80 cm (31.5-inch) caliber rifled barrel measuring 32.5 meters (106 feet 8 inches) in length, with an overall gun length of 47.3 meters (155 feet 2 inches) when assembled.[27][28] The complete system weighed approximately 1,350 tonnes (1,490 short tons), necessitating reinforced railway tracks and specialized assembly procedures involving multiple railcars for transport.[29][30] Its primary ammunition consisted of two main types: armor-piercing concrete-piercing shells weighing 7,100 kg (15,650 lb) with a range of up to 38 km (23.6 miles), capable of penetrating over 7 meters (23 feet) of reinforced concrete; and high-explosive shells weighing 4,800 kg (10,580 lb) with a maximum range of 47 km (29 miles), propelled by 2,240 kg (4,938 lb) of explosive charge.[31][27] Shells measured up to 4.2 meters (13 feet 9 inches) in length and were loaded via an overhead crane system, limiting the rate of fire to one round every 30-45 minutes under optimal conditions, or a maximum of 14 rounds per day.[27] The gun employed a hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism to absorb the immense firing forces, which generated muzzle velocities exceeding 820 m/s (2,690 ft/s) for high-explosive rounds.[28] Supporting equipment included a complex mounting system on a Vögele turning platform for traverse (up to 4 degrees left or right), elevation up to 50 degrees via electric motors, and extensive auxiliary infrastructure such as anti-aircraft defenses, searchlights, and generator cars for power.[27] Operation required a crew of approximately 2,450 personnel, including gunners, loaders, railway engineers, and support staff, with the barrel relined after every 70 rounds due to extreme wear from the high pressures and temperatures involved.[32] Despite its engineering feats, the system's immobility—requiring weeks for positioning and vulnerable to air attack—rendered it logistically impractical beyond static siege roles, as demonstrated during its deployment at Sevastopol in June 1942, where it fired 48 rounds before Allied bombing forced relocation.[30]People
Notable individuals
Dora Carrington (29 March 1893 – 11 March 1932) was an English painter and decorative artist associated with the Bloomsbury Group, where she trained at the Slade School of Art and developed her style influenced by post-Impressionism.[33] Her works often featured landscapes and portraits, and she is noted for her complex personal relationships within the group, including a longstanding partnership with writer Lytton Strachey.[33] Dora Maar (born Henriette Théodora Markovitch, 22 November 1907 – 16 July 1997) was a French photographer, painter, and poet of Croatian-French descent, who grew up in Buenos Aires before training in Paris and contributing to Surrealism through experimental street photography and portraits.[34] She documented social scenes in Paris and London from 1930 to 1934, blending documentary techniques with Surrealist elements, and later became known for her association with Pablo Picasso, whom she met in 1935 and photographed extensively during the creation of Guernica.[35] [34] Dora Bryan (born Dora May Broadbent, 7 February 1923 – 23 July 2014) was an English stage, film, and television actress whose career spanned over six decades, beginning in the 1940s with roles in films like The Fallen Idol (1948).[36] She received the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress for her performance as the mother in A Taste of Honey (1961), a role that highlighted her versatility in portraying working-class characters with humor and pathos.[36] Dora Bakoyannis (born 6 May 1954) is a Greek politician and member of New Democracy, serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2009—the first woman to hold that position—and as Mayor of Athens from 2002 to 2006, the first female in the city's history to do so.[37] [38] Elected to the Hellenic Parliament since 1989, she has advocated for European integration and a firm stance against terrorism.[38]Fictional characters
Dora Márquez serves as the protagonist of the American animated children's television series Dora the Explorer, which premiered on Nickelodeon on August 14, 2000.[39] Depicted as a 7-year-old bilingual Latina girl living in a rainforest, she leads adventures with her monkey companion Boots, utilizing interactive elements to teach preschool viewers basic Spanish words, geography, and problem-solving through tools like her talking backpack and map.[39] The character embodies curiosity and perseverance, often overcoming obstacles posed by antagonists such as the fox Swiper, while promoting themes of exploration and cultural familiarity.[39] In Charles Dickens' semi-autobiographical novel David Copperfield, serialized from May 1849 to November 1850, Dora Spenlow is introduced as the charming yet intellectually immature daughter of Mr. Spenlow, a proctor.[40] She becomes the protagonist David Copperfield's first wife after a whirlwind courtship, but her childlike demeanor and aversion to household management strain their marriage, leading to her early death in childbirth.[40] Dickens portrays Dora as affectionate and decorative, symbolizing idealized youthful beauty that proves unsustainable in adult realities.[41] Dora Winifred "D.W." Read is a recurring character in Marc Brown's Arthur children's book series, originating with Arthur's Nose in 1976, and its PBS animated adaptation that debuted on October 7, 1996. As the 4-year-old human sister of the aardvark Arthur Read, she often displays bossy and imaginative traits, engaging in sibling rivalries while highlighting family dynamics in everyday suburban settings. Her full name underscores a diminutive yet persistent presence in narratives focused on moral lessons and social interactions among school-aged friends.Places
United States
Dora, Alabama, is a city located in Walker County, with a population of 2,617 residents as of 2023 and a median household income of $61,276.[42] The area has historical ties to coal mining, reflected in local attractions such as the Alabama Mining Museum housed in the former Dora High School, which preserves artifacts and exhibits on the region's mining heritage.[43] Additional amenities include the Horse Creek Golf Course at 1745 Highway 78, offering recreational facilities amid a suburban-rural setting.[43] Dora, Missouri, is an unincorporated community in Ozark County, served by ZIP code 65637 and situated in a rural area conducive to outdoor activities like fishing, canoeing, and hunting in nearby rivers, lakes, and national forests.[44] The community supports the Dora R-III School District, which operates from facilities including an elementary and high school at 613 County Road 379.[45] Dora, New Mexico, is a village in Roosevelt County, approximately 14 miles south of Portales along New Mexico Highway 206, with a population of 113 projected for 2025 following a decline from 117 in the 2020 census.[46] [47] Established around 1905 with roots in the territorial era, it provides essential services such as fire and emergency medical response, alongside a senior center, emphasizing its small-town community structure in the High Plains region.[48]Other countries
In Cyprus, Dora is a village in the Limassol District, located approximately 40 kilometers northwest of Limassol in a wine-producing region; archaeological evidence points to ancient settlements in the area.[49] The settlement sits at an elevation above 600 meters and features rural characteristics typical of Cypriot inland villages.[50] In Lebanon, Dora functions as a suburb in the Matn District of Mount Lebanon Governorate, situated northeast of Beirut and encompassing commercial and residential zones.[51] Geographical records indicate Dora as a place name for at least 30 localities across 20 countries outside the United States, predominantly small villages or districts in Africa (e.g., Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan), Asia (e.g., Iraq, Pakistan, India), and Europe (e.g., Russia, Ukraine, Turkey).[52] These include Dora in Baghdad, Iraq, a urban district; multiple instances in Nigeria's Taraba, Katsina, and Borno states; and several in Russia's Vologda, Tver, Sakha, and Novgorod regions, often rural or remote.[52]Science and technology
Computing and metrics
The DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) metrics consist of four key indicators designed to measure the performance of software delivery and operations teams in computing environments.[53] Originating from a long-running empirical research program initiated around 2014 and now part of Google Cloud, DORA's metrics emphasize both throughput—how quickly changes are delivered—and stability—how reliably they perform—challenging the notion that speed inherently compromises quality.[54] These metrics are derived from surveys of thousands of professionals and validated against organizational outcomes, such as profitability and market share, revealing that high performers excel across all four without trade-offs.[53] The metrics are typically assessed per application or service, using data from version control systems, deployment pipelines, and incident tracking tools.[55] Teams are classified as elite, high, medium, or low performers based on empirical thresholds established through DORA's annual State of DevOps reports, with elite status correlating to superior agility and resilience.[53] Deployment frequency measures how often code changes are successfully deployed to production, reflecting the responsiveness of the delivery pipeline.[53] It is calculated as the number of deployments per a given time period, often normalized to a weekly or daily rate.[55] Elite performers achieve multiple deployments per day on demand, while low performers deploy less than once per month.[53] Lead time for changes tracks the duration from a code commit to its deployment in production, indicating end-to-end delivery efficiency.[53] This metric uses timestamps from commit and deployment events, with the median time reported to account for variability.[55] Elite teams report less than one hour, compared to over one month for low performers.[53] Change failure rate quantifies the proportion of deployments that result in failures requiring remediation, such as hotfixes or rollbacks, serving as a proxy for deployment reliability.[53] It is computed as the number of failed changes divided by total changes deployed, expressed as a percentage.[55] Elite levels range from 0% to 15%, whereas low performers exceed 46%.[53] Time to restore service (also known as mean time to recovery) measures the elapsed time to recover from a production failure, assessing operational resilience.[53] Calculation involves the difference between incident detection and resolution timestamps across incidents.[55] Elite recovery occurs in less than one hour, in contrast to over one month for low performers.[53]| Metric | Elite Performers | High Performers | Medium Performers | Low Performers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deployment Frequency | Multiple per day | Once per day | Once per week | Less than once per month |
| Lead Time for Changes | <1 hour | <1 day | <1 week | >1 month |
| Change Failure Rate | 0-15% | 16-30% | 31-45% | >46% |
| Time to Restore Service | <1 hour | <1 day | <1 week | >1 month |