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Dylan McAvoy
| 1,149,047,595 |
Fictional character in The Young and the Restless
|
[
"Fictional War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) veterans",
"Male characters in television",
"Television characters introduced in 2013",
"The Young and the Restless characters"
] |
Dylan McAvoy is a fictional character from The Young and the Restless, an American soap opera on the CBS network, portrayed by Steve Burton. Dylan first appeared on January 29, 2013. He is initially involved in a story arc involving Avery Bailey Clark (Jessica Collins), his former lover who believes he died during the war in Afghanistan. Avery is stunned by Dylan's return, but remains in a relationship with Nicholas Newman (Joshua Morrow). Burton noted the extreme differences between Dylan and his General Hospital character Jason Morgan. The actor was able to have a new wardrobe and look. While Jason was confined and "Stone Cold", Dylan has been credited by Burton as allowing him to portray his lighter side in addition to more of his own personality. The character was later paired with Chelsea Lawson (Melissa Claire Egan); their short-lived romance and marriage received negative reviews from viewers and critics alike.
In October 2013, it was revealed that Dylan is in fact the long-lost son of Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott), Nicholas' mother, making them half-brothers. In June 2014, it was revealed that Dylan's biological father is Nikki's childhood friend, and chief of police, Paul Williams (Doug Davidson). Later, Dylan establishes a relationship with Nicholas' former wife, Sharon Newman (Sharon Case), whom he eventually marries. Burton's performance earned him a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2014 and 2016, winning the award in 2017. In October 2016, Burton announced his decision to not renew his deal with The Young and the Restless. He made his final appearance on January 27, 2017.
## Casting
In October 2012, Burton departed the role of fan favorite Jason Morgan on ABC Daytime's General Hospital. That November, news broke that The Young and the Restless put out a casting call for a character named Dylan, who was slated to "hit the airwaves" in early 2013. The casting call described him as a "rugged, dynamic, energetic man in his mid-30s" who "comes from humble, blue-collar beginnings, was studying to be an architect when his construction/contractor father was injured and Dylan had to drop out of college to take over the business. He's done two tours of duty in the Middle East, army special ops. The war left a mark on him. He's done his best to bury it with optimism and a wry, sometimes offbeat sense of humor".
After the casting call was issued, there was brief speculation that the character was a recast for Chance Chancellor, who was also a war veteran. Later, Burton's name was attached to the role. During an appearance on The Talk the following January, Burton officially confirmed that he was cast as Dylan. The episode of The Talk was described as "phenomenal"; Burton had no idea it would have been "New Year's Eve kinda crazy." After one of the show's co-hosts Julie Chen made the announcement of his casting and welcomed Burton to the CBS family, confetti dropped while another co-host Sheryl Underwood did a "wild happy dance". Burton said, "I had no idea about the CBS badge or the welcome basket, or anything. That’s not how I think. I understood why CBS did it, because it’s a big deal. I get it. It’s so strange for me, because I have never been one for all this publicity. They have been so gracious to me, and it was so overwhelming that they would do something like that." Burton made his first on-screen appearance during the episode dated January 29, 2013. He attributed much of his success going back to the 1990s when he studied acting at Theater Theater in Hollywood, California, coached by Chris Aable.
Burton's casting attracted a significant amount of media attention. The Hollywood Reporter's Lesley Goldberg noted that it reunited Burton with executive producer Jill Farren Phelps, who was previously the executive producer of General Hospital. Speaking about the decision to cast him, Phelps told TV Guide that the casting department were seeing several actors for the role, and the thought of Burton was "just a dream". She then contacted his manager and together they were "able to make it work out so that Steve could continue to have the life he wants in Nashville."
Discussing his decision to join The Young and the Restless, Burton said on The Talk, "I told my manager if I can keep my family there and I can spend time with them and come back and forth, I would do that in a second. Without hesitation, CBS Daytime made that deal. Really quickly. This is crazy, but I'm just so happy to have the best of both worlds for my family, because before, I couldn't." Burton was happy with the flexibility of his "short term" contract, "I'll get a lot of long weekends and frequent weeks off so I can get back to Nashville. I don't want to work five days a week like I did at GH", he said during a TV Guide interview. The actor said he had "those first-day-of-school jitters" when he first arrived at the CBS building, but was welcomed by everyone. A week before Burton's debut on the series, a promotional ad aired, teasing his arrival with the slogan Daytime's Hottest Soap Just Got Hotter!. In November 2014, Burton announced he had re-signed for another year with the soap.
On October 6, 2016, Burton announced via-social media that he would not renew his deal with the soap, and would exit the role of Dylan.
## Development
### Characterization and portrayal
Burton "loved the idea" of playing a character "very different" from Jason Morgan, who was characterized as "Stone Cold". The role of Dylan allowed him to wear colors other than black, which he was famed for at General Hospital. Of returning to daytime television without Jason Morgan's "uniform" and "black T-shirt", Burton described the experience as "refreshing". Explaining his wardrobe process, he said: "I never had to try stuff on. I'm not used to wardrobe fittings. I had to try on about 20 different outfits! That was really grueling. It was important to shake the leather coat and black t-shirt and do my hair different, because I know people are always going to see me as Jason."
Burton revealed that Dylan is "a lot more" like himself. "Jason was so stoic and didn't really get to show a lot of personality, unless it was with Spinelli or Sam," he said. Dylan has a sense of humor, and the actor felt that it would bring out a "lighter side" of his acting. In addition to his "entire makeover" which included a new hairstyle, Burton lost weight to play Dylan, as the costume department wanted him to look younger. Burton admitted during an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he was worried about how Dylan would be received, considering the "persona" of Jason is out there; he hoped "people will buy" Dylan, although some people would say "You are Jason and that's it." Burton told Yahoo! that: "[Dylan is] extremely different. That's the biggest thing for me, that after playing a character, which I loved, for 21 years, coming here and trying to do something different - 'cause I know fans are always gonna see me as that character if they watch the show and if they watch both shows... So, it's definitely a challenge because I was so used to playing that character." Jason's "confined" ways allowed Dylan to have a "little more" of Burton's own personality.
Before his debut, Phelps revealed that Dylan was "greatly traumatized by what happened to him in Afghanistan" and had been "severely injured" but rescued, which is why people believed he had died. Along with being a war veteran, Dylan takes over his family's construction business.
### Relationships
Upon Burton's casting, it was revealed by MSN that Dylan, who was described as "the mysterious ex Avery keeps bringing up" by Jillian Bowe of Zap2it, would be involved in a love triangle with his ex-girlfriend Avery Bailey Clark (Jessica Collins) and her current lover, Nicholas Newman (Joshua Morrow). Of Dylan's storyline and involvement in the love triangle, Phelps said: "Dylan does come to town to find Avery but this story has much more complexity than that [...] What you think is going to happen is not what's going to happen." She noted that Avery was the "great love of his life", though she may not have "the same feelings for him." Avery believed that Dylan died during war; TVLine commented that "such a resurrection" would "surely" derail her romance with Nick. During an interview with MSN, Burton said, "Nick and Dylan will definitely fight for her, but ultimately, it's going to be her choice." Dylan and Avery had an affair while she was still married to her ex-husband, but still had a "great relationship", which was shown through flashbacks. Dylan's primary goal in coming to Genoa City was to make sure she was happy, and if she wanted to get back together. Burton said that Dylan can't get Avery off his mind despite the fact that she had moved on.
Fans of the show speculated that Dylan would be paired with Nick's ex-wife, Sharon Newman (Sharon Case), to which Case responded by stating, "Everybody’s speculating about Dylan, the new character coming to town but, all I can say is, I think it’s fun because it’s a hoot to speculate". Luke Kerr of Zap2it noted how fast Dylan met Sharon, and said they could potentially be a "popular pairing with fans". Of working with Case, Burton stated: "Sharon Case is actually very fun, and she makes me laugh. So half the time in scenes where I am laughing, I am really laughing at Sharon! She has that personality where she makes me laugh." He also noted that fans of the show on Twitter have seen how "comfortable" and "easy" the character's on-screen relationship is. Dylan later shares a one-night stand with Chelsea Lawson (Melissa Claire Egan), who was pregnant with Adam Newman's (Michael Muhney) child; she decides to pass the baby off as Dylan's, and the two later marry. Egan described the character's decision to keep the child's paternity a secret as a "ticking time bomb". Burton stated that Dylan is "not the sharpest tool in the shed", since he believed what Chelsea was telling him. When asked about the child, Burton said: "This kid is everything to him, so once we figure out whose it is, if it’s not his, it’s not going to be a good situation for anybody." When asked if Dylan could forgive Chelsea, Burton added: "That’s a tough one. I don’t know what kind of mental state this is going to put Dylan in, to even think about that."
### Maternity reveal
In October 2013, it was revealed on-screen that Dylan is in fact the long-lost son of Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott). Scott had previously previewed her upcoming storyline in an interview with On-Air On-Soaps, stating: "I love this story! Now, I don’t know how it’s all going to turn out, but the premise, the people I get to work with, and the writing, has been spectacular. That’s all you need; good actors performing a good script, and our fabulous new directing team, and I love them all. I have not been this happy at work in a while." Burton stated in an interview that he enjoyed the plot twist, and compared it to Jason Morgan being Monica Quartermaine's (Leslie Charleson) son on General Hospital. He said that he felt a connection while working with Scott, stating: "There is vulnerability there between us, and it’s not on purpose. It’s just something that is there. It was actually kind of there before it happened that we were on-screen mother and son." In a separate interview with Michael Logan of TV Guide, Scott stated: "Nikki thinks she has come up with a good way of having everyone informed in the kindest way possible. If it were me, I would think, "I can only go through this once. It's too emotional! Let's sit everybody down at the same time and get it over with." Nikki had intended to reveal the news privately to Dylan but that opportunity never comes up." Speaking of how the revelation would affect Nicholas, Scott added, "She feels very badly about Nick losing Avery but not bad enough that she doesn't expect Nick to play nice and accept this man — not necessarily as a brother but still as a member of the family. She expects him to find a way to be civil. She wants everyone to be happy together." Speculation also arose that Nikki's son could be Dylan's best friend Stitch Rayburn (Sean Carrigan), to which Scott teased, "Maybe that's coming. Nikki had cult twins! You never know. I think Sean Carrigan could believably play my son. I think he looks a little like me, probably more like me than Steve Burton does."
## Storylines
Dylan McAvoy grew up in Darien, Connecticut, and befriended Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford) during his childhood. He moved to Chicago and as a young adult took over his father's construction company after he became injured in an accident. He did construction work for Phyllis' sister, defense attorney Avery Bailey Clark (Jessica Collins). Avery's husband, Joe, neglected her and she began an affair with Dylan. Before being deployed overseas with the U.S. Army, Dylan buys Avery a ring and asks her to leave her husband for him, but she refuses, wanting to work on her marriage. Later, Joe finds out about the affair and divorces Avery. While reading a newspaper months later, Avery discovers that Dylan had been killed in Afghanistan during the war. She moves to Genoa City and begins a relationship with Phyllis' ex-husband, Nicholas Newman (Joshua Morrow). After acting mysterious about her past, Avery admits to Nick that she had an affair with Dylan, who had died.
In 2013, Dylan arrives in Genoa City, having survived the war and wanting to make sure Avery is happy. He runs into Sharon Newman (Sharon Case), Nick's ex-wife who gives him directions to Nick's club, The Underground. While posing under the name "Mack", Dylan gets a job as bartender at The Underground, so he could see Avery from afar. During The Underground's opening night, Avery sees a rock which she gave to Dylan years ago sitting on the bar. She later goes to the basement and comes face to face with Dylan. In a state of confusion, shock and disbelief, Avery hides her emotions when Nick closely follows. Later, she confronts Dylan at his apartment, angry for not telling her he was alive earlier. She tells Nick about this, who fires Dylan. Despite spending a friendly night with Dylan, Avery chooses to remain with Nick, leaving Dylan shattered.
While driving out of town, Dylan's car collides with Sharon's during a major snowstorm. She calls an ambulance, as Dylan shouts for someone named "Sully". Dylan is taken to the hospital where it is revealed Sully was Sullivan, a friend of his who was shot and killed in Afghanistan while trying to shove Dylan a weapon. Sharon hires Dylan as a contractor to fix her roof, and entire kitchen, after it is damaged by the storm. Dylan bonds with Sharon's daughter Faith Newman (Alyvia Alyn Lind). During a hike in the snow with Dylan and Faith, Sharon injures her leg and Faith goes missing briefly; Dylan manages to find her. Sharon and Dylan grow closer.
Later, Dylan's father's (Steve Gagnon) condition worsens, and Dylan brings him to Genoa City so he can keep an eye on him while working on Sharon's kitchen. His father dies, and he finishes Sharon's kitchen, and decides to leave town. However, he has a one-night stand with Chelsea Lawson (Melissa Claire Egan), who is already pregnant and considering finding a fake father for her child, as she was divorcing the child's real father, Adam Newman (Michael Muhney). Dylan comforts Avery when she is being followed by men working for Marcus Wheeler (Mark Pinter), as a result of a dangerous case she is working on. Later, Dylan gets into a fight at Jimmy's Bar and is arrested. Avery pays his bail, but he can't leave town for another month until his hearing date, angering Nick. Chelsea then decides to pass her child off as Dylan's, and the two begin a genuine relationship despite Adam's suspicions that the child is actually his. Dylan later moves Chelsea into his new loft and proposes to her, to which she accepts, and he then arranges an impromptu wedding. Following the ceremony, Chelsea goes into labor and Dylan delivers the child, whom they name Terrence Connor McAvoy, after Dylan's father. However, the marriage ends when Dylan learns that Connor is Adam's son, not his. He also gets another shock when he discovers that he was adopted, and that his birth mother is none other than Nick's mother, Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott).
## Reception
### Casting
In December 2012, while Burton's casting was only rumored, Deanna Barnert of MSN's TV Buzz Blog wrote: "Assuming Burton actually comes to The Young and the Restless, the biggest question on everyone's mind is whether the former mob hit man will show up as a good guy, play another a toughie with a heart or go pure villain." Barnert also said it would be "interesting" to see whether "[Burton's] legion of fans from Port Charles will follow him to Genoa City." Jill Farren Phelps developed a reputation and "bad rap" because she "uses people" according to Mark Pinter, an actor and friend of Phelps who had been hired by her to portray Marcus Wheeler on The Young and the Restless. Barnert noted that Burton is "someone who has made his allegiance to Phelps clear" which is why "many fans" had expected him to show up in Genoa City "eventually". TV Guide's Michael Logan had also weighed in on the rumors, calling Burton's "willingness" to work in Los Angeles after leaving General Hospital to live in Nashville a "puzzler". Logan suggested that there could have been more to his decision to quit General Hospital. Stephen Nichols, who had portrayed Tucker McCall on The Young and the Restless for over three years, was fired that December. Logan said Phelps, who was "under orders" to trim the show's budget, may have fired Nichols in order to afford Burton in lieu of him.
Once news of Burton's official casting broke, fans of General Hospital reacted with disappointment and mixed feelings, unaware of his reasoning. While some fans were willing to support his move, others felt "duped". Burton felt that reactions from people who knew the story were "good", but it was at first "difficult".
When asked by TV Guide if he would've remained on General Hospital had the show's producers "tried harder" to accommodate his personal life, Burton stated: "I don't want to point fingers. I know there are a lot of disappointed fans. They don't really understand what goes on behind the doors. They don't understand why I wouldn't go back to play Jason if I'm ready to work again. But what happens at GH should stay at GH." Phelps dismissed rumors that she has "lured" Burton away from General Hospital. While clarifying rumors about him leaving General Hospital because of Phelps' appointment as executive producer of The Young and the Restless, Burton described them as "interesting". He told On-Air On-Soaps that he knew people would try to put "two and two together", but it was never his intention to leave General Hospital purposely, as he just couldn't reach a contractual agreement with the show. "It’s just like a sports player...when a deal does not work out with his team, there might be another team out there that might want him," Burton said. During the week Burton debuted on the series as Dylan, the show experienced an increase of over 105,000 viewers, averaging 4.7 million viewers. Michael Fairman, during an interview with Burton, noted the "significant increase" in viewers, which Burton was a "big reason" for.
### Performance and storylines
Burton's portrayal of Dylan has been generally well received. The character's romance with Chelsea Lawson (Melissa Claire Egan), however, garnered a negative response from viewers and critics alike. Luke Kerr of Zap2it wrote that their storyline was "everyone’s favorite storyline for curing insomnia". Despite negative reviews, Burton's portrayal during the storyline was praised, specifically by journalist Connie Passalacqua Hayman, who wrote: "But it was Steve Burton as Dylan who stole the show with Dylan’s tearful and very sensitive reaction to the news, as his character loves what he believed to be his baby very much." When the truth about the paternity of Chelsea's child was revealed, Michael Fairman of On-Air On-Soaps remarked (in reference to Burton), "When the truth came out it provided some meaty material for this fan favorite." Sara Bibel of Xfinity gave a mixed review when Dylan was revealed as Nikki's son, writing: "However, the foreshadowing that Dylan (Steve Burton) is going to turn out to be Nikki’s long-lost son is so heavy-handed that it seems hard to believe that the show is going in any other direction. Dylan is the right age. He looks like he could be related to Nikki. The character is in desperate need of a more ties to the canvas; being Avery’s ex is not enough to keep him in town, much less front-and-center. My big objection to this twist is, what’s the actual story? We have spent months learning every single thing about this character who probably would not exist if Y&R hadn’t jumped at the chance to poach Burton from GH." She added: "Dylan would get a mother to replace his father that passed away. Nikki would get a child who can use his carpentry skills to build her a nice bookcase. That’s sweet, but it’s a situation, not a plot. There really aren’t any consequences. Nick would be angry that the guy he’s convinced Avery still loves is his half-brother, but he already has one half-brother he despises. Another one really isn’t a big deal." Burton's portrayal earned him a nomination for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2014 and 2016.
|
5,001,816 |
New York State Route 8
| 1,136,935,778 |
Highway in New York, USA
|
[
"State highways in New York (state)",
"Transportation in Chenango County, New York",
"Transportation in Delaware County, New York",
"Transportation in Hamilton County, New York",
"Transportation in Herkimer County, New York",
"Transportation in Madison County, New York",
"Transportation in Oneida County, New York",
"Transportation in Otsego County, New York",
"Transportation in Warren County, New York"
] |
New York State Route 8 (NY 8) is a 207.45-mile-long (333.86 km) north-south state highway in the central part of New York in the United States. It runs in a southwest-to-northeast direction from the Southern Tier to the northern part of Lake George. The southern terminus of the route is at an interchange with NY 17, where it begins concurrent with NY 10 in the town of Deposit. Its northern terminus is at a junction with NY 9N in the town of Hague. Roughly midway between the two endpoints, NY 8 passes through Utica, where it overlaps NY 5, NY 12, and Interstate 790 (I-790) along one segment of the North–South Arterial.
NY 8 was assigned as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York and originally extended north to a ferry across Lake Champlain at Putnam Station, where it connected to Vermont Route F-10 (VT F-10). The route was realigned slightly on its northern end by 1933 to connect to another ferry leading to VT F-9 east of Ticonderoga. By the following year, it was altered again to use the new Champlain Bridge at Crown Point to connect to VT 17. This was made possible by way of a long concurrency with NY 9N and NY 22. NY 8 was truncated to its current northern terminus c. 1968. In the 1960s and 1970s, NY 8 was moved onto new freeways around and through the city of Utica. The 2017 route log erroneously shows that NY 8's southern terminus is at what is the northern terminus of the overlap with NY 10.
## Route description
### Southern Tier
NY 8 begins at an interchange with NY 17 in Deposit that also serves as the southern terminus of NY 10. NY 8 and NY 10 form a brief concurrency north along the West Branch of the Delaware River before separating at the southeastern edge of the Cannonsville Reservoir northeast of Deposit. While NY 10 follows the southern edge of the reservoir to the east, NY 8 continues north, passing to the east of Oquaga Creek State Park (and connecting to the park via a pair of local roads) before meeting NY 206 in Masonville. From Masonville, NY 8 heads north to Sidney, where it meets I-88 at an interchange, crosses the Susquehanna River, and intersects NY 7 before leaving the village adjacent to the Unadilla River, a tributary of the Susquehanna.
NY 8 parallels the Unadilla River northward through Mount Upton to New Berlin, where it meets NY 80. The routes overlap for a short distance to the north before NY 80 separates to the northwest toward Sherburne. NY 8, however, continues along the Unadilla River through several small communities before separating from the river just south of the Madison-Oneida County line.
### Utica area
Shortly after crossing into Oneida County, NY 8 intersects U.S. Route 20 (US 20) in Bridgewater. The route continues northward, passing through Cassville and Clayville before becoming a limited-access highway just north of Clayville. Near Sauquoit, NY 8 has exits for Pinnacle Road and Elm Street prior to entering the Utica suburbs. In New Hartford, the route has an exit with Genesee Street prior to meeting NY 5 and NY 12 at a cloverleaf interchange southwest of downtown Utica. While the right-of-way of NY 8 continues to the northeast through the cloverleaf as NY 840, NY 8 joins NY 5 and NY 12 as the three routes enter downtown on the North–South Arterial.
Near the northern edge of downtown, NY 5, NY 8, and NY 12 interchange with NY 5A and NY 5S on the southern bank of the Mohawk River. At the exit, the three state routes are joined on the arterial by I-790, which follows NY 5, NY 8, and NY 12 across the Mohawk River and the neighboring Erie Canal to a large interchange north of the canal. Here, I-790 and NY 5 separate from the concurrency while NY 8 and NY 12 remain concurrent into Deerfield as a limited-access highway. After an interchange with a former routing of NY 12, NY 8 separates from the highway and returns to an at-grade roadway as it heads northeast to Poland. Near the Oneida-Herkimer County line (here delimited by West Canada Creek), NY 8 merges with NY 28 and follows the route across the county line (as well as the creek) into Poland. In the center of the village, NY 8 splits from NY 28 and heads northeast into Adirondack Park.
### Adirondack Park
Within Adirondack Park, NY 8 follows a northeast–southwest routing as it crosses the lower half of the park. Near Ohio, NY 8 intersects NY 365 due north of where it enters the park. Past NY 365, NY 8 heads east to Higgins Bay, where it intersects the northern terminus of NY 10. The route continues northeast to Speculator, where it meets NY 30. NY 30 turns east onto NY 8, forming an overlap southeast to Wells, where NY 8 separates from NY 30 and heads to the northeast into Warren County. Formerly, NY 8 became an east–west highway near Speculator, but was re-signed around 2010 to north–south to be consistent with the other sections of the highway.
In Wevertown, NY 8 intersects NY 28 for the final time prior to meeting US 9 at Loon Lake. The two routes merge, forming an overlap east to Chestertown, where US 9 splits from NY 8 and continues south. NY 8, however, heads east, meeting I-87 shortly after departing US 9. Past I-87, NY 8 follows the southern edge of Brant Lake to the northeast before turning to the east toward Hague, where it terminates at NY 9N.
## History
### Origins and terminus changes
In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, NY 8 was assigned to most of its current alignment from Deposit to Hague. The route also extended eastward to Wright (southeast of Ticonderoga) on modern NY 9N, NY 22, and County Route 2 (CR 2), where it connected to VT F-10 by way of a ferry across Lake Champlain. From Clayville to Utica, NY 8 was originally routed along Oneida Street before overlapping with NY 5 and NY 12 along Genesee Street in downtown Utica. After crossing the Mohawk River and the Erie Canal, the three routes separated at the intersection of Herkimer Road, Trenton Road, and Coventry Avenue northeast of downtown. NY 8 then followed Coventry Avenue and Walker Road northeast to Deerfield, where NY 8 joined its modern alignment.
Prior to 1930, what became NY 8 in the renumbering carried multiple designations along its routing. In 1924, the segment of Genesee Street in Utica that became NY 8 was designated as part of NY 5 and NY 12. Additionally, the portion of NY 8 from Wevertown to Chestertown became part of NY 10. The segment from the modern intersection of US 9 and NY 8 to Chestertown was also designated as part of NY 6. By 1926, what became NY 8 from Sidney to New Berlin and from Bridgewater to downtown Utica was designated as NY 44. Between New Berlin and Bridgewater, NY 44 followed what is now NY 80 through Edmeston to West Burlington and NY 51 from West Burlington to US 20. It continued west to Bridgewater by way of an overlap with US 20. From Utica to Wells, the 1930 routing of NY 8 was part of NY 54, which continued south from Wells to Fonda via modern NY 30 and NY 30A. Between Chestertown and Ticonderoga, NY 8 was designated NY 47. Until the renumbering, what became NY 8 was unbuilt from Deposit to Masonville and unnumbered from Masonville to Sidney. Additionally, the segments from New Berlin to Bridgewater and from Wells to Wevertown were unnumbered.
NY 8 was rerouted by 1933 to exit Ticonderoga to the east, using what is now NY 74 to reach Lake Champlain instead. At the lake, NY 8 connected to VT F-9 via the Fort Ticonderoga–Larrabees Point Ferry. The route was realigned again c. 1934 to follow NY 9N and NY 22 north from Ticonderoga to south of Port Henry, where NY 8 turned northeast to follow what is now NY 185 to the Champlain Bridge. The route became VT 17 on the opposite lakeshore. NY 8 was truncated to Hague c. 1968, eliminating its overlaps with NY 9N and NY 22.
The 2017 route log erroneously shows that NY 8's southern terminus at what is the northern terminus of the overlap with NY 10.
### Relocations and realignments
In the early 1950s, construction began on a new arterial highway—known as the North–South Arterial—through downtown Utica. The first portion of the highway to open was the segment between River Road and Trenton Road, which was completed by 1956. It was extended southward to Oriskany Street (NY 5A) by 1961 and completed entirely by 1964; however, NY 8 was not initially realigned to follow the highway. In the mid-1960s, plans were made to construct a new limited-access highway along the NY 8 corridor from Clayville north to New Hartford, where it would connect with the North–South Arterial.
The freeway was constructed and completed in the early 1970s. NY 8 was realigned to follow the highway to New Hartford, from where it continued through Utica on the Arterial and I-790. It rejoined its previous alignment at I-790's interchange with Genesee Street. During this same period, the section of NY 12 between Deerfield and South Trenton was moved onto a new freeway built adjacent to NY 12's original alignment. A connector between NY 12 and NY 8 by way of the Miller Road corridor was built at this time. NY 8 was rerouted in the mid-1970s to follow NY 12 north to its exit with the connector. Here, NY 8 left NY 12 and continued east on the connector to rejoin its original alignment at Walker Road. Ownership and maintenance of NY 8's former routing north of the Utica city limits was transferred to Oneida County, which designated the highway as CR 92.
Originally NY 8 traveled through the village of Sidney and had a brief overlap with NY 7. In the 1970s a new alignment was built to the south of Sidney which connected to the new I-88 interchange.
In April 2014 work began on a \$68.3 million project to replace the viaduct over Columbia Street, Lafayette Streets, and Oriskany Boulevard (NY 5A and NY 5S) in Utica. The nearly one mile stretch had signalized at-grade intersections that had been causing safety concerns and some fatalities. In addition to the replacement of the viaduct, the alignment of the arterial was straightened, a new single point urban interchange was built at Court Street, and a pedestrian bridge was built across the roadway. The pedestrian bridge was opened by December 2014, and the remainder of the project was completed by October 2017.
### Memorial designation
On October 29, 2019 Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law that a portion of NY 8 was to be designated the "Sidney Veterans' Memorial Parkway" from I-88 to southern end of the bridge over the Susquehanna River in the village of Sidney.
## Future
Long range plans by the NYSDOT call for an expressway to be built along the NY 8 corridor from NY 17, east of Binghamton, to the St. Lawrence region via Utica.
## Major intersections
## See also
- List of county routes in Oneida County, New York
|
3,676,479 |
Halloween (franchise)
| 1,173,294,086 |
Horror film franchise
|
[
"1970s English-language films",
"1980s English-language films",
"1990s English-language films",
"2000s English-language films",
"2010s English-language films",
"2020s English-language films",
"American film series",
"Halloween (franchise)",
"Horror film franchises",
"Mass media franchises introduced in 1978",
"Mass murder in fiction",
"Miramax franchises",
"Splatterpunk"
] |
Halloween is an American slasher media franchise that consists of thirteen films, as well as novels, comic books, a video game and other merchandise. The films primarily focus on Michael Myers, who was committed to a sanitarium as a child for the murder of his sister, Judith Myers. Fifteen years later, he escapes to stalk and kill the people of the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois. Michael's killings occur on the holiday of Halloween, on which all of the films primarily take place. Throughout the series various protagonists try to stop Myers including, most notably, babysitter Laurie Strode (primarily portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis) and psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis (primarily portrayed by Donald Pleasance). The original Halloween, released in 1978, was written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill—the film's director and producer respectively. The film, itself inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and Bob Clark's Black Christmas, is known to have inspired a long line of slasher films.
Twelve films have followed since the 1978 original was released. Michael Myers is the antagonist in all of the entries with the exception of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, a story with no direct connection to any other film in the series. Starting with Halloween II, most of the various sequels appeared between 1981 and 2002, including a 10th anniversary film in 1988 and a 20th anniversary sequel in 1998. In 2007 writer-director Rob Zombie created a remake of the 1978 film (and a sequel released two years later). The franchise would go dormant for nine years until a direct sequel to the original film, which ignores all previous sequels, was released in 2018. The sequel to the 2018 film, Halloween Kills, was released in 2021 with the most recent entry, Halloween Ends, released on October 14, 2022.
The franchise is notable for its multiple timelines, continuities, remakes and reboots, which can make it confusing for new viewers. Forbes' Scott Mendelson called it the "Choose Your Own Adventure" of horror movie franchises. The films collectively grossed over \$884 million at the box office worldwide. The film series is ranked first at the United States box office—in adjusted 2018 dollars—when compared to other American horror film franchises. The original film received critical acclaim, while the 2018 film received mostly positive reviews. The other films have received either mixed or negative reviews from critics.
## Films
### Overview
Described by Scott Mendelson of Forbes as the "Choose Your Own Adventure" of horror movie franchises, the franchise is notable for its multiple timelines, continuities, remakes and reboots, which can make it confusing for new viewers, often leading to articles explaining the previous films before each new release.
The original Halloween (1978), co-written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill and directed by Carpenter, tells the story of Michael Myers as he stalks and kills teenage babysitters on Halloween night. The film begins with six-year-old Michael (Will Sandin) killing his older sister Judith (Sandy Johnson) on Halloween night 1963 in the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois. He is subsequently hospitalized at Warren County's Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Fifteen years later, Michael (Nick Castle) escapes from Smith's Grove and returns to his hometown while being pursued by his psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence). Michael stalks high school student Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends as they babysit. Murdering Laurie's friends, Michael finally attacks Laurie herself, but she manages to fend him off long enough for Loomis to save her. Loomis shoots Michael off a balcony, but when Loomis goes to check Michael's body, he has vanished.
Halloween II (1981) picks up where the events of Halloween left off. Michael (Dick Warlock) follows Laurie to the local hospital, killing everyone who comes between them. The story reveals that Laurie is actually Michael's sister: she was given up for adoption as an infant. After Michael chases Laurie throughout the hospital, he corners Loomis and Laurie in an operating room, where Loomis causes an explosion as Laurie escapes. Michael, engulfed in flames, stumbles out of the room before finally falling dead.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch was an attempt to redirect the Halloween franchise into an anthology series; Season of the Witch does not follow the continuity of the previous two entries, presenting them as fictional movies within its narrative. This installment follows the story of Dr. Dan Challis (Tom Atkins) as he tries to solve the mysterious murder of a patient in his hospital. Joined by the patient's daughter Ellie (Stacey Nelkin), he travels to the small town of Santa Mira, California. The pair discover that Silver Shamrock Novelties, a company run by Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy), is attempting to use the mystic powers of the Stonehenge rocks to resurrect the ancient witchcraft of the Celtic festival, Samhain. Cochran is using his Silver Shamrock Halloween masks to achieve his goal, which will kill all the children wearing his masks as they watch a special Silver Shamrock commercial airing Halloween night. After destroying Cochran and his henchmen, Challis desperately tries to convince the television station managers not to air the commercial. The film ends with Challis screaming for a final station to stop the commercial.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, as the title suggests, features the return of Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur) to the film series. It is revealed that Michael has been in a comatose state for ten years since the explosion in Halloween II. While being transferred back to Smith's Grove, Michael awakens upon hearing that Laurie Strode died in a car accident after having a daughter, Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris). Michael escapes and makes his way to Haddonfield in search of his niece, while Dr. Loomis pursues him once again. Eventually, the police track Michael down and shoot him several times before he falls down a mine shaft.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers picks up directly where the previous film ends and has Michael (Don Shanks) surviving the gunshots and the fall down the mine; he stumbles upon a hermit who bandages him up. One year later, and showing signs of a psychic connection to Jamie, Michael tracks her to a local child mental health clinic. Using Jamie as bait, Loomis manages to capture Michael. The film ends with Michael being taken into police custody, only to be broken out of jail by a mysterious stranger, all dressed in black (whose black boots were shown throughout the entire film).
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers picks up the story six years after the events of Halloween 5. The mysterious stranger who broke Michael out of jail also kidnapped Jamie Lloyd (J. C. Brandy). Jamie, having been held captive by the man in black, gives birth to a baby boy with whom she escapes, while Michael (George P. Wilbur) pursues them. Michael kills Jamie and continues searching for her baby; the infant is found and brought to safety by Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd), the young boy who was babysat by Laurie Strode in the first film. It is revealed that Michael is driven by the Curse of Thorn, which forces a person to kill their entire family in order to save all of civilization. The mysterious stranger is revealed to be Dr. Loomis's colleague, Dr. Terrence Wynn (Mitchell Ryan), who is part of a cult who protect the chosen individual so that they may complete their task. With the help of Kara Strode (Marianne Hagan), Laurie's adoptive cousin, Tommy keeps the infant from Michael, who slaughters Wynn and his followers. Michael is finally subdued by Tommy, who injects him with large quantities of tranquilizers inside the Smith's Grove Sanitarium before escaping.
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later ignores the events that transpire after the second film and opens twenty years after the events of the first two films and establishes that Michael Myers (Chris Durand) has been missing since the explosion in 1978. Laurie Strode (Curtis) has faked her own death so that she could go into hiding from her brother. Now working as the headmistress of a private school under the name Keri Tate, Laurie continues to live in fear of Michael's return. Her son, John (Josh Hartnett), attends the same school. Laurie's fear becomes reality when Michael shows up at the school and begins killing John's friends. Laurie manages to get John and his girlfriend (Michelle Williams) to safety but decides to face Michael once and for all. After a long fight, Laurie decapitates Michael with a fire axe, finally killing him.
Halloween: Resurrection picks up three years after H20 and reveals that Michael escaped after swapping clothes with a paramedic, crushing the man's larynx so that he could not talk, and that was whom Laurie killed. Laurie is committed to a mental institution, where Michael (Brad Loree) shows up. He kills Laurie and travels back to his family home in Haddonfield but finds a group of college students filming an Internet reality show. Michael murders the cast and crew until he is electrocuted by the only surviving student, Sara Moyer (Bianca Kajlich), and the show's creator Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes). Michael's body and the bodies of his victims are then taken to the morgue. As the medical examiner begins to inspect Michael's body, he suddenly awakens.
Halloween (2007), a remake of the original film, focuses on the events that led Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch) to kill his family. It also identifies Laurie as Michael's sister early on. On Halloween, Michael murders a school bully, his older sister Judith and her boyfriend, and his mother's abusive boyfriend. Committed to Smith's Grove Sanitarium, Michael closes himself off from everyone and stops speaking. Michael's mother Deborah (Sheri Moon Zombie) commits suicide out of guilt. Fifteen years later, Michael (Tyler Mane) escapes and heads to Haddonfield to find his sister, with his psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) in pursuit. Michael finds his sister living with the Strode family and going by the name Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton). After killing nearly all of her friends and family, Michael then kidnaps Laurie and attempts to explain to her that he is her brother through the use of a picture he has kept of himself and her as an infant. Unable to understand, Laurie fights back and eventually uses Loomis's gun to shoot Michael in the head. Laurie screams in horror as the credits roll.
Halloween II (2009), a sequel to the remake, picks up right where the previous film leaves off before jumping ahead one year. Here, Michael is presumed dead but resurfaces after a vision of his deceased mother informs him that he must track Laurie down so that they can "come home" together. In the film, Michael and Laurie have a mental link, with the two sharing visions of their mother. It is also revealed that Laurie's original name is Angel Myers. During the film's climax, Laurie kills Michael by stabbing him repeatedly in the chest and face with his own knife. The final scene suggests that she has taken on her brother's psychosis as she dons his mask and is committed to an asylum, hallucinating her mother walking with a white horse. In the Director's Cut, Michael and Laurie are both gunned down by the police.
Halloween (2018) is a direct sequel to the original film, ignoring the sibling relationship and other continuity established in previous installments. Michael (James Jude Courtney) was arrested in 1978 and has spent forty years back in Smith's Grove Sanitarium. During a prison transfer on the night before Halloween, Michael is able to escape the bus after it crashes and returns to Haddonfield for another rampage. After Michael kills his deranged psychologist, who had taken him to Laurie's home, he engages in a showdown with Laurie, her daughter Karen, and her granddaughter Allyson. The trio ultimately trap him in her house, which they set ablaze.
Halloween Kills (2021) takes place immediately after its predecessor, with firefighters arriving at the blazing building, unwittingly freeing Michael to continue his killing spree. Laurie is taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Karen stays behind with Laurie while Allyson joins a mob who hunts down Michael. Michael slaughters the entire mob except for Allyson. The film ends with Michael stabbing Karen to death.
Halloween Ends (2022) picks up four years after Kills and sees Laurie reeling from the events of Michael's rampage by moving into a new home with Allyson and writing a memoir. The film focuses on Corey Cunningham, an ex-babysitter who has been scarred by accidentally killing the boy he was watching and rendering him a social reject. Laurie protects Corey from a group of bullies and introduces him to Allyson, and they immediately develop feelings for each other. Corey encounters a now-weakened Michael in the sewers, ending with the two locking eyes and Michael letting him go. This sends Corey on a murdering spree, with Laurie tracking him and trying to convince Allyson to end their relationship. On Halloween, after making plans to skip town with Allyson, Corey steals Michael's mask in a brawl and goes on a mission to murder everyone that disrespected him. After a fight, Allyson abandons Laurie in a fit of rage, and Corey sneaks into their home with the intent of killing Laurie. She defends herself by shooting him, but Corey stabs himself in the neck to frame Laurie for his death. Michael returns for his mask, kills Corey by snapping his neck, and fights Laurie in a final confrontation in the kitchen. Allyson returns to assist her grandmother, and Laurie gets the upper hand before cutting Michael's throat and slicing his wrist, and he finally dies from extreme blood loss. The townspeople come together to throw Michael's corpse into an industrial shredder, ending his reign of terror for good.
### Development
After viewing John Carpenter's film Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) at the Milan Film Festival, independent film producer Irwin Yablans and financier Moustapha Akkad sought out Carpenter to direct for them a film about a psychotic killer stalking babysitters. Carpenter and Debra Hill began drafting a story. There is an urban myth that the film at one point was supposed to be called The Babysitter Murders but Yablans has since debunked this stating that it was always intended to be called (and take place on) Halloween.
Moustapha Akkad fronted the \$300,000 for the film's budget, even though he was worried about the tight schedule, low budget, and Carpenter's limited experience as a filmmaker. He finally decided to finance the film after Carpenter relayed the entire film to Akkad, "in a suspenseful way, almost frame for frame", and opted not to take any fees for directing the film. The low budget forced wardrobe and props to be crafted from items on hand or that could be purchased inexpensively, this included the trademark mask worn by Michael Myers throughout the film. Production designer, art director, location scout and co-editor Tommy Lee Wallace created Michael's mask from a William Shatner Halloween mask, purchased for \$1.98. The limited budget also dictated the filming location and time schedule. Halloween was filmed in 21 days in the spring of 1978 primarily in South Pasadena, California. An abandoned house owned by a church stood in as the Myers house. Two homes on Orange Grove Avenue in Hollywood were used for the film's climax.
Following the success of Halloween, Yablans and Akkad began working on Halloween II. There was initial discussion about filming Halloween II in 3-D, but the idea never came to fruition. After Halloween II was released, Carpenter and Hill were approached about creating a third Halloween film, but they were reluctant to pledge commitment. The pair agreed to participate in the new project only if it was not a direct sequel to Halloween II, which meant no Michael Myers. Most of the filming for Halloween III: Season of the Witch took place on location in the small coastal town of Loleta in Humboldt County, California. Familiar Foods, a milk bottling plant in Loleta, served as the Silver Shamrock Novelties factory, but all special effects involving fire, smoke, and explosions were filmed at Post Studios.
After Halloween III was released, Michael Myers was brought back with 1988's Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, where he has stayed for the remainder of the series. Four more sequels would follow, between 1989 and 2002, before the series would take a break for five years. On June 4, 2006, Dimension Films announced that Rob Zombie, director of House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, would be creating the next Halloween film. Bob Weinstein approached Rob Zombie about making the film, and Zombie, who was a fan of the original Halloween and friend of John Carpenter, jumped at the chance to make a Halloween film for Dimension Films. Before Dimension went public with the news, Zombie felt obligated to inform John Carpenter, out of respect, of the plans to remake his film. Carpenter's request was for Zombie to "make it his own [film]". Zombie's film would combine the elements of prequel and remake with the original concept, with considerable original content in the new film. Zombie also wanted to reinvent the character, as he felt Michael, along with Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Pinhead, had become too familiar to audiences, and as a result, less scary. Zombie delved deeper into Michael Myers's mythology. Michael's mask was even given its own story to provide an explanation as to why he wears it, instead of having the character simply steal a random mask from a hardware store, as in the original film. Zombie wanted to bring Michael closer to what a psychopath really is, and wanted the mask to be a way for Michael to hide.
In 2008, a sequel to the 2007 remake was announced, with French filmmakers Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo in negotiations to direct. Instead, Zombie was resigned to write and direct the sequel, with the film taking place directly after the end of his remake. In an interview, Zombie expressed how the exhaustion of creating the first Halloween made him not want to come back for a sequel, but after a year of cooling down he was more open to the idea. The writer/director explains that with the sequel, he was no longer bound by a sense of needing to retain any "John Carpenter-ness", as he could now do "whatever [he] wants to do". Instead of focusing on Michael, Zombie chose to look more at the psychological consequences on Laurie after the events of the remake. As Zombie explains, after Michael murdered her friends and family, Laurie became a "wreck", who continually sinks lower as the film moves forward. Rob Zombie declined to return to film the second sequel to the 2007 remake. The second sequel, Halloween 3D, was cancelled in 2012.
A new effort to make a Halloween film, Halloween Returns, was attempted in 2015, unrelated to the Rob Zombie films. This ultimately failed, and was cancelled when Dimension Films lost the filming rights to Halloween. On May 23, 2016, it was reported that Miramax and Blumhouse Productions were developing a new film, which they would co-finance. On February 9, 2017, John Carpenter announced that a new Halloween film was going to be written by David Gordon Green and Danny McBride and will be directed by Green. The film will be a direct sequel to the original Halloween, and will ignore all of the previous sequels. Jamie Lee Curtis confirmed that she would reprise her role as Laurie Strode, and Judy Greer entered negotiations to play Laurie's daughter Karen Strode. Andi Matichak signed on to play Karen Strode's daughter and Laurie's granddaughter. The film was distributed by Universal Pictures, their first involvement in the franchise since distributing 1982's Halloween III: Season of the Witch. John Carpenter returned to score the film, saying, "I'll be consulting with the director to see what he feels. I could create a new score, we could update the old score and amplify it, or we could combine those two things. I'll have to see the movie to see what it requires." Nick Castle reprised his role as Michael Myers. Filming began on January 13, 2018, concluding on February 19, 2018. The film was released on October 19, 2018.
In June 2019, two sequels were announced to the 2018 film, with Green returning to write the script and direct and Curtis, Greer, and Matichak reprising their roles. The titles and release dates of two sequels were announced as Halloween Kills, set to be released on October 16, 2020, and Halloween Ends, set to be released on October 15, 2021. Teems was confirmed as a co-writer for Halloween Kills, while Paul Brad Logan and Chris Bernier were announced to co-write Halloween Ends. However, due to the concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic, both films were delayed, with Halloween Kills released on October 15, 2021, and Halloween Ends released on October 14, 2022.
### Music
John Carpenter composed the music to the first three films. For Halloween, Carpenter chose to use a piano melody played in a 5/4 time rhythm instead of a symphonic soundtrack. Critic James Berardinelli calls the score "relatively simple and unsophisticated", but admits that "Halloween's music is one of its strongest assets." Carpenter stated in an interview, "I can play just about any keyboard, but I can't read or write a note." In the end credits, Carpenter bills himself as the "Bowling Green Orchestra" for performing the film's score, but he did receive assistance from composer Dan Wyman, a music professor at San Jose State University.
The score for Halloween II is a variation of John Carpenter's compositions from the first film, particularly the main theme's familiar piano melody played. The score was performed on a synthesizer organ rather than the piano used for Halloween. One reviewer for the BBC described the revised score as having "a more Gothic feel". The reviewer asserted that it "doesn't sound quite as good as the original piece", but "it still remains a classic piece of music".
Music remained an important element in establishing the atmosphere of Halloween III. Just as in Halloween and Halloween II, there was no symphonic score. Much of the music was composed to solicit "false startles" from the audience. The soundtrack was composed by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth, who had also worked on the score for Halloween II. The score of Halloween III differed greatly from the familiar main theme of the original and its first sequel. Carpenter replaced the familiar piano melody with a slower, electronic theme played on a synthesizer with beeping tonalities. Howarth explains how he and Carpenter composed the music for the third film:
> The music style of John Carpenter and myself has further evolved in this film soundtrack by working exclusively with synthesizers to produce our music. This has led to a certain procedural routine. The film is first transferred to a time coded video tape and synchronized to a 24 track master audio recorder; then while watching the film we compose the music to these visual images. The entire process goes quite rapidly and has 'instant gratification', allowing us to evaluate the score in synch to the picture. This is quite an invaluable asset.
Following Carpenter's departure from the series, Howarth would stay on board as the sole composer for the next two sequels, and also acted as the lead composer on Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, with Paul Rabjohns providing additional music when the initial edit of the film was substantially re-filmed. While Halloween H20 credits John Ottman as its sole composer, in reality most of the soundtrack was provided by Scream composer Marco Beltrami, using a mixture of music from that film and a few original cues written by Beltrami, after the producers disliked Ottman's score. Danny Lux provided the soundtrack for Halloween: Resurrection, while Tyler Bates composed the soundtracks for both the 2007 Halloween reboot and its 2009 sequel.
### Box office
The Halloween series, when compared to the other top-grossing American horror series—A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child's Play, Friday the 13th, Saw, Scream, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre—and adjusting for 2023 inflation is the highest-grossing horror series in the United States at approximately \$1.09 billion. Next in line is Friday the 13th at \$908.4 million, followed by the Nightmare on Elm Street series with \$793.5 million. The Scream film series is in fourth place with \$779.5 million, followed by the Saw series with \$688.3 million, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with \$459.7 million, and the Child's Play film series rounding out the list with \$305.2 million.
### Documentary
Halloween: 25 Years of Terror is a DVD released on July 25, 2006, featuring a documentary on the Halloween films, narrated by P. J. Soles and featuring interviews from many of the cast members as well as filmmakers of the Halloween films and a lot of footage from the series as well. It has panel discussions with members from the casts and crews of most of the Halloween films, plus other celebrities and filmmakers such as Rob Zombie and Clive Barker as well as film critics. All of the panel discussions took place at a 25th anniversary convention in Pasadena, California (one of the filming locations of the original Halloween) in October 2003. It also has extended versions of interviews featured in the documentary and much more. In 2010, The Biography Channel produced a television special titled Halloween: The Inside Story, which premiered on October 28, 2010.
### Future
Halloween Ends was meant to conclude the new timeline set forward by the 2018 film, but Jason Blum expressed interest in making further films in October 2021. "I would love to extend it," Blum told ComicBook.com. "If Malek [Akkad] would like us, I'd love to extend it, but we're very busy making sure the third movie is spectacular because that's our immediate job and if it goes beyond that, I'd be thrilled. But there are currently no plans for us to be involved after this third movie." John Carpenter explained that possible future installments were dependent on the commercial success of Ends, although he acknowledged that Green was adamant in Ends being their story's ending. In an interview with The New York Times, Jamie Lee Curtis commented that the four films, commencing with the 1978 Halloween and concluding with Halloween Ends, were self-contained, although there was still the possibility of a new narrative being adapted into future films. Green stated that he was confident on parting with Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode with the film, though he acknowledged the possibility of eventually some filmmakers creating a "new Laurie" with some plot twist to continue the franchise's mythology. Curtis had previously confirmed in an essay for People that Halloween Ends marked her last appearance in the franchise; Jude Courtney likewise affirmed to Screen Rant that, alongside Curtis, he feels "done" with the franchise due to both his age and career trajectory, having felt Halloween and Kills as playoffs and Ends as a Super Bowl win so he decided to retire as the character triumphantly. Jason Blum later stated that, while it would not necessarily be the final film in the franchise, it will be the last Halloween movie under Blumhouse Productions, with the intellectual property rights reverting to producer Malek Akkad following the release of Ends.
## Recurring cast and characters
## Literature
### Novels
When the original Halloween was released in 1978, a novelization of the film followed just a year later. Written by Curtis Richards, the book follows the events of the film, but expands on the festival of Samhain and Michael's time at Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Halloween II, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and Halloween 4 each received novelizations as well. Jack Martin would write Halloween II, which was released alongside its film counterpart. Martin included an additional victim of Michael's in this novel. Halloween IV, released in October 1988 and written by Nicholas Grabowsky, also followed the events of the film in which it was adapted from. A novelization of the 2018 film by John Passarella was released on October 23, 2018.
Over a four-month period, Berkley Books published three young adult novels written by Kelly O'Rourke. The novels are original stories created by O'Rourke, with no direct continuity with the films. The first, released on October 1, 1997, titled The Scream Factory, follows a group of friends who set up a haunted house attraction in the basement of Haddonfield City Hall, only to be stalked and killed by Michael Myers while they are there. The Old Myers Place is the second novel, released December 1, 1997, and focuses on Mary White, who moves into the Myers house with her family. Michael returns home and begins stalking and attacking Mary and her friends. O'Rourke's final novel, The Mad House, was released on February 1, 1998. The Mad House features a young girl, Christine Ray, who joins a documentary film crew that travels to haunted locations, and they are headed to Smith's Grove Sanitarium, where they are confronted by Michael.
### Comic books
The first Halloween comic was published by Brian Pulido's Chaos! Comics. Simply titled Halloween, it was intended to be a one-issue special, but eventually two sequels spawned: Halloween II: The Blackest Eyes and Halloween III: The Devil's Eyes. All of the stories were written by Phil Nutman, with Daniel Farrands—writer for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers—assisting on the first issue, and David Brewer and Justiniano worked on the illustrations. Tommy Doyle is the main protagonist in each of the issues, focusing on his attempts to kill Michael Myers. The first issue includes back story on Michael's childhood, while the third picks up after the events of the film Halloween H20. These comics were based on Daniel Farrand's concept for Halloween: Resurrection. He had been approached by the producers to pitch a follow-up to Halloween H20. His idea was to have Tommy Doyle incarcerated at Smith's Grove for Michael Myers' crimes, only to escape and reunite with Lindsay Wallace. Together, they study the journals of Dr. Loomis and find out more about Michael's childhood. The movie would have explored Michael's time at Smith's Grove and his relationship with Dr. Loomis, before returning to Tommy and Lindsay, who are attacked by the adult Michael Myers. Upon defeating him and removing his mask, they discover Laurie Strode, who has taken over her brother's mantle. Farrand's logic was that, since Jamie Lee Curtis was contracted to cameo in Halloween: Resurrection, they should make that cameo as significant and surprising as possible. Although the studio did not follow up on his pitch, Farrands was able to tell his story in comic book form.
One Good Scare written by Stefan Hutchinson, and illustrated by Peter Fielding, was released in 2003. The main character in this comic is Lindsey Wallace, the young girl who first saw Michael Myers alongside Tommy Doyle in the original 1978 film. Hutchinson wanted to bring the character back to his roots, and away from the "lumbering Jason-clone" the film sequels had made him. One Good Scare came about because Hutchinson wanted to produce a comic book to celebrate the series' twenty-fifth anniversary, to be sold as a collectible at a Halloween convention in South Pasadena. Due to the positive reception to One Good Scare, Hutchinson hoped to use the comic as a "demo" for getting a distribution deal, but was unable to do so, due to rights issues.
While waiting to acquire the rights to publish more Halloween comics, Stefan Hutchinson worked on the documentary Halloween: 25 Years of Terror with Malek Akkad. Together, they developed ideas for possible Halloween stories that would be "connected into a larger tale, so the idea was that it would use the serial aspect of comic books to create different storylines than would be possible in the films." On July 25, 2006, as an insert inside the DVD release of Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, Hutchinson released Halloween: Autopsis. Written by Hutchinson, and artwork by Marcus Smith and Nick Dismas, the story is about a photographer assigned to take pictures of Michael Myers. As the photographer, Carter, follows Dr. Loomis he begins to take on Loomis's obsession himself, until finally meeting Michael Myers in person, which results in his death.
Rob Zombie's reboot of the film series ensured that any Halloween comics would not be contradicted by upcoming films, allowing Hutchinson creative freedom. Malek Akkad was approached by Devil's Due Publishing with the possibility of producing a line of Halloween comics, and he and Hutchinson worked to make them a reality. Hutchinson was convinced by the strong support of One Good Scare that the comic books would have an audience. In 2008, Stefan Hutchinson released the first issue of his new comic book, Halloween: Nightdance. This is a four-issue miniseries, and it does not contain any characters—other than Michael—from the films. The four issues are titled, "A Shape in the Void", "The Silent Clown", "A Rainbow in One Color", and "When the Stars Came Crashing Down". The first issue, "A Shape in the Void", takes place on October 31, 2000, so that it falls between Halloween H20 and Halloween: Resurrection. Issue one follows Michael as he stalks Lisa, an eighteen-year-old girl with insecurities and "a chronic fear of darkness". Hutchinson explains that Nightdance was an attempt to escape the dense continuity of the film series and recreate the tone of the 1978 film. Michael becomes inexplicably fixated on Lisa, just as he did with Laurie in the original Halloween, before the sequels established that a sibling bond was actually his motivation for stalking her. The aim was to once again establish Michael Myers as a "credible and dangerous force".
August 2008 saw the release of Devil's Due's Halloween: 30 Years of Terror to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Halloween. This comic book one-shot is a collection of short stories inspired by John Carpenter's original. "Trick or Treat" features the MacKenzies, unseen characters from the first film who Tommy and Lindsey run to for help. "P.O.V." shows a murder from the point of view of both Michael and his victim, "Visiting Hours" sees Laurie Strode reflecting on how her life could have been had her brother never found her in 1978, while "Tommy and the Boogeyman" reveals that Tommy Doyle grew up to write comic books featuring Michael Myers. In the final story, "Repetition Compulsion", Dr. Loomis tries to predict where Michael will strike next on Halloween 1989. Writer Hutchinson explains that H30 came about because, unlike previous decades, there was no Halloween film coming out in 2008 to acknowledge the occasion.
Devil's Due released the three-issue miniseries Halloween: The First Death of Laurie Strode in late 2008. Written by Hutchinson with artwork from Jeff Zornow, the story bridges the gap between Halloween II and Halloween H20 by focusing on Laurie Strode in the aftermath of the 1978 murders. Hutchinson explains that Laurie is "trying to get better and trying to repair, but where do you even start after going through such horror? How do you even try to resume normality when you don't know what that is anymore?" Although Michael appears in the series, it is not clear whether he is real or if the traumatised Laurie is seeing things. Hutchinson is not a fan of the revelation that Laurie and Michael are siblings and took steps to address that problem in the story. He wanted to avoid the "bloodline plot of the middle sequels", which he felt demystified the character of the Shape, and approach the story so that "it becomes almost incidental that she's his sister". Hutchinson believed that Laurie Strode's evolution into Keri Tate was fertile ground for a storyline; he says, "it's not the faking of the death that's interesting at all, but it's the fall that leads to that happening. The faked death is just simple mechanics and can be covered in a sentence, but the state of mind and events leading to that are full of rich character and dramatic potential."
### Online stories
All of Stefan Hutchinson's Halloween comic books take place in the Halloween H20 timeline, which retconned Halloween 4–6 from continuity. Hutchinson comments that, while the retcon was unpopular with "a lot of fans" for ignoring previous movies, he preferred the "simplicity of this storyline, over the needlessly convoluted mythology that the last three films had created". However, he admits that one of the downsides of the H20 timeline is that fans do not know exactly what happened to Dr. Sam Loomis after Halloween II. To remedy this, Hutchinson pitched Halloween: Sam as a way of paying tribute to the character. Written by Hutchinson and featuring illustrations from Autopsis' Marcus Smith, Sam is a prose short story available exclusively for download at the website HalloweenComics.com. It explores the life of Dr. Loomis, including his backstory and relationship with Elizabeth Worthington, a journalist he met during World War II. In 1995, Michael Myers visits the ailing Dr. Loomis in a hospital and murders Elizabeth in front of him. Loomis attempts to stop him, but dies of a coronary failure.
## Video game
In 1983, Wizard Video, who had also released a video game version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, released a Halloween game for the Atari 2600. In the game, the player is a babysitter who has to protect her children from Michael Myers, who has managed to get inside the house. Although the game is called Halloween, and features the film's theatrical poster as its cover art as well as the movie's main music theme, the game itself never refers to any characters, including the killer, by their names in the film.
## Merchandise
Halloween has also seen profitability through various merchandise like toys, dolls, statues, model kits, bobbleheads, snow globes, movie posters, masks, T-shirts, hats, and more. Michael Myers has made appearances in the form of dolls and toys from McFarlane Toys, Mezco Toyz, Sideshow Collectibles and NECA. Even Dr. Loomis has been immortalized in plastic alongside Michael Myers in a two-figure set produced by NECA.
The Michael Myers mask has been reproduced over the years by Don Post, the mask company responsible for the creation of the masks from several of the Halloween films (the Silver Shamrock novelty factory seen in Halloween III was actually shot on location in one of Don Post's factories). While Don Post reproductions of the Michael Myers mask are still commonly found in costume stores every Halloween, the license to produce Michael Myers masks has since been given to Cinema Secrets, the company commissioned with the creation of the Michael Myers mask for Halloween: Resurrection. As of 2012, Universal Pictures has granted license to Trick or Treat Studios to produce two versions of the Michael Myers mask from Halloween II, one "clean" version and one with the famous "blood tears".
Many versions of the original Halloween as well as several of its sequels have been released on DVD and Blu-ray by Anchor Bay Entertainment, Universal Pictures and Dimension Films. In December 2007, there were reports that the Producer's Cut of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers might get a DVD release in the future.
Following the first Blu-ray release of the original Halloween, all other films in the series were subsequently released to Blu-ray, as well. Home video distributors Anchor Bay Entertainment and Scream Factory released Halloween: The Complete Collection to Blu-ray on September 23, 2014. This box set brings together all ten Halloween films released to date. Two versions of The Complete Collection were released: a standard 10-disc set featuring the first eight original films of the series and Rob Zombie's 2007 and 2009 remakes, and a "Limited Edition" 15-disc set, containing the ten films on ten discs, and five extra discs featuring the television versions of Halloween and Halloween II, the never-before released Halloween 6: The Producer's Cut, a bonus disc to Rob Zombie's Halloween, and a bonus disc containing all-new special features from all ten films. The box set won the 2015 Saturn Award for Best DVD/BD Collection Release.
|
266,760 |
New Jersey Route 162
| 1,067,960,115 |
State highway in Lower Township, New Jersey
|
[
"Intracoastal Waterway",
"Lower Township, New Jersey",
"State highways in New Jersey",
"State highways in the United States shorter than one mile",
"Transportation in Cape May County, New Jersey"
] |
Route 162 is an unsigned 0.70-mile (1.13 km) long state highway in Lower Township, New Jersey, United States. The highway's designation consists entirely of a bridge on Seashore Road (County Route 626 or CR 626), which is known as Relocated Seashore Road. The southern terminus of the highway is an intersection with County Routes 641 and 626 in Lower Township. After crossing the Cape May Canal, Route 162 terminates at an intersection with County Routes 603 and 626 in Lower Township. Route 162 and County Route 626 date back to the 1850s, when local businessmen and county financial Richard Holmes put together the Cape May Turnpike. The turnpike was chartered in 1854, but construction did not begin until 1857, with completion in April of the next year. The turnpike however, caused a lot of controversy, and struggled to live. For many years, railroads were proposed, becoming possible competition for Holmes, who did not appreciate the idea. The railroad was constructed in 1863, just nine years after the charter of the turnpike syndicate.
Route S4C was designated by the New Jersey Legislature in 1929 as a spur of Route 4 (now U.S. Route 9), beginning at Bennett and running south on Seashore Road and Broadway, past Sunset Boulevard to the Delaware Bay. Route S4C was never taken over by the state. However, when the United States Army Corps of Engineers built the Cape May Canal during World War II, Seashore Road was chosen as one of two roads to cross the canal. (The other was Route 4, now Route 109). The Army Corps built a low level bridge close to the pre-canal alignment. The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) built a higher bridge in 1971 on a new alignment.
## History
### The Cape May Turnpike: the precedent to Seashore Road
Before 1854, the area based around Bridgeton was a strong business and legal section in Cape May County. The local residents there, however, wanted to have a strong banking industry, but a local named Richard Holmes along with several other locals turned to the strong type of enterprise, a turnpike company. Holmes and the locals began a local turnpike syndicate with other businessmen and began the Cape May Turnpike Company upon incorporation in 1854. The turnpike company, upon incorporation, was to build a toll road along roughly the U.S. Route 9 corridor. Progress in constructing the toll road was slow at first, with subscribers from Cape May County being hesitant to buy stock from the turnpike company. A friend of Richard Holmes, Wilmon Whilldin, owned a steamboat company in Cape May and apologized for not buying stock in the company. Citing the Panic of 1857 made it hard to convert securities to cash, Whilldin suggested that a steamboat would be more profitable than the turnpike. The money from the steamboat would go ahead and helped the financially depressed businesses in local communities.
Although local business owners and land owners held out hope that the turnpike company would pay off, the turnpike experienced problems. Richard Holmes and Henry Swain, the director of the turnpike company, were running into problems including failure to buy land from Elijah Hand's pasture and Samuel Hoffman's local residence for the turnpike route, because they kept land prices high. The farmers refused to the sell their rightful land, and locals started showing opposition due to the fact it would cost money to deliver important foods. One of those locals, John Tomlin from Goshen, soon after brought up the idea of the "Shunpike" – a free turnpike road to the west of the Cape May Turnpike. However, the turnpike company kept pushing forward, persuading Hand and Hoffman to sell land in 1857 and erecting two tollhouses in the route, one at the Court House (now Cape May Court House) and one near Cold Spring. Eventually, locals finally began to move towards support of the turnpike. In April 1858, John Wiley, who helped persuade Hand and Hoffman to sell, announced that in three weeks, the route would be complete as one continuous road from Cape Island to Cape May Court House.
After completion of the turnpike in April–May 1858, the Cape May Turnpike did not receive much profits. Even with tolls being collected and stock being bought, these could not offset the costs of repairs and maintenance. The roadbed was commonly washed away in storms and it was becoming a less used route as the "Shunpike" (now Route 162/County Route 626) nearby was free to use, taking away traffic from the turnpike. Walters Miller, a big investor of the turnpike company, decided to leave the syndicate in favor of working towards railroads. Miller himself looked into the construction of railroads in the area, hiring William Cook, who engineered the Camden and Amboy Railroad into producing routes along the peninsula. Cook proposed three routes in 1852, one from the Camden waterfront to Cape May economic region, one through Millville and Bridgeton and a third through Salem. Although the rights for a railroad in the area by the New Jersey General Assembly had been allowed since 1832, there has been no progress on any railroad in Cape May County until 1863. That year, progress started on constructing the Camden and Atlantic Railroad using the first proposal by Cook in 1852. Jonathan Pitney of Absecon spent two years trying to obtain the charter from the General Assembly. In a letter to Richard Holmes, Pitney said the chances of getting the railroad charter and building it were "good". Holmes, however, was cautious towards the railroad company investment, showing little thought of having a railroad created that would compete with his struggling turnpike syndicate.
Businessmen in Cape May County believed the economy in the area was still unstable for quite an engineering project. An adviser to Richard Holmes suggested to be careful on future investments that he would take, including investing into the railroad company. The adviser believed that it would be "bad policy" to make such decisions. Debate continued about the railroad line for at least a decade, and the heads of the Camden and Atlantic Railroad put forth a proposal to build a portion of railroad from Absecon to Cape May along the Tuckahoe River. After attempts to revive the railroad were attempted by several other companies (including the Glassboro and Millville Railroad), the attempts failed. An eventual formation of the Cape May and Millville Railroad in 1860 pushed forward more proposals, and a railroad was constructed in 1863 (and leased in 1869), and the alignment of Seashore Road became part of a stagecoach route from Cold Spring to Cape Island.
### Route S4C and construction of Route 162
In 1929, a route from the Delaware Bay just short of Sunset Boulevard (the former Cape Island Turnpike) northward to U.S. Route 9 at Bennett Station via Broadway and Seashore Road was designated in the state legislature as State Highway Route S4C. The route was designated along County Route 626's length along with County Route 604 as a county-maintained highway, remaining the same until January 1, 1953. On that day, State Highway Route S4C was decommissioned during the 1953 New Jersey state highway renumbering. No number was designated to replace the highway's former number.
During the 1930s and 1940s, the proposal for a canal to supply ships with an evacuation route from Germany's U-boats in World War II along with dangerous shoals of the Delaware Bay came forward. The canal, now the Cape May Canal, was approved in 1941 and was constructed in 1942 to supply this need along with a strong usage by yachts. By 1944, a bridge was constructed across the canal, which was replaced in 1971. That year, the state built a brand new bridge and denoted it as Relocated Seashore Road, a 485.89 feet (148.10 m) long steel girder bridge over the Canal. The bridge was built south of U.S. Route 9 and has stood since and received the designation of Route 162 upon completion.
## Route description
At the intersection with Bridge Road and CR 641, Route 162 officially begins though the county maintains the state numbered alignment of the road from this intersection to the beginning of the Relocated Seashore Road Bridge. The route heads northward from CR 641, paralleling both roads as it heads up the bridge approach and following the shoreline. From there, Route 162 reaches the Cape May Canal, crossing on the two-lane Relocated Seashore Road Bridge for a short distance. NJDOT maintains the bridge itself but once the route returns to land on the other side of the canal, county maintenance resumes. More farms and residences can be seen from the northern approach of the bridge. Route 162 curves to the northwest, intersecting with Seashore Road (CR 603). At that intersection, Route 162 ends but Seashore Road continues once again as CR 626.
## Major intersections
## See also
|
51,091,610 |
Hologram (Minmi song)
| 1,152,986,711 | null |
[
"2015 singles",
"2015 songs",
"Anime songs",
"Japanese-language songs"
] |
"Hologram" (Japanese: ホログラム;, "hologram") is a song recorded by Japanese recording artist Minmi, taken from her seventh studio album Ego (2015). It was made available for digital download and physical consumption on June 10, 2015 through Universal J—a subsidiary label owned by Universal Music Japan—as her third stand-alone single. "Hologram" marks Minmi's second consecutive recording after "Ite Itai yo" to have been written, composed, arranged, and produced by herself. Musically, the song was described by a critic at Selective Hearing as a transition from her signature reggae music styles to electronic dance music, whilst retaining musical elements of dancehall music.
Upon its release, the single received generally positive reviews from music critics. Some pointed out the track as a highlight from the album, whilst acclaiming the song's composition. Minor criticism was outspoken towards the application of Auto-Tune to her vocals. Commercially, it under-performed in Japan, stalling at number 116 for a sole week on the Oricon Singles Chart, marking her lowest-selling release in that region. To promote the single, it was used for Japanese anime television series Jitsu wa Watashi wa (2015). Additionally, she appeared on Japanese music television shows Count Down TV and Refreshing!, with her as well performing the track at the 2016 Freedom Aozora concert venue.
## Background, composition and release
In June 2016, it was confirmed through Anime News Network that Minmi would release a new song titled "Hologram", which would serve as a featured track for the first season of Japanese anime television series, Actually, I Am... (Japanese: Jitsu wa Watashi wa) (2015). "Hologram" marks Minmi's second consecutive single to have been written, composed, arranged, and produced by herself, following her 2014 single "Ite Itai yo". Musically, it was pointed out by a writer for Selective Hearing as a transition from her signature reggae music styles from previous releases to dance-pop and electronic dance music, whilst retaining musical elements of dancehall music. It also incorporates synthesizers and keyboards in its instrumentation, with Minmi's vocals being processed with Auto-Tune and vocoder pyrotechnics.
"Hologram" was released as the singer's third stand-alone digital single on June 10, 2015 through Universal J, a subsidiary label owned by Universal Music Japan; its artwork featured blue, purple, pink and green confetti. The label distributed the recording for physical consumption as a DVD and CD in Japan, with a digital EP being made available in several other territories. All formats included the original mix of the single, with the addition of B-side track "#Yaccahaina" in collaboration with Japanese performer Mary Jane. The DVD release incorporated Minmi performing "Hologram" live at the 2014 Freedom Aozora concert venue. The accompanying cover sleeve for all three formats portrayed a pink-haired Minmi surrounded by digitally-superimposed confetti.
## Reception
Upon its release, the single received positive reviews from music critics. AllMusic's Adam Greenberg, who contributed to Mimni's biography on the website, cited the track as one of her best works. In a similar review, CD Journal staff members pointed out "Hologram" as a highlight from her album Ego. Another critic from the same publication commended Minmi's transition to electronic dance music, labeling the recording's production as "bold" and "spacey". The review further acclaimed the singer's vocals and songwriting on the single. An editor from Selective Hearing enjoyed the track, concluding that, "In the end this is a slight deviation from Minmi's typical releases, but it's also refreshing to hear her branch a little bit." However, the publication negatively perceived the overuse of Auto-tune in the track and felt the corresponding B-side songs were better than the single. Commercially, "Hologram" under-performed in Japan. It debuted at number 116 for a sole week on the Oricon Singles Chart, marking Minmi's lowest-charting release since "La La La (Ai no Uta)" (2012), which peaked at number 58. As of July 2016, it is her lowest-selling single according to Oricon Style's database.
## Music video and promotion
An accompanying music video for "Hologram" was directed by Hideharu Ueki. It opens with a woman walking down a beach front, with her subsequently holding and letting go of her bikini strap by the pre-chorus. Over the rest of the visual, she is portrayed being engaged alone or with a man in the water or playing around the beach shore; several of the scenes repeat throughout the music video. The clip appeared on the DVD version of its parent album, Ego. To promote the single, it was used for Japanese anime television series Jitsu wa Watashi wa (2015). She also appeared on the Japanese television music shows Count Down TV and Refreshing! to perform the song, alongside providing an interview in each show. Minmi subsequently performed "Hologram" live at the 2016 Freedom Aozona concert venue; various other Japanese acts, such as Scandal and 10-Feet, were present at the venue.
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the CD liner notes of "Hologram".
Management
- Management done by record label Universal J.
Credits
- Minmi – lead vocals, producing, composing, songwriting, mixing, arranging
- Mary Jane – featured artist, backing vocals
- Hideharu Ueki – music video director
## Track list and formats
All lyrics written by Minmi.
## Charts
## Release history
|
22,669,979 |
Linois's expedition to the Indian Ocean
| 1,074,923,322 |
Commerce raiding operation launched by the French Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.
|
[
"Conflicts in 1803",
"Conflicts in 1804",
"Conflicts in 1805",
"Conflicts in 1806",
"Military history of the Indian Ocean",
"Naval battles of the Napoleonic Wars"
] |
Linois's expedition to the Indian Ocean was a commerce raiding operation launched by the French Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois was ordered to the Indian Ocean in his flagship Marengo in March 1803 accompanied by a squadron of three frigates, shortly before the end of the Peace of Amiens. When war between Britain and France broke out in September 1803, Marengo was at Pondicherry with the frigates, but escaped a British squadron sent to intercept it and reached Isle de France (now Mauritius). The large distances between naval bases in the Indian Ocean and the limited resources available to the British commanders in the region made it difficult to concentrate sufficient forces to combat a squadron of this size, and Linois was subsequently able to sustain his campaign for three years. From Isle de France, Linois and his frigates began a series of attacks on British commerce across the Eastern Indian Ocean, specifically targeting the large convoys of East Indiamen that were vital to the maintenance of trade within the British Empire and to the British economy. Although he had a number of successes against individual merchant ships and the small British trading post of Bencoolen, the first military test of Linois squadron came at the Battle of Pulo Aura on 15 February 1804. Linois attacked the undefended British China Fleet, consisting of 16 valuable East Indiamen and 14 other vessels, but failed to press his military superiority and withdrew without capturing a single ship.
In September 1804, Linois attacked a small British convoy at Vizagapatam in the Bay of Bengal and captured one ship, but was again driven off by inferior British forces. The damage Marengo suffered on the return to Isle de France was so severe that she had to be overhauled at Grand Port, and after subsequent cruises in the Red Sea and in the central Indian Ocean, where Linois was again driven away from a large British convoy by inferior British forces, he attempted to return to Europe via the Cape of Good Hope. On the return journey, Linois's ships sailed into the cruising ground of a British squadron participating in the Atlantic campaign of 1806 and was captured by overwhelming forces at the action of 13 March 1806, almost exactly three years after leaving France. Linois's activities in the Indian Ocean had caused panic and disruption across the region, but the actual damage inflicted on British shipping was negligible and his cruise known more for its failures than its successes. In France, Napoleon was furious and refused to exchange Linois for captured British officers for eight years, leaving him and his crew as prisoners of war until 1814.
## Background
During the early nineteenth century the Indian Ocean was a vital conduit of British trade, connecting Britain with its colonies and trading posts in the Far East. Convoys of merchant ships, including the large East Indiamen, sailed from ports in China, South East Asia and the new colony of Botany Bay in Australia, as well as Portuguese colonies in the Pacific Ocean. Entering the Indian Ocean, they joined the large convoys of ships from British India that carried millions of pounds of trade goods to Britain every year. Together these ships crossed the Indian Ocean and rounded the Cape of Good Hope, sailing north until eventually reaching European waters. Docking at one of the principal British ports, the ships unloaded their goods and took on cargo for the return journey. This often consisted of military reinforcements for the Army of the Honourable East India Company (HEIC), whose holdings in India were constantly expanding at the expense of neighbouring states.
During the French Revolutionary Wars (1793–1801), French frigates and privateers operated from the French Indian Ocean colonies of Isle de France and Réunion against British trade routes. Although protected by Royal Navy and the fleet of the HEIC, there were a number of losses among individually sailing ships, particularly the "country ships": smaller and weaker local vessels less able to defend themselves than the large East Indiamen. Many of these losses were inflicted by privateers, in particular the ships of Robert Surcouf, who captured the East Indiaman Kent in 1800 and retired on the profits. However, these losses formed only a tiny percentage of the British merchant ships crossing the Indian Ocean: the trade convoys continued uninterrupted throughout the conflict. In 1801 the short-lived Peace of Amiens brought an end to the wars, allowing France to reinforce their colonies in the Indian Ocean, including the Indian port-city of Pondicherry on the Bay of Bengal.
Another feature of the French Revolutionary Wars was the effect of British blockade on French movements. The Royal Navy maintained an active close blockade of all major French ports during the conflict, which resulted in every French ship that left port facing attack from squadrons and individual ships patrolling the French and allied coasts. The losses the French Navy suffered as a result of this strategy were high, and the blockade was so effective that even movement between ports along the French coasts was restricted. In the Indian Ocean however the huge distances between the French bases on Réunion and Isle de France and the British bases in India meant that close blockade was an ineffective strategy: the scale of the forces required to maintain an effective constant blockade of both islands, as well as the Dutch ports at the Cape of Good Hope and in the Dutch East Indies were too large to be worth their deployment to such a distant part of the world. As a result, the French raiders operating from the Indian Ocean bases were able to travel with more freedom and less risk of interception than those in the Atlantic or Mediterranean.
During 1802, tensions rose again between Britain and France, the latter country now under the rule of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. Aware that a return to war was almost inevitable, Napoleon ordered the French Navy to prepare a force for extended service in the Indian Ocean, a force that would be capable of inflicting significant losses on the British trade from the region. The flagship of the squadron was to be the fast ship of the line Marengo, a 74-gun vessel commanded by Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois. Linois was a highly experienced officer who had been engaged with the British on a number of occasions during the French Revolutionary Wars: in May 1794, he was captured when his frigate Atalante was run down in the mid-Atlantic by HMS Swiftsure. Rapidly exchanged, his next ship Formidable was captured after a fierce defence at the Battle of Groix, and the following year he was captured again in his new frigate Unité and subsequently participated in the disastrous Expédition d'Irlande in the ship of the line Nestor after a third prisoner exchange. His most important battle was in July 1801, when he commanded the French squadron during their victory at the First Battle of Algeciras, where HMS Hannibal was captured. He was also in partial command at the defeat in the Second Battle of Algeciras four days later, but the action enhanced his reputation within the French Navy as a successful commander. Marengo was accompanied by the frigates Atalante, Sémillante and French frigate Belle Poule 1802 (2) and the transports Côte d'Or and Marie Françoise. Ostensibly this squadron was despatched to the Indian Ocean to take possession of Pondicherry and install a new governor in the French Indian Ocean colonies, General Charles Decaen. The convoy carried 1,350 soldiers and a significant quantity of supplies for both the four-month journey to India and the anticipated extended operations that were to follow it.
## Movements in 1803
Linois's squadron departed Brest on 6 March 1803. The four-month journey to Pondicherry was interrupted by a fierce storm on 28 April, which caused Belle Poule to separate from the squadron and shelter in Madagascar for several days. The transports Côte d'Or and Marie Françoise were also detached in the high winds, and made their way separately to the destination. The bad weather delayed the arrival of Linois's main squadron, and thus Belle Poule arrived in India first, on 16 June. Napoleon believed, and had assured Linois, that war with Britain was not likely until September, but relations broke down faster than expected and Britain began mobilising on 16 May, issuing a formal declaration of war two days later. As news could only travel at the same speed as a fast ship, it had not arrived in the Indian Ocean by the time of Belle Poule's arrival, although it was expected at any moment. Colonel Louis Binot, who had sailed on the frigate, called on the British officials then operating the factories in Pondicherry to turn them over to the French as stipulated in the Treaty of Amiens, but was refused. The factory owners were under orders from Governor-General Lord Wellesley, in turn under orders from Lord Hawkesbury, to deny the French access to Pondicherry's commercial assets. The French position was further weakened when a large British squadron, consisting of the ships of the line HMS Tremendous, HMS Trident and HMS Lancaster, the fourth-rate HMS Centurion and the frigates HMS Sheerness, HMS Concorde, HMS Dedaigneuse and HMS Fox anchored at Cuddalore, 20 miles (32 km) to the south of Pondicherry. This squadron had been sent from Bombay under Rear-Admiral Peter Rainier to watch French movements. On 5 July, Rainier had received word from Bombay, via Madras, that war was imminent although not yet declared, and had moved his ships to an anchorage within sight of Pondicherry in anticipation of the outbreak of war.
Linois arrived at Pondicherry on 11 July to find Rainier's ships anchored nearby and most of the city's financial institutions still in British hands. Trident and the brig HMS Victor were anchored in Pondicherry roads, although on Linois's arrival they sailed to join Rainier's squadron. The following day, Linois sent Captain Joseph-Marie Vrignaud and his own nephew on board Rainier's flagship with an invitation to breakfast the following morning, which was accepted. At 10:00, the transport Marie François arrived in Pondicherry, having been separated in the storm, and she was followed at 18:00 by the brig Bélier. Bélier had been sent out from Brest on 16 March carrying, among other papers, copies of a speech made before the British Parliament by King George III that threatened conflict and orders from Napoleon to immediately sail for Isle de France in anticipation of the declaration of war. Linois was instructed to deliver Decaen to the island, and prepare his ships on the Indian Ocean island for a lengthy raiding operation against British commerce in the region. When dawn rose on 13 July, Rainier embarked on the 16-gun brig HMS Rattlesnake for his breakfast appointment, only to discover that Linois's ships had slipped away in the night.
Linois had escaped so swiftly that his anchors and boats had been left in the bay, where he had abandoned them rather than draw attention to his movements by drawing them in. He had also just missed the transport Côte d'Or with its 326 soldiers, which arrived on the evening of 13 July and was swiftly surrounded by Centurion and Concorde. Detaching most of his squadron to Madras, Rainier waited off Pondicherry for further French movements and on 15 July spotted Belle Poule just off the coast. Linois had detached the frigate to investigate the anchorage at Madras, but she had been intercepted and followed by the frigate HMS Terpsichore, whose insistent shadowing had forced Captain Alain-Adélaïde-Marie Bruilhac to return to Pondicherry. Belle Poule and Côte d'Or exchange signals during the morning, and at 11:00 the transport suddenly raised sails and departed the anchorage, Terpsichore pursuing closely. Early on 16 July, Terpsichore overtook the transport and fired several shots across her bow, forcing her captain to surrender. Bruilhac had used the distraction to sail Belle Poule to Isle de France without pursuit. Côte d'Or was returned to Pondicherry and, since there was no news of war from Europe, released on 24 July on condition that she only sail to Isle de France and no other destination. Dedaigneuse was detached to ensure that the transport followed these conditions and Rainier returned to Madras, joined by Dedaigneuse the following day once the transport's course was ensured. Rainier immediately ordered his ships to take on military supplies in preparation for military operations, although news of the declaration of war, made on 18 May, did not reach him until 13 September.
By the time Rainier learned of the outbreak of war, Linois was already at Isle de France, where his ships had arrived without incident on 16 August. Decaen was installed as governor and some of the troops disembarked to reinforce the garrison, although Linois retained the rest on board his squadron. On the journey to India, Linois and Decaen had fallen out, and the effects of their distaste for one another would be a repeated feature of the following campaign. Britain's declaration of war reached Isle de France at the end of August aboard the corvette Berceau, which Linois added to his squadron. By 8 October his preparations were complete, and the French admiral issued his orders for his squadron to sail. Atalante was detached to raid shipping in the area of Muscat, an important Portuguese trading post. The rest of the squadron, except the troopships, was to sail with Linois to Réunion (soon to be renamed Île Bonaparte), where the garrison was reinforced. It then sailed eastwards to the Dutch East Indies, diverting to raid British shipping lanes, where many merchant ships were still unaware of the outbreak of war. Linois's first combat cruise was successful, and he captured a number of undefended prizes from the country ships encountered en route to the East Indies. In early December, shortly before he reached Batavia on Java, Linois stopped at the minor British trading town of Bencoolen. The local maritime pilot believed the squadron to be British and brought them into the harbour, anchoring them just outside the range of the port's defensive battery but within range of the small merchant ships clustered in the bay. These merchant ships recognised the French warships and fled, pursued closely by Berceau and Sémillante. Six were scuttled by their crews at Sellebar 2 miles (3.2 km) to the south and two more burnt by French landing parties after grounding. The French also destroyed three large warehouses containing cargoes of spices, rice and opium and captured three ships, losing two men killed when a cannon shot from the shore struck Sémillante. On 10 December the squadron arrived at Batavia for the winter, disembarking the remaining soldiers to augment the Dutch garrison.
## Pulo Aura
On 28 December 1803, carrying provisions for six months cruising, Linois's squadron left Batavia. Sailing northwards into the South China Sea, Linois sought to intercept the HEIC China Fleet, a large convoy of East Indiamen carrying trade goods worth £8 million (the equivalent of £ as of 2023) from Canton to Britain. The annual convoy sailed through the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca, gathering ships from other destinations en route and usually under the protection of an escort formed from Royal Navy ships of the line. However, the 1804 fleet had no escort: the outbreak of war had delayed the despatch of the vessels from Rainier's squadron. Thus as the convoy approached the Straits of Malacca it consisted of 16 East Indiamen, 11 country ships and two other vessels guarded by only one small HEIC armed brig, Ganges. On 14 February, close to the island of Pulo Aura, the commodore of the convoy, Nathaniel Dance, was notified that sails were sighted approaching from the south-west. Suspicious, Dance sent a number of the East Indiamen to investigate, and rapidly discovered that the strange ships were the French squadron under Linois. Dance knew that his convoy would be unable to resist the French in combat and instead decided to bluff the French by pretending that a number of his large East Indiamen were disguised ships of the line.
Dance formed his ships into a line of battle and ordered three or four of them to raise blue ensigns and the others red, giving the impression of a heavy escort by implying that the ships with blue ensigns were warships. This ruse provoked a cautious response from Linois, who ordered his squadron to shadow the convoy without closing with them. During the night, Dance held position and Linois remained at a distance, unsure of the strength of the British convoy. At 09:00, Dance reformed his force into sailing formation to put distance between the two forces and Linois took the opportunity to attack, threatening to cut off the rearmost British ships. Dance tacked and his lead vessels came to the support of the rear, engaging Marengo at long range. Unnerved by the sudden British manoeuvere, Linois turned and retreated, convinced that the convoy was defended by an overwhelming force. Continuing the illusion that he was supported by warships, Dance ordered his ships to pursue Linois over the next two hours, eventually reforming and reaching the Straits of Malacca safely. There they were met several days later by two ships of the line sent from India.
The engagement was an embarrassment for Linois, who insisted that the convoy was defended by up to eight ships of the line and maintained that his actions had saved his squadron from certain destruction. His version of events was widely ridiculed by both his own officers and the authorities in Britain and France, who criticised his timidity and his failure to press the attack when such a valuable prize was within his reach. Dance by contrast was lauded for his defence and rewarded with a knighthood and large financial gifts, including £50,000 divided among the officers and men of the convoy. The engagement prompted a furious Napoleon to write to the Minister of Marine Denis Decrès:
> All the enterprises at sea which have been undertaken since I became the head of the Government have missed fire because my admirals see double and have discovered, I know not how or where, that war can be made without running risks . . . Tell Linois that he has shown want of courage of mind, that kind of courage which I consider the highest quality in a leader.
## Operations in the Indian Ocean
Arriving at Batavia in the aftermath of the engagement, Linois was the subject of criticism from the Dutch governors for his failure to defeat the China convoy. They also refused his requests to make use of the Dutch squadron stationed in port for future operations. Rejoined by Atalante, Linois sold two captured country ships and resupplied his squadron, before sailing for Isle de France, Marengo arriving on 2 April. During the return journey, Linois had detached his frigates and they captured a number of valuable merchant ships sailing independently before joining the admiral at Port Louis, which Decaen had renamed Port Napoleon. On his arrival, Linois was questioned by Decaen about the engagement with the China Fleet and when Decaen found his answers unsatisfactory the governor wrote a scathing letter to Napoleon, which he despatched to France on Berceau. Linois remained at Isle de France for the next two and a half months, eventually departing with Marengo, Atalante and Sémillante in late June, while Belle Poule was detached to cruise independently.
### Second cruise of Linois
Linois initially sailed for Madagascar, seeking to prey on British trade rounding the Cape of Good Hope. Bad weather forced him to shelter in Saint Augustin for much of the next month, taking on fresh provisions before departing to the Ceylon coast. There he captured a number of valuable prizes, including Charlotte and Upton Castle, which were carrying rice and wheat, and which he sent to Isle de France to provide a ready store of food for the squadron.
Linois's force gradually moved northwards into the Bay of Bengal and in late August passed Madras, remaining 60 nautical miles (110 km) off the coast to avoid an unequal encounter with Rainier's squadron. He investigated the harbours at Masulipatam and Cosanguay, making a number of small captures and subsequently cruising along Coastal Andhra in search of valuable convoys. Prisoners from one of the ships taken off Masulipatam on 14 September informed him that a valuable British convoy was anchored in the harbour at Vizagapatam, consisting of the frigate HMS Wilhelmina and two East Indiamen.
Arriving off Vizagapatam early on 15 September 1804, Linois discovered that Rainier, concerned by French depredations off the Indian coast, had substituted Wilhelmina for the larger and heavier HMS Centurion, a 50-gun fourth rate. Also anchored in the harbour roads were the small East Indiamen Barnaby and Princess Charlotte. Centurion's captain, James Lind, was ashore and command rested with Lieutenant James Robert Phillips, who was suspicious of the new arrivals and fired on them as they came within range. Raising French flags, Linois's frigates closed on the anchored ships, coming under fire from a gun battery on shore. Marengo remained beyond the sandbanks that marked the harbour entrance but still within long range of Centurion, unwilling to risk grounding his flagship in the shallow waters. Phillips issued urgent orders for the Indiamen to provide assistance, but was ignored: Barnaby drifted ashore and was wrecked when her captain cut her anchor cables while Princess Charlotte refused to participate in the engagement at all, remaining at anchor without making use of her 30 cannon. The French ships temporarily withdrew for repairs at 10:45, but Centurion was even more severely damaged, drifting beyond the support of the shore batteries as the French returned to the attack at 11:15. With the harbour exposed, Princess Charlotte surrendered to Sémillante as Atalante and Marengo continued to engage the British ship. By 13:15, with Centurion badly damaged and the prize secure, Linois decided to withdraw, easily outdistancing the limping British pursuit. Linois subsequently came under criticism for his failure to annihilate the British warship, Napoleon later commenting that "France cared for honour, not for a few pieces of wood."
With Marengo damaged and Rainier actively hunting for his squadron, Linois withdrew from the Bay of Bengal and returned to Isle de France. Rainier knew that his chances of discovering Linois in the open Indian Ocean were insignificant, and instead decided to keep watch for him off his principal base at Port Napoleon. A squadron was detached to the port, but Linois's scouts discovered the blockade before he arrived and he was able to safely reach Grand Port instead on 31 October. Entering over the reefs that protected the anchorage, Marengo's deeper keel scraped on the coral. The ship's hull was badly damaged and her rudder torn off, requiring extensive repairs. Linois was later joined by Captain Bruilhac in Belle Poule, who had captured a valuable merchant ship on his individual cruise in the Bay of Bengal.
With his flagship severely damaged, Linois began an extensive series of repairs to Marengo, which was overhauled and beached to have her bottom and rudder replaced. The repairs lasted until May 1805, and the expense of feeding and accommodating the hundreds of sailors from the squadron placed a significant strain on Decaen's resources, despite the captured food supplies sent in by Linois during 1804. To alleviate the pressure, Linois ordered Captain Gaudin-Beauchène in Atalante to cruise independently off the trade routes that passed the Cape of Good Hope and on 6 March detached Sémillante from the squadron entirely, sending Captain Léonard-Bernard Motard on a mission to the Philippines. He was then ordered to sail on across the Pacific to Mexico, to liaise with the Spanish officials there before returning to Europe around Cape Horn. Motard's mission to the Americas was brought to an end on 2 August 1805, when he encountered HMS Phaeton and HMS Harrier under Captain John Wood in the San Bernardino Strait, after resupplying for the Pacific voyage at San Jacinto. In a sharp engagement the British ships inflicted severe damage to Sémillante before being driven off by a Spanish fort overlooking the strait. The damage was so severe that Motard abandoned the plans to sail for Mexico, returning to the Indian Ocean and continuing to operate from Isle de France against British trade routes until 1808.
### Third cruise of Linois
Departing Isle de France for the third and final time on 22 May 1805, Linois initially sailed northwest to the mouth of the Red Sea. Finding few targets, he turned eastwards and by July was again raiding shipping off the coast of Ceylon, accompanied by Belle Poule. There on 11 July he discovered his richest prize yet, the 1200-ton (bm) East Indiaman Brunswick. Linois discovered Brunswick, under the command of Captain James Ludovic Grant, and the 935-ton (bm) country ship Sarah, under Captain M'Intosh. With the French advancing rapidly on the heavily laden merchant ships, Grant ordered Sarah to separate and attempt to shelter on the Ceylon coast. Linois detached Belle Poule to chase Sarah. M'Intosh ran Sarah onto the beach to avoid capture, the crew scrambling ashore as Sarah broke up in the heavy surf. Brunswick was slower than Sarah, and although Grant opened fire on Marengo the engagement was brief, Brunswick rapidly surrendering to the larger French vessel. Grant was taken aboard Marengo and observed the French ship at close quarters, developing a negative opinion of Linois and his crew:
> She sails uncommonly fast: but her ship's company, though strong in number, there being 800 men now on board, does not possess 100 effective seamen . . . There does not appear to be the least order or discipline amongst their people; all are equal, and each man seems equally conscious of their own superiority; and such is the sad state and condition of the Marengo that I may with safety affirm, she floats upon the sea as a hulk of insubordination, filthiness and folly.
In early 1805, Rainier had been replaced in command at Madras by Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, a more aggressive officer with a reputation of success against the French Navy. Learning of Linois's reappearance off Ceylon, Pellew immediately despatched a squadron in search of him. Linois discovered the impending arrival of Pellew's ships from captured prisoners and departed westwards, successfully avoiding an encounter with the British force. After again cruising off the entrance to the Red Sea without success, Linois sailed southwards to intersect the trade routes between the Cape of Good Hope and Madras. During the journey, his squadron were caught in a heavy storm and Belle Poule lost her mizenmast. Linois was able to replace it, but the incident left him without any spare masts should either of his ships lose another. Without a full sailing rig, his ships were vulnerable to capture by faster and more agile British vessels, and Linois decided that protecting his masts was his most important priority.
On 6 August 1805, Linois encountered his first significant prize since Brunswick, when he discovered a convoy of eleven large ships sailing eastwards along the trade route from the Cape to Madras at . Closing to investigate the convoy, which was shrouded in fog, Linois was again cautious, unwilling to engage until he was certain that no Royal Navy ships lay among the East Indiamen. At 4 nautical miles (7.4 km) distance it became clear that one of the ships was certainly a large warship, flying a pennant indicating the presence of an admiral on board. This ship was HMS Blenheim, a ship of the line built in 1761 as a 90-gun second rate but recently cut down to 74-guns. She was commanded by Captain Austen Bissell and flew the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Troubridge, a prominent officer who had been sent to the Indian Ocean to assume command of half of Pellew's responsibilities after a political compromise at the Admiralty. Troubridge's flagship was the convoy's only escort, leading ten East Indiamen through the Indian Ocean to Madras.
As at Pulo Aura, the Indiamen formed line in preparation for Linois's attack, and once again Linois refused to engage them directly: Blenheim was a powerful ship capable of inflicting fatal damage on Marengo even if the French managed to defeat her, an uncertain outcome given the presence of the heavily armed merchant ships. Instead, Linois swung in behind the convoy, hoping to cut off a straggler. These manoeuveres were too complex for the poorly manned Brunswick, and she fell out of the French formation and was soon left behind, disappearing over the horizon. At 17:30, Marengo pulled within range of the rearmost East Indiaman and opened a long-range fire, joined by Belle Poule. The rear ship Cumberland, a veteran of the Battle of Pulo Aura, was unintimidated and returned fire as Blenheim held position so that the convoy passed ahead and the French ships rapidly came up with her. Opening a heavy fire with the main deck guns, Troubridge was able to drive the French ships off, even though his lower deck guns were out of service due to the heavy seas that threatened to flood through the lower gunports. Linois, concerned for the safety of his masts, pressed on all sail and by 18:00 had gone beyond range of Blenheim's guns and overtaken the convoy, remaining within sight until nightfall.
At midnight, the French ships crossed the bows of the convoy and by morning were 4 nautical miles (7.4 km) to windward, to the south. Troubridge maintained his line throughout the night and at 07:00 on 7 August 1805 he prepared to receive the French again as Linois bore down on the convoy. Retaining their formation, the combined batteries of the Indiamen and Blenheim dissuaded Linois from the pressing the attack and he veered off at 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) distance, holding position for the rest of the day before turning southwards at 21:00 and disappearing. Troubridge wanted to pursue in Blenheim, but was dissuaded by the presence of Belle Poule, which could attack the convoy while the ships of the line were engaged. He expressed confidence however that he would have been successful in any engagement and wrote "I trust I shall yet have the good fortune to fall in with him when unencumber'd with convoy". Linois's withdrawal was prudent: his mainmast had been struck during the brief cannonade and was at risk of collapse if the engagement continued. Losses among the crew were light, Marengo suffering eight men wounded and Belle Poule none. British casualties were slightly heavier, a passenger on Blenheim named Mr. Cook was killed by langrage shot and a sailor was killed on the Indiaman Ganges by a roundshot. No British ships suffered anything more than superficial damage in the combat, and the convoy continued its journey uninterrupted, arriving at Madras on 23 August.
## Return to the Atlantic
Retiring from the encounter with Blenheim, Linois sailed westwards and arrived in Simon's Bay at the Dutch colony of Cape Town on 13 September. He was hoping there to join up with the Dutch squadron maintained at the Cape, but discovered that the only significant Dutch warship in the port was the ship of the line Bato, which was stripped down and unfit for service at sea. Repairing the damage suffered in the August engagement and replenishing food and naval stores over the next two months, Linois was joined in October by Atalante. On 5 November a gale swept the bay and Atalante dragged her anchors, Captain Gaudin-Beauchène powerless to prevent his frigate driving ashore and rapidly becoming a total wreck. The crew were able to escape to shore in small boats and were then divided among Marengo and Belle Poule, with 160 men left to augment the garrison at Cape Town. Linois's prize, the Brunswick, too was wrecked near Simon's Bay.
Leaving Simon's Bay on 10 November, Linois slowly sailed up the West African coast, investigating bays and estuaries for British shipping, but only succeeding in capturing two small merchant vessels. He passed Cape Negro and Cape Lopez and obtained fresh water at Príncipe, before cruising in the region of Saint Helena. There he learned on 29 January 1806 from an American merchant ship that a British squadron had captured Cape Town. With the last safe harbour within reach in enemy hands and in desperate need of repair and resupply, Linois decided to return to Europe and slowly passed north, following the trade routes in search of British merchant shipping. On 17 February, Marengo crossed the equator and on 13 March was in position .
### Atlantic campaign of 1806
Unknown to Linois, his squadron was sailing directly into the path of a major naval campaign, the Atlantic campaign of 1806. In the aftermath of the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, and the subsequent end of the Trafalgar Campaign at the Battle of Cape Ortegal on 5 November 1805, the British had relaxed their blockade of the French Atlantic ports. French and Spanish losses had been so severe in the campaign that it was believed by the British First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Barham, that the French Navy would be unable to respond in the following winter, and consequently withdrew most of the blockade fleet to Britain until the spring. This strategy miscalculated the strength of the French Brest fleet, which had not been engaged in the Trafalgar campaign and therefore was at full strength. Taking advantage of the absence of the British squadrons off his principal Atlantic port, Napoleon ordered two squadrons to put to sea on 15 December 1805. These forces were ordered to cruise the Atlantic shipping lanes in search of British merchant convoys and avoid confrontations with equivalent British forces. One squadron, under Vice-Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissegues, was ordered to the Caribbean while the other, under Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez, was ordered to the South Atlantic.
Discovering on 24 December that the French squadrons had broken out of Brest, Barham despatched two squadrons in pursuit, led by Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan and Rear-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren. A third squadron detached from the blockade of Cadiz without orders, under its commander Rear-Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth, all three British forces cruising the mid-Atlantic in search of the French. Following a brief encounter with Willaumez, Duckworth sailed to the Caribbean and there discovered and destroyed Leissegues' squadron at the Battle of San Domingo in February 1806. With one of the French squadrons eliminated, Strachan and Warren remained in the mid-Atlantic anticipating Willaumez's return from his operations to the south. Warren's squadron was ordered to cruise in the Eastern Atlantic, in the region of the island of Madeira, directly across Linois's line of advance.
### Capture of Linois
At 03:00 on 13 March 1806, lookouts on Marengo spotted sails in the distance to the southeast. Ignoring arguments from Bruilhac that the sails could be a British battle squadron, Linois insisted that they were a merchant convoy and ordered his ships to advance. The night was dark and visibility was consequently extremely limited; Linois was therefore unaware of the nature of his quarry until the 98-gun second rate HMS London loomed out of the night immediately ahead. London's captain, Sir Harry Burrard Neale, had sighted Linois's sails at a distance and sailed to investigate, hanging signals with blue lights that notified the rest of Warren's squadron, which was strung out ahead of the slow sailing London, of his intentions. Neale's ship was accompanied by the frigate HMS Amazon under Captain William Parker, whose lookouts could not see the enemy but followed London's wake in anticipation of action.
Linois made determined efforts to turn Marengo away from the large British ship, but his flagship was too slow and London opened up a fierce fire. Linois responded in kind and a battle commenced in which both ships suffered serve damage to their masts and rigging. Belle Poule assisted Linois, but on the arrival of Amazon the French admiral gave orders for Bruilhac to escape. Turning to the northeast, Belle Poule pulled away with Amazon gaining rapidly. At 06:00, Linois tried to open some distance between Marengo and from her opponent, but found his flagship too badly damaged to manoeuvre, fire from London continuing unabated. At 08:30, Parker reached Bruilhac's frigate and opened fire, inflicting serious damage to Belle Poule's rigging. By 10:25 it was clear that the French position was hopeless, with nearly 200 men killed or wounded, the latter including Linois and Vrignaud, both ships badly damaged and unmanoeuverable and the ships of the line HMS Foudroyant, HMS Repulse and HMS Ramillies all coming into range with three others close behind: recognising that defeat was inevitable, the most senior remaining officer on Marengo surrendered, Bruilhac following suit soon afterwards.
Warren returned to Britain with his prizes, the squadron weathering a serious storm on 23 April which dismasted Marengo and Ramillies. British losses in the engagement had totalled 14 dead and 27 wounded, to French casualties of 69 dead and 106 wounded. Warren was highly praised for his victory and both French ships were taken into British service under their French names. The battle marked the end of Linois's cruise, three years and seven days after he had left Brest for the Indian Ocean. In contrast to the criticism attracted by his earlier engagements, Linois's final battle with Warren won praise for his resilience in the face of larger and more powerful opposition: British naval historian William James claimed that if Marengo and London had met independently, Linois might well have been the victor in the battle.
## Aftermath
Linois's operations in the Indian Ocean have been compared to those of Captain Karl von Müller in SMS Emden 108 years later: like von Müller, Linois's raids caused significant concern among British merchant houses and the British authorities in the Indian Ocean, in Linois's case principally due to the threat he posed to the East Indiaman convoys such as that encountered off Pulo Aura. The practical effects of his raiding were however insignificant: in three years he took just five East Indiamen and a handful of country ships, briefly terrorising the Andhra coast in 1804 but otherwise failing to cause major economic disruption to British trade. The only achievement of his cruise was to force Rainier's squadron to operate in defence of British convoys and ports, preventing any offensive operations during Linois's time in the Indian Ocean. The vast distances between friendly ports, the lack of sufficient food supplies or naval stores and the strength of British naval escorts after the initial months of war all played a part in Linois's failings to fully exploit his opportunity, but the blame for his inadequate achievements has been consistently placed with Linois's own personal leadership failings, both among his contemporaries and by historians. In battle Linois refused to place his ships in danger if it could be avoided, he spent considerable periods of the cruise refitting at French harbours and even when presented with an undefended target was reluctant to press his advantage.
Linois and his men remained prisoners in Britain until the end of the war, Napoleon refusing to exchange them for British prisoners. His anger at Linois's failure would have precluded any further appointments even if he had returned to France, but in 1814 he was made Governor of Guadeloupe by King Louis XVIII. On the return of Napoleon during the Hundred Days, Linois declared for the Emperor, the only French colonial governor to do so. Within days a small British expeditionary force had ousted him and on 8 July Napoleon himself surrendered. Linois's career was over, and he died in 1848 without performing any further military service. The Indian Ocean remained an active theatre of warfare for the next four years, the campaign against British merchant shipping in the region conducted by frigate squadrons operating from the Isle de France. These were initially led by Motard in Sémillante, who proved to be a more successful commerce raider than his former commander, until his ship was retired from service in 1808, too old and battered to remain in commission. Command later passed to Commodore Jacques Hamelin, whose squadron caused more damage in one year than Linois managed in three: capturing seven East Indiamen during 1809–1810. Eventually British forces were marshalled to capture the island in the Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811, culminating in the Invasion of Isle de France in December 1810 and the final defeat of the French in the Indian Ocean.
## Order of battle
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59,963,784 |
Karma (Marina song)
| 1,130,307,592 |
2019 single by Marina
|
[
"2019 singles",
"2019 songs",
"Atlantic Records singles",
"Marina Diamandis songs",
"Songs with feminist themes",
"Songs written by Ben Berger",
"Songs written by Jack Patterson (Clean Bandit)",
"Songs written by Marina Diamandis",
"Songs written by Ryan McMahon (record producer)",
"Songs written by Ryan Rabin"
] |
"Karma" is a song by Welsh singer and songwriter Marina from her fourth studio album, Love + Fear (2019). Marina's former boyfriend Jack Patterson produced the song alongside Mark Ralph. It was written by Marina, Ben Berger, Ryan McMahon, Ryan Rabin, and Patterson. The song was released for streaming in the United States as the album's fifth and final single on 29 August 2019 by Atlantic Records. Marina was inspired by the Me Too movement and the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases when writing the song, although she was not initially aware of the inspiration. It is a pop song with a tropical beat, which lyrically describes a woman confronting a man, insisting he will eventually receive his karma.
"Karma" received mixed reviews from music critics. Some felt the song recalled Marina's earlier works, while other critics found it unmemorable. An acoustic version of the song was released on Marina's sixth EP, Love + Fear (Acoustic) (2019). A music video using the acoustic version was released in September 2019. Directed by Nikko LaMere, the video features Marina portraying a black-and-white jester who dances. The original version of the song was included on the setlist of her fourth concert tour, the Love + Fear Tour (2019). Marina also performed the song on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in September 2019 as part of a promotional appearance in the US.
## Background and release
For proceeding with a new era, Marina announced via Twitter in 2018 that she would be dropping "and the Diamonds" from her stage name in order to release music as just Marina (stylised in all caps). She explained that to Dazed, "It took me well over a year to figure out that a lot of my identity was tied up in who I was as an artist... and there wasn't much left of who I was." After the announcement, Marina released "Baby" with Clean Bandit and Luis Fonsi, her first single under the new name. On 14 February 2019, she announced Love + Fear, her fourth studio album and first as Marina. The track listing for the album was unveiled the same day, revealing "Karma" as the twelfth track on the album and the fourth on the Fear portion of it.
Conceptually, Love + Fear is a double album that is made up of two segments, with each one referring to psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' theory that humans are only capable of experiencing the aforementioned two emotions. "Karma" appears on the Fear portion of the album, which explores themes such as "being taken advantage of" and sexism. The song was produced by Marina's boyfriend Jack Patterson, of British group Clean Bandit, and Mark Ralph. It was written by Marina, Ben Berger, Ryan McMahon, Ryan Rabin, and Patterson. Marina performed her vocals for the track at Ralph's private home recording studios in London, nicknamed Club Ralph.
"Karma" was released on 26 April 2019, as the twelfth track on Marina's fourth studio album Love + Fear. For its release as a single, the song was sent to music distributor Spotify in the United States for streaming on 29 August 2019, through Atlantic Records. The single release of the song uses the same cover artwork as Love + Fear. An acoustic version of "Karma" was recorded by Marina and featured as the third track on her sixth EP Love + Fear (Acoustic), released on 13 September 2019. The version was produced by English musician Benjamin Fletcher.
## Lyrics and composition
During an interview with Apple Music, Marina revealed the backstories behind each of the 16 tracks on Love + Fear. Regarding "Karma", she stated that the song's lyrical content was subconsciously inspired by the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases and the consequential viral response that came with the Me Too movement. Marina said that the initial idea for the song's subject matter came from a discussion she previously had with her producers regarding various "music industry individuals that were falling from grace." Certain critical commentary discussed how Marina, in 2016, was among several pop artists that stood up in defense of American singer Kesha throughout a lengthy series of lawsuits and countersuits against record producer Dr. Luke; Marina had previously worked with him on her single "Primadonna" (2012) and other songs that are included on her second studio album, Electra Heart (2012). In her interview with Apple Music, Marina continued:
> Since that point, there's really been an explosion of cases and experiences that followed the Harvey Weinstein situation. I didn't really think about that in relation to the song for a while, but then when we were reproducing it, it felt so strange. It was interesting going back to the songs, actually.
The lyrics of "Karma" see Marina confronting an enemy with a "told-you-so" attitude as she sings: "I'm like, 'Oh my god / I think it's karma.'" Brittany Spanos from Rolling Stone felt like Marina was describing misogyny in the lyrics, which she noted as a common theme explored on the Fear portion of the album. Musically, "Karma" is a pop song, with a "Mediterranean" tropical-style beat. Marina sings in falsetto, being accompanied by instruments such as the mandolin and ukulele. Stylistically, the original version of the song differed a great deal in comparison to the final edit; Marina compared the original to the catalogue of American band NSYNC and commented: "It was actually really sick. But, alas, it didn't suit the record!"
## Critical reception
Imaan Jalali from LA Excites paid special attention to the song's lyrics, writing that they "reiterated Marina's lyrical assertiveness as one who is not to be reckoned with." Abigail Firth of The Line of Best Fit commented that the sound of Love + Fear is drastically different compared to her previous three albums, but admitted that her "signature Marina-isms" and "'oh my god!'s on 'Karma' mean she's not too far from the Marina we came to love a decade ago." Although Ben Niesen from Atwood Magazine called the song "too damnably infectious," he felt that its "menacing" tone fell flat in comparison to Marina's previous releases. The acoustic version of the song was reviewed by Riana Buchman from WRBB, who was less impressed by the song, stating that the new versions of "Karma" and "Superstar" sound like "drab copies of the originals" and ultimately ended up "clutter[ing]" Love + Fear (Acoustic).
## Promotion
A music video for the acoustic version of "Karma" was released to Marina's YouTube channel on 25 September 2019. The video is the final of three to be released for promoting Love + Fear (Acoustic) and was filmed during the last week of August 2019; it was preceded by the acoustic visuals for "Superstar" and "True". All three videos were directed by American photographer Nikko LaMere and produced by AJR Films. The music video depicts Marina as a black-and-white jester that dances and wears an "asymmetrical jumpsuit with frilly cuffs and [a] sparkly corset."
Marina appeared as a musical guest for Jimmy Kimmel Live! on 4 September 2019, where she performed "Karma" in a similar wardrobe as seen in the acoustic version's music video. The performance featured her dancing while near a glowing, white orb. According to Lake Schatz from Consequence of Sound, Marina's appearance on the show was to promote Love + Fear (Acoustic) in addition to the album and her upcoming tour dates for the Love + Fear Tour in the US. He found the performance to be exceptional, writing that "she took the stage exuding confidence and polish," and her "four-year hiatus dedicated to self-discovery appears to have paid off."
"Karma" was included on the set list for Marina's Love + Fear Tour in 2019. During the North American leg of the tour, it was performed within a grouping of songs, including 2015 Froot outtake "I'm Not Hungry Anymore", her 2010 single "Oh No!", and Love + Fear track "No More Suckers". Jalali, reviewing Marina's show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, called her rendition of "Karma" one of the main Love + Fear tracks of the night that "did not disappoint."
## Credits and personnel
### Song
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Love + Fear.
- Marina Diamandis – writer, vocals
- Ben Berger – writer
- Ryan McMahon – writer
- Jack Patterson – writer, producer, mixing
- Ryan Rabin – writer
- Mark Ralph – producer, guitar, mandolin, mixing, ukulele
- Tom A.D. Fuller – engineer
- Ross Fortune – assistant engineer
- Dave Kutch – mastering
### Music video
Credits adapted from Marina's YouTube account.
Production
- AJR Films – production company
Personnel
- Nikko LaMere – director
- Russell Tandy – DP
- Derec Dunn – executive producer
- Katia Spivakova – editing
- Emilio Marcelino – gaffer
- Ionel Diaconescu – key grip
- Dennis Haynes – production assistant
- Caleb Boyles – production assistant
|
55,504,148 |
Sacred Games (TV series)
| 1,167,065,511 |
Indian crime thriller television series
|
[
"2018 Indian television series debuts",
"Bollywood in fiction",
"Cultural depictions of Indira Gandhi",
"Cultural depictions of Rajiv Gandhi",
"Fictional portrayals of the Maharashtra Police",
"Hindi-language Netflix original programming",
"Indian LGBT-related television shows",
"Indian crime drama television series",
"Indian crime television series",
"Indian drama television series",
"Indian period television series",
"Indian political television series",
"Indian television series distributed by Netflix",
"India–Pakistan relations in popular culture",
"Mystery television series",
"Nudity in television",
"Research and Analysis Wing in fiction",
"Sikhism in fiction",
"Television series about cults",
"Television series about nuclear war and weapons",
"Television series about organized crime",
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"Television shows set in Kenya",
"Television shows set in Mumbai",
"Thriller television series",
"Transgender-related television shows",
"Works about organised crime in India"
] |
Sacred Games is an Indian neo-noir crime thriller streaming television series based on Vikram Chandra's 2006 novel of the same name. India's first Netflix original series, it was produced and directed by Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap as Phantom Films. The novel was adapted by Varun Grover, Smita Singh, and Vasant Nath. Kelly Luegenbiehl, Erik Barmack and Motwane were the series' executive producers.
Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan) is a troubled police officer in Mumbai who receives a phone call from gangster Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who tells him to save the city within 25 days; the series chronicles the events which follow. Other cast members include Radhika Apte, Girish Kulkarni, Neeraj Kabi, Jeetendra Joshi, Rajshri Deshpande, Karan Wahi, Sukhmani Sadana, Aamir Bashir, Jatin Sarna, Elnaaz Norouzi, Pankaj Tripathi, Amey Wagh, Kubbra Sait, Surveen Chawla, Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey and Amruta Subhash.
Sacred Games began development after Netflix vice-president Erik Barmack asked Motwane in 2014 to create Indian content for the platform. They decided to adapt Chandra's novel in Hindi. After a script was completed, Motwane asked Kashyap to co-direct; Motwane directed the scenes with Singh, and Kashyap directed Gaitonde's scenes. Swapnil Sonawane was director of photography for Motwane; Sylvester Fonseca and Aseem Bajaj filmed the scenes directed by Kashyap. In the second season, Motwane reduced his involvement to showrunner and was replaced as director by Neeraj Ghaywan. Aarti Bajaj was the editor, and Alokananda Dasgupta composed the background score.
The first season of Sacred Games consisting of eight episodes was released on Netflix on 5 July 2018 in 191 countries. The series is subtitled in over 20 languages. It received mostly positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for its performances and writing. The first season is the only Indian series to appear on The New York Times' "The 30 Best International TV Shows of the Decade" list. The second season premiered on 15 August 2019, met with a mixed response making the producers reconsider a third season. Siddiqui has said that there will not be a third season; the show had an open-ended climax.
## Overview
Sartaj Singh is a troubled Mumbai Police inspector who seeks validation from a police force he hates for its corruption. He receives a phone call from Ganesh Gaitonde, a notorious crime lord who has been missing for 16 years. He tells Sartaj to save the city in 25 days, beginning a chain of events that burrows deep into India's underworld. On his journey, Sartaj is helped by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer Anjali Mathur; flashbacks detail Gaitonde's origins, and how he became Mumbai's crime lord. The first season follows Sartaj as he tries to uncover clues about Gaitonde's past and learns about a connection between Gaitonde and his father.
In season two, Gaitonde's story continues in flashbacks while Sartaj tries to find answers. Sartaj discovers an ashram to which his father once belonged, and learns about their apocalyptic plans to create a new, conflict-free world. Gaitonde's meeting with Khanna Guruji, how he became part of the ashram, and his activities with them are depicted in flashbacks. Also explored is how Gaitonde was deployed in Kenya by Kusum Devi Yadav – a RAW officer who tries to keep Gaitonde's archenemy Suleiman Isa alive so she can capture and kill Shahid Khan, a dangerous extremist who turns out to be Sartaj's cousin and harbors a plan (with the ashram) to wipe out India.
## Cast
## Episodes
## Production
### Development
Netflix vice-president Erik Barmack came across Sacred Games, Vikram Chandra's 2006 crime novel, while the service was searching for Indian content for a global audience. Barmack called it "an interesting property", and decided to adapt it in Hindi. In 2014, Netflix approached Phantom Films to produce a series; writer-director Vikramaditya Motwane met their team during a visit to Los Angeles. Motwane had read Chandra's earlier novel, Love and Longing in Bombay, which introduces the character of Sartaj Singh. After the meeting, he read Sacred Games and thought it was "great". Motwane said that the best thing for him was that Netflix wanted to produce the series in Hindi, rather than English: "Speaking in English can seem so fake at times." He started working on the adaptation with writer Varun Grover, calling the writing process the "biggest challenge".
Motwane found the web-series medium "liberating", since he could tell stories which "don't have to be told in two-and-a-half hours with an interval and three songs inserted into it." Although he initially considered using different directors for each episode, "As we got closer to production, we realised that dates were clashing and that it was an overall nightmare [...]" Motwane suggested that he and Anurag Kashyap co-direct the series, since he felt that the two "distinct voices" were essential for the two parallel tracks of the plot. Kashyap said that he "gobbled" up the opportunity as the novel had fascinated him. In 2014, he was approached by AMC and Scott Free Productions to direct an English-language adaptation of the novel. Kashyap declined, since he did not want to do "anything based in India in English". Motwane and his writers gave the scripts to Chandra for feedback: "Chandra is so research-intensive that we didn't have to approach another researcher, we just had to ask him questions." The series was written by Grover, Smita Singh, and Vasant Nath. Singh said that in 2016, they were told by Phantom Films that "it had to be a gripping slow-burner". Research was directed by Smita Nair and Mantra Watsa, who summarised every chapter and made the "complex plot easily accessible" to the writers. The series' script was completed in a year. Nath said that in the beginning of the writing process, they were "chucking away some important characters from the original, and bringing in new ones". Sacred Games is Netflix' first Indian original series.
Its episode titles were inspired by Hindu mythology. The first episode, "Aswatthama", was based on the namesake character from the Mahabharata who was cursed with immortality by Krishna after the Kurukshetra War. In the series, Gaitonde calls himself immortal (like Ashwatthama) before he commits suicide. "Halahala", the second episode, was named after a poison created from the churning of the sea. Aatapi and Vatapi were two demons who tricked people with their nice behavior and killed them. Brahmahatya (the killing of a brahmin) is a crime in Hinduism. In that episode, the Hindu Gaitonde agrees to attract Muslim votes for the Hindu politician Bhosale. "Sarama" refers to as a dog. "Pretakalpa" refers to a Hindu text read at a funeral. In this episode, Katekar is killed and Sartaj cremates him. Rudra is the angry version of Shiva. Gaitonde's wife Subhadra is killed in this episode, and he takes revenge by murdering her killers. Yayati was a king who was cursed with premature old age. The series' title sequence, logo, and title designs were designed by graphic designer Aniruddh Mehta and the Mumbai-based motion lab Plexus, who were inspired by Hindu mythology. Mehta said that each emblem was a contemporary take on "stories from ancient Hindu scriptures, mandalas, mixing modern design elements with characters from the Indus Valley Civilization". The sequence also featured real footages of several events such as the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Several changes were made in adapting the novel as a series. Kukoo, a transgender woman, is mentioned in passing in the novel as a dancer with whom a police officer fell in love; a constable describes Kukoo to Sartaj as "beautiful as a Kashmiri apple". In the series, Kukoo is a prominent character as Gaitonde's love interest; Malcolm Murad, mentioned once in the novel, has a prominent role in the series as an assassin. A few other changes were made in the adaptation. The Bombay riots are prominent in the novel; in the series, they are briefly described by Gaitonde.
### Casting and characters
Several characters in the series speak different Indian languages (Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi and Gujarati), and Kashyap cited that as giving a "real sense of what India is". Saif Ali Khan, who plays the cop Sartaj Singh, called the series an experiment, and said he agreed to do it because "people are willing to watch programmes from other countries with sub-titles because good stories transcend boundaries." Khan found an "interesting arc" in Singh, calling the character "troubled and honest". He said that he read portions of the novel, but stopped when he found that it was not helping him find what he needed as an actor. Radhika Apte played Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer Anjali Mathur. Apte called her character a "completely no-nonsense, focused woman who's highly respected in her field and by her peers." She said that her character was not glamourised (unlike Hindi film depictions of a RAW agent). Kashyap said that the novel is about "how Bombay became Mumbai", and the series gives "a sense of the city, where it came from and where it is today."
Nawazuddin Siddiqui said that he treated his role as a gangster like a human being. Siddiqui felt that a series provides more time for character exploration than a film, and wanted to try the format. He called Gaitonde the most complex character he had played to date. Khan read Chandra's short story, "Kama", to "delve into his character's angst." Sartaj Singh's appearance was changed from tall and thin in the novel to muscular and heavier in the series. According to Khan, the change was made to make the character look "visually engaging" and a "slightly more charged-up version of the passive officer in the books". Kashyap called Gaitonde the "sum of all we like in movie characters." Motwane said that Siddiqui was his first choice to play Gaitonde because he "plays gangster so well" and "has that aura and almost everything that's required to play a gangster." He said that casting popular actors like Khan and Siddiqui "drives a larger audience to watch." He said that it was easier to convince Apte and Neeraj Kabi for the roles after Khan and Siddiqui were cast. Kabi was cast as DCP Parulkar, whom he researched in the novel. He also worked on the superintendent's body language, which was noted in the novel. Jitendra Joshi played Constable Ashok Katekar, Sartaj's colleague, after auditioning for the role. He was inspired by real-life police officers for his portrayal.
Actress Kubbra Sait played Kukoo, a transgender woman. She was asked to audition by Kashyap at the screening of Mukkabaaz at the MAMI Film Festival, and was cast. Sait felt that the lack of any reference for Kukoo's role made it "the most challenging experience" of her career; she wore a prosthetic penis. Jatin Sarna was cast as gangster Deepak "Bunty" Shinde after auditioning. Rajshri Deshpande played Gaitonde's wife, Subhadra. Girish Kulkarni was originally offered the role of Katekar; he declined because he wanted a character "that would figure in both Sartaj and Ganesh Gaitonde's world", and was then cast as minister Bipin Bhosale. Iranian actress Elnaaz Norouzi was cast as film star Zoya Mirza. Production design was by Shazia Iqbal and Vintee Bansal, and Aarti Bajaj edited the series. Swapnil Sonawane filmed the portions directed by Motwane, and Sylvester Fonseca and Aseem Bajaj shot Kashyap's scenes. Anish John was the series' sound designer.
### Filming
#### Season 1
Motwane began filming in September 2017. Kashyap started filming after the Mukkabaaz (2017) was completed, and finished shooting in January 2018. Motwane and Kashyap filmed separately; Motwane directed the present-day scenes with Khan, and Kashyap filmed 1980s Bombay with Siddiqui. Motwane called the separate filming an "experiment", and Kashyap found it "painfully difficult" to find "pockets of Bombay which has kept itself like it is". Chandra was working on the novel while Kashyap was working on his film, Black Friday (2007), and he "knew the real-life parallels" in the novel. Kashyap said that he shot the series as he would a film. Motwane said that except for omitting small details, they "stuck to the spirit of the book". He tried to balance the series, "making it for a worldwide audience [and not alienating] everybody over here." Motwane said that he enjoyed telling a story without being confined to a three-act structure. Chandra served as a script consultant in the series.
Sacred Games was shot in several Mumbai locations, including the Byculla neighbourhood, and Motwane said that its period setting presented a "huge logistical challenge". Although the time period of Gaitonde's story remained unchanged, the present-day narrative was shifted to the present from the early 2000s. Motwane said that there is a "similar sort of government [today] and the vibes are the same, so the threat felt a lot more present". According to Sonawane, "A lot of changes happened on the shoot". Several shots in the script, such as the introduction of Gaitonde as a child, were top-angle shots. He filmed Sartaj Singh's scenes with "worn-out but very warm lenses that reflect how nothing is working out in Sartaj's life." The color yellow was used in Gaitonde's scenes to signify that the "guru that he has begun to follow." Bajaj shot for 27 days, leaving when he became involved in another project; Fonseca shot the remaining scenes, using spherical lenses to "demarcate" the world. The shootout at Gaitonde's house was filmed at three locations, with long takes on Steadicam and hand-held cameras. A scene with Sait, involving frontal nudity, was filmed in seven takes.
#### Season 2
In September 2018, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a second season. A 58-second teaser promoting the season premiered on 21 September. Kashyap continued to direct, and Neeraj Ghaywan replaced Motwane as co-director. Pankaj Tripathi and Surveen Chawla, seen briefly during the first season, returned in larger roles. Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey and Amruta Subhash joined the series, and Chawla filmed while she was pregnant. Shooting began in November 2018, with Siddiqui filming his scenes in Nairobi and Khan filming his in Mumbai. It was shot on a 50-day schedule, Ghaywan filming with Khan. The season was extensively filmed in Mombasa, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Shooting ended on 19 February 2019, and the season premiered on 15 August of that year. In 2020, Siddiqui said that there might not be a third season.
### Music
The soundtrack of the TV series Sacred Games consists of 24 tracks including seven songs and other scores. One song "Kaam 25" sung and written by rapper Divine and music by the producer Phenom, was released on 21 June 2018. It was not used in the series. According to Sidhantha Jain of Firstpost, the song is a "hard-hitting, hypnotic Mumbai anthem inspired by the streets." One of Divine's earlier song "Jungli Sher", was also used in the series' trailer. The background score and the opening theme was composed by Alokananda Dasgupta and Yashraj Jaiswal. She also composed four songs in it: "Saiyaan", "Tabahi", "Dhuaan Dhuaan" and "Kukoo's Couplet". Both Dasgupta and Motwane came up with the idea that the theme "should have a religious connotation but it shouldn't remind one of any particular religion". She then created gibberish lines after deciding to include an ominous chant by humming with a vocalist to record with a cello. Rachita Arora composed two tracks of the album, "Dance Capital" and "Labon Se Chhukar." She was briefed by Kashyap to listen to the songs of Bappi Lahiri to get a "sense of the infectious rhythm that defined his music." The Music Production of the songs were done by Daniel Chiramal and the lyrics for the songs were written by Rajeshwari Dasgupta, Prakhar Mishra Varunendra, Vishal Sawant and Rajeshwari Deshpande.
#### Track listing
#### Music videos
Netflix released the music video of the track "Kaam 25" on YouTube featuring Divine.
## Release
Sacred Games is the first Netflix original series from India. The service announced three new series and four others in February 2018, for a total of seven Indian series in production. A preview of the main three characters (Sartaj, Gaitonde and Anjali Mathur) was released by Netflix on 23 February 2018, with photos of a blood-spattered Sartaj, a perplexed-looking Mathur and a pyjama-clad Gaitonde. A 45-second teaser video was released on 3 May, followed by a trailer on 6 June. The series' first four episodes premiered in Mumbai on 29 June 2018 at the MAMI film festival. Netflix released the series on 5 July in 191 countries, subtitled in over 20 languages. Related mashup videos, artwork and memes circulated on social media after the series' release.
On 10 July 2018, Indian National Congress member Rajeev Kumar Sinha filed a first information report against Netflix, the showrunners and Nawazuddin Siddiqui for allegedly insulting former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in one scene. Another complaint was lodged the following day by Youth Indian National Trade Union Congress city wing and All Indian Cine Worker's Association president (and Congress Party activist) Suresh Shyamal Gupta for allegedly insulting Gandhi. On 14 July 2018, Rahul Gandhi tweeted that freedom "is a fundamental democratic right. My father lived and died in the service of India. The views of a character on a fictional web series can never change that." The following day, Sinha withdrew his complaint after Gandhi's tweet. However, Netflix refused to change the objectionable English subtitle.
According to Netflix vice-president Todd Yellin, its first season was watched by twice as many people outside India.
## Reception
### Critical response
The series received positive reviews from critics, who praised its performances. On Rotten Tomatoes, season 1 has an approval rating of 92% based on reviews from 26 critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, season 2 has an approval rating of 60% based on reviews from 5 critics.
According to Raja Sen, "It is not an immediately explosive concept, unfolding more like a thriller by numbers, helped along by strong performances and some nimble direction." Jai Arjun Singh said that Sacred Games replicated the novel's profanity, and the "series uses its own methods to stress the idea of religion as something that can be both nurturing and cannibalistic". Ektaa Malik of The Indian Express called the series "edgier and more layered": "For those who have read the original source material — the novel Sacred Games — they might find the series a bit jarring with regards to certain plot developments." Manjusha Radhakrishnan of Gulf News called it an "edgy, thrilling winner", with Khan and Siddiqui in "top form". Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave it a positive review: "The series has the potential to wean back viewers who have been driven away from television by drab soap operas and trite entertainment formats."
Dipti Kharude of The Quint praised the series' writing: "What's commendable is that Sacred Games chooses compassion over glorification." Swetha Ramakrishnan of Firstpost called it a "high benchmark for India's first Netflix original", and the show provided "due diligence with high production value and an investment into the right parameters – writing, acting and direction." According to Shristi Negi of News18, the series "totally grips you from start to finish". Ankur Pathak of HuffPost also gave it a positive review: "At the surface, Sacred Games appears to be a standard cat-and-mouse chase but the show's probing, introspective nature turns a clichéd crime-saga to a biting commentary on the zeitgeist. Its relevance to our current moment cannot be overstated."
Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "there are clear flaws", but "there's something riveting about India's bleaker, darker heart being exposed as opposed to some upbeat, colorful explosion of dance scenes". Mike Hale of The New York Times was less enthusiastic: "Despite its verve and visual inventiveness, the series feels muddled and a little wearying at times". Adam Starkey of Metro, however, wrote that the dual narratives are occasionally jarring but compelling nonetheless. Taylor Antrim called the series "mesmerizing" and "addictive": "Bollywood maximal-ism meets downbeat Euro noir meets Hollywood gangster epic". Steve Greene of IndieWire called the series a "surface-level telling of a story that wants to have so much more in its grasp" and noted its violence. John Doyle of The Globe and Mail wrote that the series "sprawls from thriller to dense character study to brooding meditation on the roots of India's political corruption." However, some elements of the story "will puzzle viewers not familiar with India's tangled religious tensions and caste system." Kaitlin Reily of Refinery29 called Sacred Games a "juicy crime thriller that combines a hard-boiled detective story with magical realism." Lincoln Michel of GQ called it the "best Netflix original in years."
The second season received less-favorable reviews than the first, with Tanul Thakur of The Wire writing that it "severely lacks the urgency, the wicked humour and the heartfelt bonds that made the first season so captivating." According to Shreya Iyer of The Times of India, the series "falls short on several levels and is unable to live up to the hype created by the previous season." Kaushani Banerjee of The New Indian Express wrote, "There seems to be a lack of effort or failure to bring newness to the characters which became iconic after the first season was aired." Soumya Rao of Scroll.in called the season "too ambitious for its own good".
### Accolades
Sacred Games received the Best Drama Award at the News18 iReel Awards. It received five awards from 11 nominations, including Best Actor (Drama) for Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Best Supporting Actor for Jitendra Joshi, Best Writing (Drama), Best Ensemble Cast, and Best Series (Drama). Kashyap received the Best Direction (Fiction) Award and Aarti Bajaj received the Award for Best Editing at the inaugural Asian Academy Creative Awards. It received the Best Show Jury (Web) and Best Supporting Actor (Web) Award for Kabi, at the 18th Indian Television Academy Awards. The second season was nominated for a 2019 Best Drama International Emmy Award. Sait garnered the OTT Best Female Actor in Negative Role Award at the 2019 Gold Awards. Alokananda Dasgupta received the Best Background Music Award while Slyvester Fonseca received the Best Cinematographer Award at the 2020 Filmfare OTT Awards. It is the only Indian series on The New York Times' "30 Best International TV Shows of the Decade" list.
|
451,251 |
1 Utama
| 1,159,084,318 |
Shopping mall in Selangor, Malaysia
|
[
"1995 establishments in Malaysia",
"Buildings and structures completed in 1995",
"Petaling District",
"Shopping malls established in 1995",
"Shopping malls in Selangor"
] |
1 Utama is a shopping mall in Bandar Utama, Selangor, Malaysia, with an area of 5,590,000 square feet (519,000 m<sup>2</sup>) and containing 713 stores. It is the one of the largest shopping malls in Malaysia and the seventh-largest shopping mall in the world before IOI City Mall in Putrajaya surpassed it in 2022. The first phase of the mall, now known as the "Old Wing", was opened in September 1995. With the increase in customer traffic and demand for retail spaces inside the mall, a second phase called "New Wing" was added in 2003.
An additional expansion of 592,015 square feet (55,000.0 m<sup>2</sup>) was added in 2018 with the addition of 1 Utama E. Today the mall houses multiple retail areas, restaurants, cafes, sports facilities, a rainforest, and a bus station with national and international services. Current anchor tenants of the mall include AEON Department Store and Supermarket, Jaya Grocer, and department store Parkson. The mall formerly housed Singaporean department store Tangs, Japanese department store Isetan, and the first IKEA store in Malaysia in 1996. The mall has received several awards, including Gold in EdgeProp Malaysia's Best Managed Property Awards 2019 (retail category) and the Platinum Award for Shopping Complex of the Year in the Retail World Excellence Awards 2006/07 edition.
## History
In the 1990s, See Hoy Chan Holdings Group started developing a new town known as Bandar Utama that consists of residential and commercial areas. As the market demand for this location has surged, the developer had planned to build a mall in this town. The developer looked for inspiration for such a mall in the United States in 1993 before designing the first phase of the mall known as the Old Wing today. As the developer believed that the mall should come with anchor tenants, they signed an agreement with AEON to open Jusco (currently rebranded as AEON) as the main tenant in the mall.
The mall was officially opened in September 1995 and all the premises were fully rented by various tenants. The cost of the construction of the first phase of the mall was RM89 million. The first IKEA store in Malaysia opened on April 25, 1996 in the mall and received very good reception from customers during the first few days after opening. At the time, most of the IKEA products were made in Malaysia including dining tables, chairs, coffee tables, venetian blinds, cutting boards, toys and bed frames. The IKEA store covered 7,431 square metres (79,990 sq ft) of space inside the mall. Due to the increased demand for IKEA products, the store was relocated to Mutiara Damansara on August 14, 2003, which was bigger than the previous store and became the largest IKEA store in Asia-Pacific during that time until it was surpassed by another store in Gwangmyeong, South Korea in 2014.
As the mall facing increased demand for retail spaces which led to long tenant waiting list, the director of See Hoy Chan Holdings Group, Teo Chiang Kok, considered expanding the mall by building the second phase which is known as the New Wing in order to further accommodate the increasing numbers of customers and retail lots which would cost RM300 million and increased the retail lot from 220 units to 600 units. The two blocks are now connected by a covered pedestrian bridge. The new section also includes an aviary, zoo, diving pool and climbing wall. The mall soft-opened on December 13, 2003, with the grand opening taking place on April 2, 2004, by the Sultan of Selangor, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah. The owner and management of the mall was transferred to Bandar Utama City Centre.
The first renovation of the first phase (or Old Wing) took place in June 2011, 16 years after it opened, and cost RM160 million. The renovation included a relocation of the Jusco supermarket to the new area, additions of cinema screens, and a new entrance to the 1 First Avenue office building. An additional expansion of 592,015 square feet (55,000.0 m<sup>2</sup>) inside the mall included the third phase (known as 1 Utama E) which was opened on January 24, 2018. It features a surfing pool, a skydiving wind tunnel and several restaurants and cafes which aim to make the mall a multi-sport and entertainment venue alongside shopping. The mall will also bring 500 more parking bays as well as providing pedestrian access to Bandar Utama MRT station. The development of this phase cost RM150 million.
## Features
1 Utama contains 203,000 square metres (2,190,000 sq ft) of retail space. Its 713 stores appeal to all economic strata, from department stores such as AEON and Parkson, to high-end international chains and multiple restaurants such as the Food District food court, Din Tai Fung, KFC, McDonald's, Texas Chicken, Dunkin' Donuts and Carl's Jr. and two cinema chains, TGV Cinemas and GSC. This mall previously housed the first IKEA store in Malaysia, Cold Storage, MPH Bookstores. and Isetan department store. Aside from retail, 1 Utama offers sport amenities to the public including a bowling alley, baseball cage, climbing wall, surfing pool and skydiving wind tunnel. The rainforest inside the mall was grown on October 25, 2003. It was done by extracting a Tabebuia rosea tree from a nearby forest carried into the mall to create the forest canopy, whereas an additional 200 samplings of other species such as Alocasia, wild banana, Johanesteijsmannia, Aglaonema and Phyllagathis will be used as shrub layer. The rainforest opened to the public in November 2003. As of 2019, the mall attracts more than 33 million visitors annually, with peak traffic occurring during the holiday season.
## Access
The mall is connected to several major roads including Lebuhraya Damansara Puchong and Lebuh Bandar Utama. In addition to providing 14,000 parking bays for cars, the mall also provides bicycle parking. The car park is also equipped with electric vehicle charging points. The mall is accessible via public transport, including MRT via Bandar Utama MRT station or via buses from RapidKL bus service.
## Incidents
### Fires
There were two fires that broke out in the mall. The first fire was on February 25, 2013, which started in a storage facility in the children's playground equipment store which caused the whole building to experience a power outage. The second fire occurred on July 11, 2014, when the fire broke out from the kitchen of one of the food court. Both fires were minor, and no casualties were reported.
### Crime
In response to the abduction of Canny Ong in a shopping center in Bangsar which led to her death on June 13, 2003, many shopping malls in Klang Valley strengthened their security in order to protect their customers, including One Utama shopping mall where the management deployed additional policemen, guard dogs and security guards to patrol the mall. Despite this, there were several false alarms when some customers reported to police that their cars were stolen, when in fact the customers forgot where they had parked their cars. During Chinese New Year in 2014, a burglar stole jewellery worth RM10 million in one of the jewellery shops. The heist was planned by a Latin American gang in advance before executing the burglary, which included hiding inside the mall as it closed, cutting off electricity, disabling the burglar alarm system, stealing CCTV recording units and melting safe doors using an oxy acetylene torch.
### Suicide
A woman fell to her death from the 4th floor at the new wing on 19 May 2021. The incident happened at 1 pm. The mall emergency response team quickly handled the situation before handing it over to the police. The management of One Utama has confirmed that the police will be investigating the matter further.
|
21,921,707 |
1952 World Snooker Championship
| 1,157,934,915 |
Snooker tournament, held 1952
|
[
"1952 in English sport",
"1952 in snooker",
"February 1952 sports events in the United Kingdom",
"March 1952 sports events in the United Kingdom",
"Sports competitions in Manchester",
"World Snooker Championships"
] |
The 1952 World Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament held between 25 February and 8 March 1952 at Houldsworth Hall, in Manchester, England. The event featured only two entrants – Australian Horace Lindrum and New Zealander Clark McConachy. Due to a dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC), most players withdrew from the event. The BACC thought the championship was primarily about honour, and financial consideration should come second, whilst the PBPA disagreed. The PBPA established an alternative 'world championship' called the PBPA Snooker Championship which would later become the official world championship as the World Professional Match-play Championship.
The competition was played as one continual match, held over 145 . Lindrum won the match, taking a winning 73–37 lead early on the 10th day and won 94–49. In winning the event, Lindrum became the first player from outside the British Isles to gain victory in the tournament, and the only one of four players to do so, with Cliff Thorburn in 1980, Neil Robertson in 2010, and Luca Brecel in 2023. The status of the event is debated, with some historians only counting Thorburn's, Robertson's & Brecel's wins due to the field of just two players.
## Background
The World Snooker Championship is an annual cue sport tournament and is the official world championship of the game of snooker. The first world championship in 1927, held in Camkin's Hall, Birmingham, England, was won by Joe Davis. Due to a dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the organisers for the event, the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC), most players withdrew. The BACC thought the championship was primarily about honour, and financial consideration should come second, whilst the PBPA disagreed. The PBPA went on to create the World Professional Match-play Championship, where the remaining players would take part, and would be retroactively given status as the world championship for following years.
With just two participants remaining – Horace Lindrum and Clark McConachy – the tournament was contested over a single match. The pair met in a best of 145 match, held between 25 February and 8 March 1952 at the Houldsworth Hall in Manchester, England.
McConachy had played in the 1951/1952 News of the World Snooker Tournament from September 1951 to January 1952. This was an annual round-robin handicap tournament played by the leading professionals. McConachy was defeated in each of the eight games he played in and winning an average of 11 frames in each 37-frame match. He also lost all three matches he played on level terms, 10–27 to Albert Brown, 8–29 to John Pulman, and 11–26 to Sidney Smith. He lost 11–26 to Joe Davis, despite receiving a 21-point start in each frame.
On 19 February, the Tuesday before the final, McConachy had scored one of the early snooker maximum breaks in a practice frame at the Beaufort Club in London. An official of the BACC later examined the table and found it slightly over the standard size and so the break was not accepted as official. At the time, Joe Davis held the record for the highest official break of 146. Lindrum did not play in the News of the World tournament. His last competitive tournament was the 1951 World Snooker Championship, in which he had lost to Walter Donaldson in the semi-final, trailing 25–36 on the final day.
## Summary
With the score tied at 6–6 after the first day, Lindrum won eight of the next twelve frames to lead 14–10 after the second day's play. This lead extended to 22–14 after the third day. All 12 frames were shared on day four, with each player winning six, but Lindrum still led 28–20. The fifth day saw featured Lindrum extend his lead to 38–22 after day five, winning ten of the twelve frames played. Lindrum led 44–28 at the end of the first full week of play.
Lindrum won eight frames on the eighth day of play to lead 52–32, before winning nine frames the following day to leave him 61–35 ahead. With the score required for victory being 73 frames, Lindrum won 10 frames on 5 March to lead 71–37, needing just two of the remaining 37 frames for victory. Lindrum won the first two frames to reach a winning 73–37 position on 6 March. The remaining 35 dead frames were due to be played, although in the end only a total of 143 frames were played, Lindrum winning 94–49. Lindrum became the first player from outside the British Isles to win the World Championship, and would remain the only Australian until compatriot Neil Robertson won the event in 2010.
## Main draw
Sources:
|
19,203,027 |
Billy Geen
| 1,159,306,727 |
Wales international rugby union footballer
|
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"1891 births",
"1915 deaths",
"Alumni of University College, Oxford",
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"British military personnel killed in World War I",
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"Monmouthshire County RFC players",
"Monmouthshire cricketers",
"Newport RFC players",
"Oxford University RFC players",
"People educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College",
"Rugby union players from Newport, Wales",
"Rugby union wings",
"Wales international rugby union players",
"Welsh cricketers",
"Welsh rugby union players"
] |
William Purdon Geen (14 March 1891 – 31 July 1915) was a rugby union wing and centre, who represented Wales, and played club rugby for Oxford University and Newport and county rugby for Monmouthshire. He was also invited to play for the Barbarians on several occasions. Geen unsuccessfully trialled for England in 1910, but was selected and played for Wales on three occasions in the 1912–1913 season. Injury prevented him from playing more internationals, and his service in the First World War put an end to his career.
Geen excelled athletically at Oxford, earning four Blues between 1910 and 1913. However, in three successive Varsity Matches, he failed to score after dropping the ball over the tryline. In the holidays, he played club rugby for Newport, and he was part of the team that defeated the touring South African side of 1912–1913. He was also a decent cricketer keeping wicket for Oxford University Authentics and Monmouthshire.
Geen was commissioned second lieutenant into the 9th King's Royal Rifle Corps in August 1914, and sent to the Western Front in May 1915. He was killed in action in Hooge, Belgium. He is remembered on the Menin Gate memorial.
## Early life
Geen was born in Newport, Wales. He went to school in England at Northam Place, Potter's Bar, and then Haileybury College before being accepted into Oxford University. At Haileybury he was wicketkeeper for the cricket team; he also captained the rugby team, playing at centre.
## Rugby career
Although Geen was a decent cricketer, keeping wicket for Oxford University Authentics and Monmouthshire in the Minor Counties Championship between 1909 and 1912, his rugby playing was more notable. He played wing for Oxford and Wales, and centre for Newport. He was "in the thick of everything", a "class centre" with a "dodging style", according to the rugby journalist E. H. D. Sewell. He also appeared for Blackheath and the Barbarians. He was, however, repeatedly injured and his form was at times inconsistent. The First World War prevented him from playing more for Wales.
### Oxford University and England trial
Geen was selected to play for Oxford against Cambridge in four consecutive years from 1910 to 1913. In the first of these, on 13 December 1910, a 9,000-strong crowd turned up at Queen's, mostly to watch Ronnie Poulton, playing for Oxford. Cambridge started strong but a try by Bryn Lewis was disallowed in the opening minutes after a touch judge signalled that Geen had put his foot into touch in the preceding Oxford move. Moments later, Poulton ran through the Cambridge defence, drew the fullback and passed to Geen to dive in at the corner for a try. With Turner's conversion, Oxford led 5–0. A similar passage of play again saw Poulton put Geen through for a try, but he dropped the ball after crossing the line while trying to get closer to the posts.
Geen got his second try after another break from Poulton. Cambridge meanwhile scored two tries and at half-time were leading 15–13. Fifteen minutes into the second half, a second try for Cambridge put them five points ahead. An injury to one of Cambridge's scoring wings reduced the team to fourteen players; a forward moved to cover the wing, giving Oxford an advantage in the forwards. Poulton capitalised on it: he scored from a dummy pass to Geen; and ran in a solo try after receiving a pass from flyhalf Freddie Knott. The end score was 23–18 to Oxford.
A couple of days before the Varsity Match, talk in the press had been of Geen's likely selection for England for the forthcoming Home Nations Championship. Geen and Poulton, who together were considered the scoring force of the Oxford team, were both selected to play for England in the second trial match against The North in Leeds. Although Geen scored a try in the game, his form was lacking and he was outshone by Poulton. So for the third and final trial, England versus The Rest on 7 January 1911, Geen was not selected.
In the run up to the 1911 Varsity Match, the Poulton–Geen partnership was a constant threat to opposition teams. Ten days before the Varsity Match, Oxford beat London Scottish 39–3. Twice Poulton put Geen in the clear, with the latter ending the day with four tries in total. On 12 December, Cambridge were favourites to win but Poulton captained Oxford to victory, in front of a crowd of 10,000. Geen's form coming into the game was suspect but he proved his worth. However, Poulton suffered a hamstring injury early on and his replacement Eric Thomas, a forward, lacked the speed and skills to combine effectively with Geen. Nevertheless, he came close to scoring, but, as he had done in the previous year's match, he dropped the ball over the tryline. He was to repeat the error the following year.
### Newport Rugby Club and Wales
Geen played for Newport Rugby Club before going to Oxford and returned to Newport during the holiday periods, providing "dazzling entertainment". He was described by Tommy Vile's biographer Philip J Grant as looking "the promising player in Wales"; and scored 10 tries and a dropped goal in 14 games for the Monmouthshire club. On 24 October 1912, he was part of the team that played and beat the touring South Africans 9–3. He was not first choice for the game, but when George Hirst failed to recover from an injury sustained at Leicester the week before, Geen was his replacement.
South Africa was as yet undefeated on the tour, with wins over Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Monmouthshire, Glamorgan and Llanelli. Whereas Newport, according to "Dromio" (W J Townsend Collins) writing in the Argus, had been poor in attack in their previous three encounters and weak in defence in the last two. Townsend Collins later recollected that the South Africans were taller, heavier, stronger and faster. The Newport victory was the result of "superior tactics and superlative captaincy".
Just before half time, a try by Newport's Jack Wetter was disallowed for a forward pass. The ball was then worked back to Fred Birt, standing within range in front of the posts, and he kicked a drop-goal, putting the home side 4–0 ahead at the break. In the second half, the Springboks repeatedly attacked but the Newport defence kept them from crossing the line, although a break from Dick Luyt, the South African centre, left Douglas Morkel to score under the posts. Luyt failed to convert and Newport remained a point ahead. Newport scored again through a cross-kick from Wetter, which Birt jumped on over the line for a try, which he then converted.
Newport was one of only three teams to beat the Springboks on the tour and Geen played his part, bringing down Johan Stegmann when he was within sight of the try line. He was praised after the match for his play. The Times the following day reported: "Newport deserved the victory, if only for their remarkably sound and highly intelligent defence... In spite, however, of the good play of the Newport forwards ... the South African backs would have scored at least three tries but for the fine tackling of Geen and Reg Plummer, the Newport wings, who saved one certain try by just stopping Otto Van Der Hoff on the line."
Geen was then selected and played three times for Wales in the 1912–1913 season. He earned his first cap against the same touring South Africans on 14 December. His next international appearance, under the captaincy of his Newport teammate Tommy Vile, was on 18 January 1913 against England. Wales were beaten in Cardiff 0–12. After the game, and disappointed by the performance of most of the team, the selectors made nine changes for the upcoming match against Scotland. Only two backs were to be retained, Bobby Williams, the fullback, and Billy Geen, deemed the outstanding threequarter against England, moving from wing to centre. However, on the Wednesday preceding the encounter in Edinburgh, Geen withdrew after a training session due to an ongoing shoulder injury, and his place on the team was taken by Willie Watts.
His final game for Wales was on 8 March 1913 against Ireland, when he showed "brilliance and judgment" (according to Townsend Collins) helping to create two tries towards a Welsh 16–13 victory. Geen was selected to play centre for the first match of the 1914 Home Nations against England at Twickenham but was forced to withdraw due to injury. He was replaced, once again, by Willie Watts, and probably missed out on four more caps for Wales.
### Barbarian F.C.
In 1911, Geen was approached by Barbarian F.C., an invitational touring rugby team based in England, to join them on their 1911 Easter tour. Geen played in two matches of the tour, the first a 15–8 loss against Cardiff RFC where he was captained by Ireland's Tommy Smyth. Despite missing the Swansea game two days later, Geen returned to the Barbarians squad to face Cheltenham, which ended in an 8–3 victory for the tourists. Later that year Geen was again invited to play for the Barbarians, another contest against Cardiff in their traditional Boxing Day encounter. In 1912 Geen played in his first Barbarians match outside Wales, facing the Leicester Tigers. His captain on that day was England international Edgar Mobbs, and although finishing on the losing side, Geen scored his first and only try for the Barbarians.
With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, competitive rugby union matches were suspended. Despite this, Edgar Mobbs organised two Barbarians matches against Leicester in early 1915 to aid recruiting and to raise charity funds. Mobbs then arranged one final Barbarians match against the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), leading a team made up of military personnel, including Geen in his last Barbarians appearance, to a 10–3 victory. Of Geen's teammates on that day, Mobbs and another England international Arthur James Dingle, would also die in action during the war.
### International appearances for Wales
## Military service and death
Geen was commissioned second lieutenant in the 9th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps on 21 August 1914. He trained in Petworth and was sent to the Western Front in May 1915. The 9th was assigned to the 14th (Light) Division and served with it during the Second Battle of Ypres. After six weeks' combat, the battalion was withdrawn for rest but two days later was sent back to the front to reinforce the 41st Brigade. Geen was killed in action on 31 July 1915 at Hooge, Belgium. He was last seen leading his men in hand-to-hand fighting as they advanced towards ruined village buildings. Major John Hope wrote: "Geen fought gloriously, and was last seen alive leading his platoon in a charge after being for hours subjected to liquid fire and every device the Germans could bring to bear to break through. Seventeen officers and 333 other ranks of this battalion were killed in this engagement, in which officers and men showed themselves worthy of the best traditions of their Regiment."
Billy Geen is commemorated on panels 51 and 53 of the Menin Gate in Ypres, the memorial to missing soldiers from the battles of the Ypres Salient.
|
18,309,966 |
Billboard (magazine)
| 1,172,089,966 |
American weekly music magazine
|
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"Professional and trade magazines",
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"Weekly magazines published in the United States"
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Billboard (stylized in lowercase since 2013) is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events and styles related to the music industry. Its music charts include the Hot 100, the 200, and the Global 200, tracking the most popular albums and songs in various music genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm and operates several television shows.
Billboard was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegan's interest in 1900 for \$500. In the early years of the 20th century, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs and burlesque shows, and also created a mail service for travelling entertainers. Billboard began focusing more on the music industry as the jukebox, phonograph and radio became commonplace. Many topics that it covered became the subjects of new magazines, including Amusement Business in 1961 to cover outdoor entertainment, so that Billboard could focus on music. After Donaldson died in 1925, Billboard was inherited by his and Hennegan's children, who retained ownership until selling it to private investors in 1985. The magazine has since been owned by various parties.
## History
### Early history
The first issue of Billboard was published in Cincinnati, Ohio by William Donaldson and James Hennegan on November 1, 1894. Initially it covered the advertising and bill-posting industry and was known as Billboard Advertising. At the time, billboards, posters, and paper advertisements placed in public spaces were the primary means of advertising. Donaldson handled editorial and advertising, while Hennegan, who owned Hennegan Printing Co., managed magazine production. The first issues were just eight pages long. The paper had columns such as The Bill Room Gossip and The Indefatigable and Tireless Industry of the Bill Poster. A department for agricultural fairs was established in 1896. The Billboard Advertising publication was renamed The Billboard in 1897.
After a brief departure over editorial differences, Donaldson purchased Hennegan's interest in the business in 1900 for \$500 (equal to \$ today) to save it from bankruptcy. On May 5, Donaldson changed the publication from a monthly to a weekly paper with a greater emphasis on breaking news. He improved editorial quality and opened new offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London, and Paris, and also refocused the magazine on outdoor entertainment such as fairs, carnivals, circuses, vaudeville, and burlesque shows. A section devoted to circuses was introduced in 1900, followed by more prominent coverage of outdoor events in 1901. Billboard also covered topics including regulation, professionalism, economics and new shows. It had a "stage gossip" column covering the private lives of entertainers, a "tent show" section covering traveling shows and a subsection called "Freaks to order". Donaldson also published news articles opposing censorship, supporting productions exhibiting good taste and decrying yellow journalism."
As railroads became more developed, Billboard enabled a mail-forwarding system for traveling entertainers. The location of an entertainer was tracked in the paper's Routes Ahead column, and then Billboard would receive mail on the star's behalf and publish a notice in its Letter-Box column that it had mail for him or her. This service was first introduced in 1904 and became one of Billboard's largest sources of profit and celebrity connections. By 1914, 42,000 people were using the service. It was also used as the official address of traveling entertainers for draft letters during World War I. In the 1960s, when the service was discontinued, Billboard was still processing 1,500 letters per week.
In 1920, Donaldson controversially hired black journalist James Albert Jackson to write a weekly column devoted to black performers. According to The Business of Culture: Strategic Perspectives on Entertainment and Media, the column identified discrimination against black performers and helped validate their careers. Jackson was the first black critic at a national magazine with a predominantly white audience. According to his grandson, Donaldson also established a policy against identifying performers by their race. Donaldson died in 1925.
### Focus on music
Billboard's editorial content changed focus as technology in recording and playback developed, covering "marvels of modern technology" such as the phonograph and wireless radios. The magazine began covering coin-operated entertainment machines in 1899 and created a dedicated section called Amusement Machines in March 1932. Billboard began covering the motion-picture industry in 1907 but, facing strong competition from Variety, centered its focus on music. It created a radio-broadcasting station in the 1920s.
The jukebox industry continued to grow through the Great Depression and was advertised heavily in Billboard, which led to even more editorial focus on music. The proliferation of the phonograph and radio also contributed to its growing music emphasis. Billboard published the first music hit parade on January 4, 1936 and introduced a Record Buying Guide in January 1939. In 1940, it introduced Chart Line, which tracked the best-selling records, and was followed by a chart for jukebox records in 1944 called Music Box Machine. By the 1940s, Billboard was more of a music-industry specialist publication. The number of charts that it published grew after World War II, as new music interests and genres became popular. It had eight charts by 1987, covering different genres and formats, and 28 charts by 1994.
By 1943, Billboard had about 100 employees. The magazine's offices moved to Brighton, Ohio in 1946, then to New York City in 1948. A five-column tabloid format was adopted in November 1950 and coated paper was first used in Billboard's print issues in January 1963, allowing for photojournalism. Sometime prior to September 1960, the name had been changed to The Billboard.
Billboard Publications Inc. acquired a monthly trade magazine for candy and cigarette machine vendors called Vend, and in the 1950s it acquired an advertising trade publication called Tide. By 1969, Billboard Publications Inc. owned 11 trade and consumer publications, Watson-Guptill Publications, a set of self-study cassette tapes and four television franchises. It also acquired Photo Weekly that year.
Over time, subjects that Billboard covered outside of the music world formed the basis of separate publications: Funspot magazine was created in 1957 to cover amusement parks and Amusement Business was created in 1961 to cover outdoor entertainment. In January 1961, Billboard was renamed Billboard Music Week to emphasize its newly exclusive interest in music. Two years later, it was renamed to simply Billboard. According to The New Business Journalism, by 1984, Billboard Publications was a "prosperous" conglomerate of trade magazines, and Billboard had become the "undisputed leader" in music-industry news. In the early 1990s, Billboard introduced Billboard Airplay Monitors, a publication for disc jockeys and music programmers. By the end of the 1990s, Billboard dubbed itself the "bible" of the recording industry.
### Changes in ownership
Billboard struggled after its founder William Donaldson died in 1925, and within three years, was once again heading towards bankruptcy. Donaldson's son-in-law Roger Littleford took command in 1928 and "nursed the publication back to health." His sons Bill and Roger became co-publishers in 1946 and inherited the magazine in the late 1970s after Littleford's death. They sold it to private investors in 1985 for an estimated \$40 million. The investors cut costs and acquired a trade publication for the Broadway theatre industry called Backstage.
In 1987, Billboard was sold again to Affiliated Publications for \$100 million. Billboard Publications Inc. became a subsidiary of Affiliated Publications called BPI Communications. As BPI Communications, it acquired The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek, Marketing Week and Mediaweek, and also purchased Broadcast Data Systems, a high-tech firm for tracking music airtime. Private investors from Boston Ventures and BPI executives repurchased a two-thirds interest in Billboard Publications for \$100 million, and more acquisitions followed. In 1993, it created a division known as Billboard Music Group for music-related publications.
In 1994, Billboard Publications was sold to Dutch media conglomerate Verenigde Nederlandse Uitgeverijen (VNU) for \$220 million. VNU acquired the Clio Awards in advertising and the National Research Group in 1997, as well as Editor & Publisher in 1999. In July 2000, it paid \$650 million to the publisher Miller Freeman. BPI was combined with other entities in VNU in 2000 to form Bill Communications Inc. By the time CEO Gerald Hobbs retired in 2003, VNU had grown substantially larger, but had a great deal of debt from the acquisitions. An attempted \$7 billion acquisition of IMS Health in 2005 prompted protests from shareholders that halted the deal; it eventually agreed to an \$11 billion takeover bid from investors in 2006.
VNU changed its name to Nielsen in 2007, the namesake of a company that it had acquired for \$2.5 billion in 1999. New CEO Robert Krakoff divested some of the previously owned publications, restructured the organization and planned some acquisitions before dying suddenly in 2007. He was subsequently replaced by Greg Farrar.
Nielsen owned Billboard until 2009, when it was one of eight publications sold to e5 Global Media Holdings. e5 was formed by investment firms Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners for the purpose of the acquisition. The following year, the new parent company was renamed Prometheus Global Media. Three years later, Guggenheim Partners acquired Pluribus' share of Prometheus and became the sole owner of Billboard.
In December 2015, Guggenheim Digital Media spun out several media brands, including Billboard, to its own executive Todd Boehly. The assets operate under the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a unit of the holding company Eldridge Industries.
### 1990s–present
Timothy White was appointed editor-in-chief in 1991, a position that he held until his unexpected death in 2002. White wrote a weekly column promoting music with "artistic merit" while criticizing music with violent or misogynistic themes, and also reworked the publication's music charts. Rather than relying on data from music retailers, new charts used data from store checkout scanners obtained by Nielsen SoundScan. White also wrote in-depth profiles on musicians, but was replaced by Keith Girard, who was subsequently fired in May 2004. Girard and a female employee filed a \$29 million lawsuit alleging that Billboard fired them unfairly with an intent to damage their reputations and that they experienced sexual harassment, a hostile work environment and a financially motivated lack of editorial integrity. Email evidence suggested that human resources were given special instructions to watch minority employees. The case was settled out of court in 2006 for an undisclosed sum.
In the 2000s, economic decline in the music industry dramatically reduced readership and advertising from Billboard's traditional audience. Circulation declined from 40,000 in circulation in the 1990s to less than 17,000 by 2014. The publication's staff and ownership were also undergoing frequent changes.
In 2004, Tamara Conniff became the first female and youngest-ever executive editor at Billboard and led its first major redesign since the 1960s, designed by Daniel Stark and Stark Design. During Conniff's tenure, Billboard's newsstand sales jumped 10%, ad pages climbed 22% and conference registrations rose 76%. In 2005, Billboard expanded its editorial outside the music industry into other areas of digital and mobile entertainment. In 2006, after leading Billboard's radio publication, former ABC News and CNN journalist Scott McKenzie was named editorial director across all Billboard properties. Conniff launched the Billboard Women in Music event in 2007.
Bill Werde was named editorial director in 2008, and was followed by Janice Min in January 2014, also responsible for editorial content at The Hollywood Reporter. The magazine became more of a general-interest music-news source rather than solely an industry trade, covering more celebrity and fashion news. Min hired Tony Gervino as editor although he did not have a background in the music industry. Gervino was appointed editor-in-chief in April 2014. An NPR item covered a leaked version of Billboard's annual survey, which it said had more gossip and focused on less professional topics than had prior surveys. For example, the magazine polled readers on a lawsuit that singer Kesha filed against her producer, alleging sexual abuse.
Gervino was fired in May 2016. A note from Min to the editorial staff indicated that senior vice president of digital content Mike Bruno would head the editoria departmentl. On June 15, 2016, BillboardPH, the first Billboard chart company in Southeast Asia, mainly in the Philippines, was announced. On September 12, 2016, Billboard expanded into China by launching Billboard China in partnership with Vision Music Ltd.
On September 23, 2020, it was announced that Penske Media Corporation would assume operations of the MRC Media & Info publications under a joint venture with MRC known as PMRC. The joint venture includes the management of Billboard.
## News publishing
Billboard publishes a news website and weekly trade magazine that covers music, video and home entertainment. Most of the articles are written by staff writers, while some are written by industry experts. It covers news, gossip, opinion, and music reviews, but its "most enduring and influential creation" is the Billboard charts. The charts track music sales, radio airtime and other data about the most popular songs and albums. The Billboard Hot 100 chart of the top-selling songs was introduced in 1958. Since then, the Billboard 200, which tracks the top-selling albums, has become more popular as an indicator of commercial success. Billboard has also published books in collaboration with Watson-Guptill and a radio and television series called American Top 40, based on Billboard charts. A daily Billboard Bulletin was introduced in February 1997 and Billboard hosts about 20 industry events each year.
Billboard is considered one of the most reputable sources of music industry news. The website includes the Billboard Charts, news separated by music genre, videos and a separate website. It also compiles lists, hosts a fashion website called Pret-a-Reporter and publishes eight different newsletters. The print magazine's regular sections include:
- Hot 100: A chart of the top 100 most popular songs of the week
- Topline: News from the week
- The Beat: Hitmaker interviews, gossip and trends in the music industry
- Style: Fashion and accessories
- Features: In-depth interviews, profiles and photography
- Reviews: Reviews of new albums and songs
- Backstage pass: information about events and concerts
- Charts and CODA: More information about current and historical Billboard Charts
## Listicles
Billboard is known for publishing several annual listicles on its website, in recognition of the most influential executives, artists and companies in the music industry, such as the following:
- 21 Under 21
- 40 Under 40
- Women in Music
- Billboard Dance 100
- Billboard Power 100
- Dance Power Players
- Digital Power Players
- Hip-Hop Power Players
- Indie Power Players
- Latin Power Players
## See also
- Billboard Candid Covers
- Billboard K-Town
- Billboard Mashup Mondays
- Billboard Touring Awards
- Top Heatseekers
International editions
- Billboard Argentina (2013–present) resent)p
- Billboard Brasil (2009–2019, 2023–present)
- Billboard China (2016–2019, 2022–present)
- Billboard Japan (2008–present)
- Billboard Philippines (2016–2018, 2023–present)
- Billboard Việt Nam (2017–present)
- Billboard Greece (launched 2011; defunct)
- Billboard Indonesia (launch 2018; defunct)
- Billboard Thailand (launched 2016; defunct)
- Billboard Türkiye (2006–2010)
|
28,329,803 |
Spider
| 1,173,821,758 |
Order of arachnids
|
[
"Articles containing video clips",
"Carboniferous arachnids",
"Extant Pennsylvanian first appearances",
"Spiders",
"Taxa named by Carl Alexander Clerck"
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Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms. Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every land habitat. As of August 2022, 50,356 spider species in 132 families have been recorded by taxonomists. However, there has been debate among scientists about how families should be classified, with over 20 different classifications proposed since 1900.
Anatomically, spiders (as with all arachnids) differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax or prosoma, and the opisthosoma, or abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel. However, as there is currently neither paleontological nor embryological evidence that spiders ever had a separate thorax-like division, there exists an argument against the validity of the term cephalothorax, which means fused cephalon (head) and the thorax. Similarly, arguments can be formed against use of the term abdomen, as the opisthosoma of all spiders contains a heart and respiratory organs, organs atypical of an abdomen.
Unlike insects, spiders do not have antennae. In all except the most primitive group, the Mesothelae, spiders have the most centralized nervous systems of all arthropods, as all their ganglia are fused into one mass in the cephalothorax. Unlike most arthropods, spiders have no extensor muscles in their limbs and instead extend them by hydraulic pressure.
Their abdomens bear appendages that have been modified into spinnerets that extrude silk from up to six types of glands. Spider webs vary widely in size, shape and the amount of sticky thread used. It now appears that the spiral orb web may be one of the earliest forms, and spiders that produce tangled cobwebs are more abundant and diverse than orb-weaver spiders. Spider-like arachnids with silk-producing spigots (Uraraneida) appeared in the Devonian period about , but these animals apparently lacked spinnerets. True spiders have been found in Carboniferous rocks from , and are very similar to the most primitive surviving suborder, the Mesothelae. The main groups of modern spiders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae, first appeared in the Triassic period, before .
The species Bagheera kiplingi was described as herbivorous in 2008, but all other known species are predators, mostly preying on insects and on other spiders, although a few large species also take birds and lizards. It is estimated that the world's 25 million tons of spiders kill 400–800 million tons of prey per year. Spiders use a wide range of strategies to capture prey: trapping it in sticky webs, lassoing it with sticky bolas, mimicking the prey to avoid detection, or running it down. Most detect prey mainly by sensing vibrations, but the active hunters have acute vision, and hunters of the genus Portia show signs of intelligence in their choice of tactics and ability to develop new ones. Spiders' guts are too narrow to take solids, so they liquefy their food by flooding it with digestive enzymes. They also grind food with the bases of their pedipalps, as arachnids do not have the mandibles that crustaceans and insects have.
To avoid being eaten by the females, which are typically much larger, male spiders identify themselves to potential mates by a variety of complex courtship rituals. Males of most species survive a few matings, limited mainly by their short life spans. Females weave silk egg-cases, each of which may contain hundreds of eggs. Females of many species care for their young, for example by carrying them around or by sharing food with them. A minority of species are social, building communal webs that may house anywhere from a few to 50,000 individuals. Social behavior ranges from precarious toleration, as in the widow spiders, to co-operative hunting and food-sharing. Although most spiders live for at most two years, tarantulas and other mygalomorph spiders can live up to 25 years in captivity.
While the venom of a few species is dangerous to humans, scientists are now researching the use of spider venom in medicine and as non-polluting pesticides. Spider silk provides a combination of lightness, strength and elasticity that is superior to that of synthetic materials, and spider silk genes have been inserted into mammals and plants to see if these can be used as silk factories. As a result of their wide range of behaviors, spiders have become common symbols in art and mythology symbolizing various combinations of patience, cruelty and creative powers. An irrational fear of spiders is called arachnophobia.
## Etymology
The word spider derives from Proto-Germanic \*spin-þron-, literally (a reference to how spiders make their webs), from the Proto-Indo-European root \*(s)pen- .
## Description
### Body plan
Spiders are chelicerates and therefore arthropods. As arthropods they have: segmented bodies with jointed limbs, all covered in a cuticle made of chitin and proteins; heads that are composed of several segments that fuse during the development of the embryo. Being chelicerates, their bodies consist of two tagmata, sets of segments that serve similar functions: the foremost one, called the cephalothorax or prosoma, is a complete fusion of the segments that in an insect would form two separate tagmata, the head and thorax; the rear tagma is called the abdomen or opisthosoma. In spiders, the cephalothorax and abdomen are connected by a small cylindrical section, the pedicel. The pattern of segment fusion that forms chelicerates' heads is unique among arthropods, and what would normally be the first head segment disappears at an early stage of development, so that chelicerates lack the antennae typical of most arthropods. In fact, chelicerates' only appendages ahead of the mouth are a pair of chelicerae, and they lack anything that would function directly as "jaws". The first appendages behind the mouth are called pedipalps, and serve different functions within different groups of chelicerates.
Spiders and scorpions are members of one chelicerate group, the arachnids. Scorpions' chelicerae have three sections and are used in feeding. Spiders' chelicerae have two sections and terminate in fangs that are generally venomous, and fold away behind the upper sections while not in use. The upper sections generally have thick "beards" that filter solid lumps out of their food, as spiders can take only liquid food. Scorpions' pedipalps generally form large claws for capturing prey, while those of spiders are fairly small appendages whose bases also act as an extension of the mouth; in addition, those of male spiders have enlarged last sections used for sperm transfer.
In spiders, the cephalothorax and abdomen are joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel, which enables the abdomen to move independently when producing silk. The upper surface of the cephalothorax is covered by a single, convex carapace, while the underside is covered by two rather flat plates. The abdomen is soft and egg-shaped. It shows no sign of segmentation, except that the primitive Mesothelae, whose living members are the Liphistiidae, have segmented plates on the upper surface.
### Circulation and respiration
Like other arthropods, spiders are coelomates in which the coelom is reduced to small areas around the reproductive and excretory systems. Its place is largely taken by a hemocoel, a cavity that runs most of the length of the body and through which blood flows. The heart is a tube in the upper part of the body, with a few ostia that act as non-return valves allowing blood to enter the heart from the hemocoel but prevent it from leaving before it reaches the front end. However, in spiders, it occupies only the upper part of the abdomen, and blood is discharged into the hemocoel by one artery that opens at the rear end of the abdomen and by branching arteries that pass through the pedicle and open into several parts of the cephalothorax. Hence spiders have open circulatory systems. The blood of many spiders that have book lungs contains the respiratory pigment hemocyanin to make oxygen transport more efficient.
Spiders have developed several different respiratory anatomies, based on book lungs, a tracheal system, or both. Mygalomorph and Mesothelae spiders have two pairs of book lungs filled with haemolymph, where openings on the ventral surface of the abdomen allow air to enter and diffuse oxygen. This is also the case for some basal araneomorph spiders, like the family Hypochilidae, but the remaining members of this group have just the anterior pair of book lungs intact while the posterior pair of breathing organs are partly or fully modified into tracheae, through which oxygen is diffused into the haemolymph or directly to the tissue and organs. The tracheal system has most likely evolved in small ancestors to help resist desiccation. The trachea were originally connected to the surroundings through a pair of openings called spiracles, but in the majority of spiders this pair of spiracles has fused into a single one in the middle, and moved backwards close to the spinnerets. Spiders that have tracheae generally have higher metabolic rates and better water conservation. Spiders are ectotherms, so environmental temperatures affect their activity.
### Feeding, digestion and excretion
Uniquely among chelicerates, the final sections of spiders' chelicerae are fangs, and the great majority of spiders can use them to inject venom into prey from venom glands in the roots of the chelicerae. The families Uloboridae and Holarchaeidae, and some Liphistiidae spiders, have lost their venom glands, and kill their prey with silk instead. Like most arachnids, including scorpions, spiders have a narrow gut that can only cope with liquid food and two sets of filters to keep solids out. They use one of two different systems of external digestion. Some pump digestive enzymes from the midgut into the prey and then suck the liquified tissues of the prey into the gut, eventually leaving behind the empty husk of the prey. Others grind the prey to pulp using the chelicerae and the bases of the pedipalps, while flooding it with enzymes; in these species, the chelicerae and the bases of the pedipalps form a preoral cavity that holds the food they are processing.
The stomach in the cephalothorax acts as a pump that sends the food deeper into the digestive system. The midgut bears many digestive ceca, compartments with no other exit, that extract nutrients from the food; most are in the abdomen, which is dominated by the digestive system, but a few are found in the cephalothorax.
Most spiders convert nitrogenous waste products into uric acid, which can be excreted as a dry material. Malphigian tubules ("little tubes") extract these wastes from the blood in the hemocoel and dump them into the cloacal chamber, from which they are expelled through the anus. Production of uric acid and its removal via Malphigian tubules are a water-conserving feature that has evolved independently in several arthropod lineages that can live far away from water, for example the tubules of insects and arachnids develop from completely different parts of the embryo. However, a few primitive spiders, the suborder Mesothelae and infraorder Mygalomorphae, retain the ancestral arthropod nephridia ("little kidneys"), which use large amounts of water to excrete nitrogenous waste products as ammonia.
### Central nervous system
The basic arthropod central nervous system consists of a pair of nerve cords running below the gut, with paired ganglia as local control centers in all segments; a brain formed by fusion of the ganglia for the head segments ahead of and behind the mouth, so that the esophagus is encircled by this conglomeration of ganglia. Except for the primitive Mesothelae, of which the Liphistiidae are the sole surviving family, spiders have the much more centralized nervous system that is typical of arachnids: all the ganglia of all segments behind the esophagus are fused, so that the cephalothorax is largely filled with nervous tissue and there are no ganglia in the abdomen; in the Mesothelae, the ganglia of the abdomen and the rear part of the cephalothorax remain unfused.
Despite the relatively small central nervous system, some spiders (like Portia) exhibit complex behaviour, including the ability to use a trial-and-error approach.
### Sense organs
#### Eyes
Spiders have primarily four pairs of eyes on the top-front area of the cephalothorax, arranged in patterns that vary from one family to another. The principal pair at the front are of the type called pigment-cup ocelli ("little eyes"), which in most arthropods are only capable of detecting the direction from which light is coming, using the shadow cast by the walls of the cup. However, in spiders these eyes are capable of forming images. The other pairs, called secondary eyes, are thought to be derived from the compound eyes of the ancestral chelicerates, but no longer have the separate facets typical of compound eyes. Unlike the principal eyes, in many spiders these secondary eyes detect light reflected from a reflective tapetum lucidum, and wolf spiders can be spotted by torchlight reflected from the tapeta. On the other hand, the secondary eyes of jumping spiders have no tapeta.
Other differences between the principal and secondary eyes are that the latter have rhabdomeres that point away from incoming light, just like in vertebrates, while the arrangement is the opposite in the former. The principal eyes are also the only ones with eye muscles, allowing them to move the retina. Having no muscles, the secondary eyes are immobile.
The visual acuity of some jumping spiders exceeds by a factor of ten that of dragonflies, which have by far the best vision among insects. This acuity is achieved by a telephotographic series of lenses, a four-layer retina, and the ability to swivel the eyes and integrate images from different stages in the scan. The downside is that the scanning and integrating processes are relatively slow.
There are spiders with a reduced number of eyes, the most common having six eyes (example, Periegops suterii) with a pair of eyes absent on the anterior median line. Other species have four eyes and members of the Caponiidae family can have as few as two. Cave dwelling species have no eyes, or possess vestigial eyes incapable of sight.
#### Other senses
As with other arthropods, spiders' cuticles would block out information about the outside world, except that they are penetrated by many sensors or connections from sensors to the nervous system. In fact, spiders and other arthropods have modified their cuticles into elaborate arrays of sensors. Various touch sensors, mostly bristles called setae, respond to different levels of force, from strong contact to very weak air currents. Chemical sensors provide equivalents of taste and smell, often by means of setae. An adult Araneus may have up to 1,000 such chemosensitive setae, most on the tarsi of the first pair of legs. Males have more chemosensitive bristles on their pedipalps than females. They have been shown to be responsive to sex pheromones produced by females, both contact and air-borne. The jumping spider Evarcha culicivora uses the scent of blood from mammals and other vertebrates, which is obtained by capturing blood-filled mosquitoes, to attract the opposite sex. Because they are able to tell the sexes apart, it is assumed the blood scent is mixed with pheromones. Spiders also have in the joints of their limbs slit sensillae that detect force and vibrations. In web-building spiders, all these mechanical and chemical sensors are more important than the eyes, while the eyes are most important to spiders that hunt actively.
Like most arthropods, spiders lack balance and acceleration sensors and rely on their eyes to tell them which way is up. Arthropods' proprioceptors, sensors that report the force exerted by muscles and the degree of bending in the body and joints, are well-understood. On the other hand, little is known about what other internal sensors spiders or other arthropods may have.
Some spiders use their webs for hearing, where the giant webs function as extended and reconfigurable auditory sensors.
### Locomotion
Each of the eight legs of a spider consists of seven distinct parts. The part closest to and attaching the leg to the cephalothorax is the coxa; the next segment is the short trochanter that works as a hinge for the following long segment, the femur; next is the spider's knee, the patella, which acts as the hinge for the tibia; the metatarsus is next, and it connects the tibia to the tarsus (which may be thought of as a foot of sorts); the tarsus ends in a claw made up of either two or three points, depending on the family to which the spider belongs. Although all arthropods use muscles attached to the inside of the exoskeleton to flex their limbs, spiders and a few other groups still use hydraulic pressure to extend them, a system inherited from their pre-arthropod ancestors. The only extensor muscles in spider legs are located in the three hip joints (bordering the coxa and the trochanter). As a result, a spider with a punctured cephalothorax cannot extend its legs, and the legs of dead spiders curl up. Spiders can generate pressures up to eight times their resting level to extend their legs, and jumping spiders can jump up to 50 times their own length by suddenly increasing the blood pressure in the third or fourth pair of legs. Although larger spiders use hydraulics to straighten their legs, unlike smaller jumping spiders they depend on their flexor muscles to generate the propulsive force for their jumps.
Most spiders that hunt actively, rather than relying on webs, have dense tufts of fine bristles between the paired claws at the tips of their legs. These tufts, known as scopulae, consist of bristles whose ends are split into as many as 1,000 branches, and enable spiders with scopulae to walk up vertical glass and upside down on ceilings. It appears that scopulae get their grip from contact with extremely thin layers of water on surfaces. Spiders, like most other arachnids, keep at least four legs on the surface while walking or running.
### Silk production
The abdomen has no appendages except those that have been modified to form one to four (usually three) pairs of short, movable spinnerets, which emit silk. Each spinneret has many spigots, each of which is connected to one silk gland. There are at least six types of silk gland, each producing a different type of silk. Spitting spiders also produce silk in modified venom glands.
Silk is mainly composed of a protein very similar to that used in insect silk. It is initially a liquid, and hardens not by exposure to air but as a result of being drawn out, which changes the internal structure of the protein. It is similar in tensile strength to nylon and biological materials such as chitin, collagen and cellulose, but is much more elastic. In other words, it can stretch much further before breaking or losing shape.
Some spiders have a cribellum, a modified spinneret with up to 40,000 spigots, each of which produces a single very fine fiber. The fibers are pulled out by the calamistrum, a comblike set of bristles on the jointed tip of the cribellum, and combined into a composite woolly thread that is very effective in snagging the bristles of insects. The earliest spiders had cribella, which produced the first silk capable of capturing insects, before spiders developed silk coated with sticky droplets. However, most modern groups of spiders have lost the cribellum.
Even species that do not build webs to catch prey use silk in several ways: as wrappers for sperm and for fertilized eggs; as a "safety rope"; for nest-building; and as "parachutes" by the young of some species.
### Reproduction and life cycle
Spiders reproduce sexually and fertilization is internal but indirect, in other words the sperm is not inserted into the female's body by the male's genitals but by an intermediate stage. Unlike many land-living arthropods, male spiders do not produce ready-made spermatophores (packages of sperm), but spin small sperm webs onto which they ejaculate and then transfer the sperm to special syringe-styled structures, palpal bulbs or palpal organs, borne on the tips of the pedipalps of mature males. When a male detects signs of a female nearby he checks whether she is of the same species and whether she is ready to mate; for example in species that produce webs or "safety ropes", the male can identify the species and sex of these objects by "smell".
Spiders generally use elaborate courtship rituals to prevent the large females from eating the small males before fertilization, except where the male is so much smaller that he is not worth eating. In web-weaving species, precise patterns of vibrations in the web are a major part of the rituals, while patterns of touches on the female's body are important in many spiders that hunt actively, and may "hypnotize" the female. Gestures and dances by the male are important for jumping spiders, which have excellent eyesight. If courtship is successful, the male injects his sperm from the palpal bulbs into the female via one or two openings on the underside of her abdomen.
Female spiders' reproductive tracts are arranged in one of two ways. The ancestral arrangement ("haplogyne" or "non-entelegyne") consists of a single genital opening, leading to two seminal receptacles (spermathecae) in which females store sperm. In the more advanced arrangement ("entelegyne"), there are two further openings leading directly to the spermathecae, creating a "flow through" system rather than a "first-in first-out" one. Eggs are as a general rule only fertilized during oviposition when the stored sperm is released from its chamber, rather than in the ovarian cavity. A few exceptions exist, such as Parasteatoda tepidariorum. In these species the female appears to be able to activate the dormant sperm before oviposition, allowing them to migrate to the ovarian cavity where fertilization occurs. The only known example of direct fertilization between male and female is an Israeli spider, Harpactea sadistica, which has evolved traumatic insemination. In this species the male will penetrate its pedipalps through the female's body wall and inject his sperm directly into her ovaries, where the embryos inside the fertilized eggs will start to develop before being laid.
Males of the genus Tidarren amputate one of their palps before maturation and enter adult life with one palp only. The palps are 20% of the male's body mass in this species, and detaching one of the two improves mobility. In the Yemeni species Tidarren argo, the remaining palp is then torn off by the female. The separated palp remains attached to the female's epigynum for about four hours and apparently continues to function independently. In the meantime, the female feeds on the palpless male. In over 60% of cases, the female of the Australian redback spider kills and eats the male after it inserts its second palp into the female's genital opening; in fact, the males co-operate by trying to impale themselves on the females' fangs. Observation shows that most male redbacks never get an opportunity to mate, and the "lucky" ones increase the likely number of offspring by ensuring that the females are well-fed. However, males of most species survive a few matings, limited mainly by their short life spans. Some even live for a while in their mates' webs.
Females lay up to 3,000 eggs in one or more silk egg sacs, which maintain a fairly constant humidity level. In some species, the females die afterwards, but females of other species protect the sacs by attaching them to their webs, hiding them in nests, carrying them in the chelicerae or attaching them to the spinnerets and dragging them along.
Baby spiders pass all their larval stages inside the egg sac and emerge as spiderlings, very small and sexually immature but similar in shape to adults. Some spiders care for their young, for example a wolf spider's brood clings to rough bristles on the mother's back, and females of some species respond to the "begging" behaviour of their young by giving them their prey, provided it is no longer struggling, or even regurgitate food.
Like other arthropods, spiders have to molt to grow as their cuticle ("skin") cannot stretch. In some species males mate with newly-molted females, which are too weak to be dangerous to the males. Most spiders live for only one to two years, although some tarantulas can live in captivity for over 20 years, and an Australian female trapdoor spider was documented to have lived in the wild for 43 years, dying of a parasitic wasp attack.
### Size
Spiders occur in a large range of sizes. The smallest, Patu digua from Colombia, are less than 0.37 mm (0.015 in) in body length. The largest and heaviest spiders occur among tarantulas, which can have body lengths up to 90 mm (3.5 in) and leg spans up to 250 mm (9.8 in).
### Coloration
Only three classes of pigment (ommochromes, bilins and guanine) have been identified in spiders, although other pigments have been detected but not yet characterized. Melanins, carotenoids and pterins, very common in other animals, are apparently absent. In some species, the exocuticle of the legs and prosoma is modified by a tanning process, resulting in a brown coloration. Bilins are found, for example, in Micrommata virescens, resulting in its green color. Guanine is responsible for the white markings of the European garden spider Araneus diadematus. It is in many species accumulated in specialized cells called guanocytes. In genera such as Tetragnatha, Leucauge, Argyrodes or Theridiosoma, guanine creates their silvery appearance. While guanine is originally an end-product of protein metabolism, its excretion can be blocked in spiders, leading to an increase in its storage. Structural colors occur in some species, which are the result of the diffraction, scattering or interference of light, for example by modified setae or scales. The white prosoma of Argiope results from bristles reflecting the light, Lycosa and Josa both have areas of modified cuticle that act as light reflectors. The peacock spiders of Australia (genus Maratus) are notable for their bright structural colours in the males.
While in many spiders color is fixed throughout their lifespan, in some groups, color may be variable in response to environmental and internal conditions. Choice of prey may be able to alter the color of spiders. For example, the abdomen of Theridion grallator will become orange if the spider ingests certain species of Diptera and adult Lepidoptera, but if it consumes Homoptera or larval Lepidoptera, then the abdomen becomes green. Environmentally induced color changes may be morphological (occurring over several days) or physiological (occurring near instantly). Morphological changes require pigment synthesis and degradation. In contrast to this, physiological changes occur by changing the position of pigment-containing cells. An example of morphological color changes is background matching. Misumena vatia for instance can change its body color to match the substrate it lives on which makes it more difficult to be detected by prey. An example of physiological color change is observed in Cyrtophora cicatrosa, which can change its body color from white to brown near instantly.
## Ecology and behavior
### Non-predatory feeding
Although spiders are generally regarded as predatory, the jumping spider Bagheera kiplingi gets over 90% of its food from fairly solid plant material produced by acacias as part of a mutually beneficial relationship with a species of ant.
Juveniles of some spiders in the families Anyphaenidae, Corinnidae, Clubionidae, Thomisidae and Salticidae feed on plant nectar. Laboratory studies show that they do so deliberately and over extended periods, and periodically clean themselves while feeding. These spiders also prefer sugar solutions to plain water, which indicates that they are seeking nutrients. Since many spiders are nocturnal, the extent of nectar consumption by spiders may have been underestimated. Nectar contains amino acids, lipids, vitamins and minerals in addition to sugars, and studies have shown that other spider species live longer when nectar is available. Feeding on nectar avoids the risks of struggles with prey, and the costs of producing venom and digestive enzymes.
Various species are known to feed on dead arthropods (scavenging), web silk, and their own shed exoskeletons. Pollen caught in webs may also be eaten, and studies have shown that young spiders have a better chance of survival if they have the opportunity to eat pollen. In captivity, several spider species are also known to feed on bananas, marmalade, milk, egg yolk and sausages.
### Capturing prey
The best-known method of prey capture is by means of sticky webs. Varying placement of webs allows different species of spider to trap different insects in the same area, for example flat horizontal webs trap insects that fly up from vegetation underneath while flat vertical webs trap insects in horizontal flight. Web-building spiders have poor vision, but are extremely sensitive to vibrations.
Females of the water spider Argyroneta aquatica build underwater "diving bell" webs that they fill with air and use for digesting prey, molting, mating and raising offspring. They live almost entirely within the bells, darting out to catch prey animals that touch the bell or the threads that anchor it. A few spiders use the surfaces of lakes and ponds as "webs", detecting trapped insects by the vibrations that these cause while struggling.
Net-casting spiders weave only small webs, but then manipulate them to trap prey. Those of the genus Hyptiotes and the family Theridiosomatidae stretch their webs and then release them when prey strike them, but do not actively move their webs. Those of the family Deinopidae weave even smaller webs, hold them outstretched between their first two pairs of legs, and lunge and push the webs as much as twice their own body length to trap prey, and this move may increase the webs' area by a factor of up to ten. Experiments have shown that Deinopis spinosus has two different techniques for trapping prey: backwards strikes to catch flying insects, whose vibrations it detects; and forward strikes to catch ground-walking prey that it sees. These two techniques have also been observed in other deinopids. Walking insects form most of the prey of most deinopids, but one population of Deinopis subrufa appears to live mainly on tipulid flies that they catch with the backwards strike.
Mature female bolas spiders of the genus Mastophora build "webs" that consist of only a single "trapeze line", which they patrol. They also construct a bolas made of a single thread, tipped with a large ball of very wet sticky silk. They emit chemicals that resemble the pheromones of moths, and then swing the bolas at the moths. Although they miss on about 50% of strikes, they catch about the same weight of insects per night as web-weaving spiders of similar size. The spiders eat the bolas if they have not made a kill in about 30 minutes, rest for a while, and then make new bolas. Juveniles and adult males are much smaller and do not make bolas. Instead they release different pheromones that attract moth flies, and catch them with their front pairs of legs.
The primitive Liphistiidae, the "trapdoor spiders" of the family Ctenizidae and many tarantulas are ambush predators that lurk in burrows, often closed by trapdoors and often surrounded by networks of silk threads that alert these spiders to the presence of prey. Other ambush predators do without such aids, including many crab spiders, and a few species that prey on bees, which see ultraviolet, can adjust their ultraviolet reflectance to match the flowers in which they are lurking. Wolf spiders, jumping spiders, fishing spiders and some crab spiders capture prey by chasing it, and rely mainly on vision to locate prey.
Some jumping spiders of the genus Portia hunt other spiders in ways that seem intelligent, outflanking their victims or luring them from their webs. Laboratory studies show that Portia's instinctive tactics are only starting points for a trial-and-error approach from which these spiders learn very quickly how to overcome new prey species. However, they seem to be relatively slow "thinkers", which is not surprising, as their brains are vastly smaller than those of mammalian predators.
Ant-mimicking spiders face several challenges: they generally develop slimmer abdomens and false "waists" in the cephalothorax to mimic the three distinct regions (tagmata) of an ant's body; they wave the first pair of legs in front of their heads to mimic antennae, which spiders lack, and to conceal the fact that they have eight legs rather than six; they develop large color patches round one pair of eyes to disguise the fact that they generally have eight simple eyes, while ants have two compound eyes; they cover their bodies with reflective bristles to resemble the shiny bodies of ants. In some spider species, males and females mimic different ant species, as female spiders are usually much larger than males. Ant-mimicking spiders also modify their behavior to resemble that of the target species of ant; for example, many adopt a zig-zag pattern of movement, ant-mimicking jumping spiders avoid jumping, and spiders of the genus Synemosyna walk on the outer edges of leaves in the same way as Pseudomyrmex. Ant mimicry in many spiders and other arthropods may be for protection from predators that hunt by sight, including birds, lizards and spiders. However, several ant-mimicking spiders prey either on ants or on the ants' "livestock", such as aphids. When at rest, the ant-mimicking crab spider Amyciaea does not closely resemble Oecophylla, but while hunting it imitates the behavior of a dying ant to attract worker ants. After a kill, some ant-mimicking spiders hold their victims between themselves and large groups of ants to avoid being attacked.
### Defense
There is strong evidence that spiders' coloration is camouflage that helps them to evade their major predators, birds and parasitic wasps, both of which have good color vision. Many spider species are colored so as to merge with their most common backgrounds, and some have disruptive coloration, stripes and blotches that break up their outlines. In a few species, such as the Hawaiian happy-face spider, Theridion grallator, several coloration schemes are present in a ratio that appears to remain constant, and this may make it more difficult for predators to recognize the species. Most spiders are insufficiently dangerous or unpleasant-tasting for warning coloration to offer much benefit. However, a few species with powerful venom, large jaws or irritant bristles have patches of warning colors, and some actively display these colors when threatened.
Many of the family Theraphosidae, which includes tarantulas and baboon spiders, have urticating hairs on their abdomens and use their legs to flick them at attackers. These bristles are fine setae (bristles) with fragile bases and a row of barbs on the tip. The barbs cause intense irritation but there is no evidence that they carry any kind of venom. A few defend themselves against wasps by including networks of very robust threads in their webs, giving the spider time to flee while the wasps are struggling with the obstacles. The golden wheeling spider, Carparachne aureoflava, of the Namibian desert escapes parasitic wasps by flipping onto its side and cartwheeling down sand dunes.
### Socialization
A few spider species that build webs live together in large colonies and show social behavior, although not as complex as in social insects. Anelosimus eximius (in the family Theridiidae) can form colonies of up to 50,000 individuals. The genus Anelosimus has a strong tendency towards sociality: all known American species are social, and species in Madagascar are at least somewhat social. Members of other species in the same family but several different genera have independently developed social behavior. For example, although Theridion nigroannulatum belongs to a genus with no other social species, T. nigroannulatum build colonies that may contain several thousand individuals that co-operate in prey capture and share food. Other communal spiders include several Philoponella species (family Uloboridae), Agelena consociata (family Agelenidae) and Mallos gregalis (family Dictynidae). Social predatory spiders need to defend their prey against kleptoparasites ("thieves"), and larger colonies are more successful in this. The herbivorous spider Bagheera kiplingi lives in small colonies which help to protect eggs and spiderlings. Even widow spiders (genus Latrodectus), which are notoriously cannibalistic, have formed small colonies in captivity, sharing webs and feeding together.
In experiments, spider species like Steatoda grossa, Latrodectus hesperus and Eratigena agrestis stayed away from Myrmica rubra ant colonies. These ants are predators and the pheromones they release for communication have a notable deterrent effect on these spider species.
## Web types
There is no consistent relationship between the classification of spiders and the types of web they build: species in the same genus may build very similar or significantly different webs. Nor is there much correspondence between spiders' classification and the chemical composition of their silks. Convergent evolution in web construction, in other words use of similar techniques by remotely related species, is rampant. Orb web designs and the spinning behaviors that produce them are the best understood. The basic radial-then-spiral sequence visible in orb webs and the sense of direction required to build them may have been inherited from the common ancestors of most spider groups. However, the majority of spiders build non-orb webs. It used to be thought that the sticky orb web was an evolutionary innovation resulting in the diversification of the Orbiculariae. Now, however, it appears that non-orb spiders are a subgroup that evolved from orb-web spiders, and non-orb spiders have over 40% more species and are four times as abundant as orb-web spiders. Their greater success may be because sphecid wasps, which are often the dominant predators of spiders, much prefer to attack spiders that have flat webs.
### Orb
About half the potential prey that hit orb webs escape. A web has to perform three functions: intercepting the prey (intersection), absorbing its momentum without breaking (stopping), and trapping the prey by entangling it or sticking to it (retention). No single design is best for all prey. For example: wider spacing of lines will increase the web's area and hence its ability to intercept prey, but reduce its stopping power and retention; closer spacing, larger sticky droplets and thicker lines would improve retention, but would make it easier for potential prey to see and avoid the web, at least during the day. However, there are no consistent differences between orb webs built for use during the day and those built for use at night. In fact, there is no simple relationship between orb web design features and the prey they capture, as each orb-weaving species takes a wide range of prey.
The hubs of orb webs, where the spiders lurk, are usually above the center, as the spiders can move downwards faster than upwards. If there is an obvious direction in which the spider can retreat to avoid its own predators, the hub is usually offset towards that direction.
Horizontal orb webs are fairly common, despite being less effective at intercepting and retaining prey and more vulnerable to damage by rain and falling debris. Various researchers have suggested that horizontal webs offer compensating advantages, such as reduced vulnerability to wind damage; reduced visibility to prey flying upwards, because of the backlighting from the sky; enabling oscillations to catch insects in slow horizontal flight. However, there is no single explanation for the common use of horizontal orb webs.
Spiders often attach highly visible silk bands, called decorations or stabilimenta, to their webs. Field research suggests that webs with more decorative bands captured more prey per hour. However, a laboratory study showed that spiders reduce the building of these decorations if they sense the presence of predators.
There are several unusual variants of orb web, many of them convergently evolved, including: attachment of lines to the surface of water, possibly to trap insects in or on the surface; webs with twigs through their centers, possibly to hide the spiders from predators; "ladderlike" webs that appear most effective in catching moths. However, the significance of many variations is unclear. The orb-weaving species, Zygiella x-notata, for example, is known for its characteristic missing sector orb web. The missing sector contains a signal thread used to detect prey vibrations on the female's web.
In 1973, Skylab 3 took two orb-web spiders into space to test their web-spinning capabilities in zero gravity. At first, both produced rather sloppy webs, but they adapted quickly.
### Cobweb
Members of the family Theridiidae weave irregular, tangled, three-dimensional webs, popularly known as cobwebs. There seems to be an evolutionary trend towards a reduction in the amount of sticky silk used, leading to its total absence in some species. The construction of cobwebs is less stereotyped than that of orb-webs, and may take several days.
### Other
The Linyphiidae generally make horizontal but uneven sheets, with tangles of stopping threads above. Insects that hit the stopping threads fall onto the sheet or are shaken onto it by the spider, and are held by sticky threads on the sheet until the spider can attack from below.
### Web design in zero gravity
Many experiments have been conducted to study the effect of zero gravity on the design of spider webs. In late 2020, reports of recent experiments were published that indicated that although web design was affected adversely in zero gravity conditions, having access to a light source could orient spiders and enable them to build their normally shaped webs under such conditions.
## Evolution
### Fossil record
Although the fossil record of spiders is considered poor, almost 1000 species have been described from fossils. Because spiders' bodies are quite soft, the vast majority of fossil spiders have been found preserved in amber. The oldest known amber that contains fossil arthropods dates from in the Early Cretaceous period. In addition to preserving spiders' anatomy in very fine detail, pieces of amber show spiders mating, killing prey, producing silk and possibly caring for their young. In a few cases, amber has preserved spiders' egg sacs and webs, occasionally with prey attached; the oldest fossil web found so far is 100 million years old. Earlier spider fossils come from a few lagerstätten, places where conditions were exceptionally suited to preserving fairly soft tissues.
The oldest known exclusively terrestrial arachnid is the trigonotarbid Palaeotarbus jerami, from about in the Silurian period, and had a triangular cephalothorax and segmented abdomen, as well as eight legs and a pair of pedipalps. Attercopus fimbriunguis, from in the Devonian period, bears the earliest known silk-producing spigots, and was therefore hailed as a spider at the time of its discovery. However, these spigots may have been mounted on the underside of the abdomen rather than on spinnerets, which are modified appendages and whose mobility is important in the building of webs. Hence Attercopus and the similar Permian arachnid Permarachne may not have been true spiders, and probably used silk for lining nests or producing egg cases rather than for building webs. The largest known fossil spider as of 2011 is the araneid Nephila jurassica, from about , recorded from Daohuogo, Inner Mongolia in China. Its body length is almost 25 mm, (i.e., almost one inch).
Several Carboniferous spiders were members of the Mesothelae, a primitive group now represented only by the Liphistiidae. The mesothelid Paleothele montceauensis, from the Late Carboniferous over , had five spinnerets. Although the Permian period saw rapid diversification of flying insects, there are very few fossil spiders from this period.
The main groups of modern spiders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae, first appear in the Triassic well before . Some Triassic mygalomorphs appear to be members of the family Hexathelidae, whose modern members include the notorious Sydney funnel-web spider, and their spinnerets appear adapted for building funnel-shaped webs to catch jumping insects. Araneomorphae account for the great majority of modern spiders, including those that weave the familiar orb-shaped webs. The Jurassic and Cretaceous periods provide a large number of fossil spiders, including representatives of many modern families.
According to a 2020 study using a molecular clock calibrated with 27 chelicerate fossils, spiders most likely diverged from other chelicerates between 375 and 328 million years ago.
### External relationships
The spiders (Araneae) are monophyletic (i.e., a clade, consisting of a last common ancestor and all of its descendants). There has been debate about what their closest evolutionary relatives are, and how all of these evolved from the ancestral chelicerates, which were marine animals. This 2019 cladogram illustrates the spiders' phylogenetic relationships.
Arachnids lack some features of other chelicerates, including backward-pointing mouths and gnathobases ("jaw bases") at the bases of their legs; both of these features are part of the ancestral arthropod feeding system. Instead, they have mouths that point forwards and downwards, and all have some means of breathing air. Spiders (Araneae) are distinguished from other arachnid groups by several characteristics, including spinnerets and, in males, pedipalps that are specially adapted for sperm transfer.
### Internal relationships
The cladogram shows the relation among spider suborders and families:
## Taxonomy
The order name Araneae derives from Latin aranea borrowing Ancient Greek ἀράχνη arákhnē from ἀράχνης arákhnēs.
Spiders are divided into two suborders, Mesothelae and Opisthothelae, of which the latter contains two infraorders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae. Some 50,356 living species of spiders (order Araneae) have been identified, grouped into 132 families and 4,280 genera by arachnologists in 2022.
### Mesothelae
The only living members of the primitive Mesothelae are the family Liphistiidae, found only in Southeast Asia, China, and Japan. Most of the Liphistiidae construct silk-lined burrows with thin trapdoors, although some species of the genus Liphistius build camouflaged silk tubes with a second trapdoor as an emergency exit. Members of the genus Liphistius run silk "tripwires" outwards from their tunnels to help them detect approaching prey, while those of the genus Heptathela do not and instead rely on their built-in vibration sensors. Spiders of the genus Heptathela have no venom glands, although they do have venom gland outlets on the fang tip.
The extinct families Arthrolycosidae, found in Carboniferous and Permian rocks, and Arthromygalidae, so far found only in Carboniferous rocks, have been classified as members of the Mesothelae.
### Mygalomorphae
The Mygalomorphae, which first appeared in the Triassic period, are generally heavily built and ′′hairy′′, with large, robust chelicerae and fangs (technically, spiders do not have true hairs, but rather setae). Well-known examples include tarantulas, ctenizid trapdoor spiders and the Australasian funnel-web spiders. Most spend the majority of their time in burrows, and some run silk tripwires out from these, but a few build webs to capture prey. However, mygalomorphs cannot produce the pirifom silk that the Araneomorphae use as an instant adhesive to glue silk to surfaces or to other strands of silk, and this makes web construction more difficult for mygalomorphs. Since mygalomorphs rarely "balloon" by using air currents for transport, their populations often form clumps. In addition to arthropods, some mygalomorphs are known to prey on frogs, small mammals, lizards, snakes, snails, and small birds.
### Araneomorphae
In addition to accounting for over 90% of spider species, the Araneomorphae, also known as the "true spiders", include orb-web spiders, the cursorial wolf spiders, and jumping spiders, as well as the only known herbivorous spider, Bagheera kiplingi. They are distinguished by having fangs that oppose each other and cross in a pinching action, in contrast to the Mygalomorphae, which have fangs that are nearly parallel in alignment.
## Human interaction
### Media coverage and misconceptions
Information about spiders in the media is often emphasizing how dangerous and unpleasant they are. A recent study investigated the global spread of (mis-)information on spiders using a high-resolution global database of online newspaper articles on spider–human interactions. These reports covered stories of spider–human encounters and bites published from 2010 to 2020. The study found that 47% of articles contained errors and 43% were sensationalist.
### Bites
Although spiders are widely feared, only a few species are dangerous to people. Spiders will only bite humans in self-defense, and few produce worse effects than a mosquito bite or bee sting. Most of those with medically serious bites, such as recluse spiders (genus Loxosceles) and widow spiders (genus Latrodectus), would rather flee and bite only when trapped, although this can easily arise by accident. The defensive tactics of Australian funnel-web spiders (family Atracidae) include fang display. Their venom, although they rarely inject much, has resulted in 13 attributed human deaths over 50 years. They have been deemed to be the world's most dangerous spiders on clinical and venom toxicity grounds, though this claim has also been attributed to the Brazilian wandering spider (genus Phoneutria).
There were about 100 reliably reported deaths from spider bites in the 20th century, compared to about 1,500 from jellyfish stings. Many alleged cases of spider bites may represent incorrect diagnoses, which would make it more difficult to check the effectiveness of treatments for genuine bites. A review published in 2016 agreed with this conclusion, showing that 78% of 134 published medical case studies of supposed spider bites did not meet the necessary criteria for a spider bite to be verified. In the case of the two genera with the highest reported number of bites, Loxosceles and Latrodectus, spider bites were not verified in over 90% of the reports. Even when verification had occurred, details of the treatment and its effects were often lacking.
### Silk
Because spider silk is both light and very strong, attempts are being made to produce it in goats' milk and in the leaves of plants, by means of genetic engineering.
### Arachnophobia
Arachnophobia is a specific phobia—it is the abnormal fear of spiders or anything reminiscent of spiders, such as webs or spiderlike shapes. It is one of the most common specific phobias, and some statistics show that 50% of women and 10% of men show symptoms. It may be an exaggerated form of an instinctive response that helped early humans to survive, or a cultural phenomenon that is most common in predominantly European societies.
### As food
Spiders are used as food. Cooked tarantulas are considered a delicacy in Cambodia, and by the Piaroa Indians of southern Venezuela – provided the highly irritant bristles, the spiders' main defense system, are removed first.
## Spiders in culture
Spiders have been the focus of stories and mythologies of various cultures for centuries. Uttu, the ancient Sumerian goddess of weaving, was envisioned as a spider spinning her web. According to her main myth, she resisted her father Enki's sexual advances by ensconcing herself in her web, but let him in after he promised her fresh produce as a marriage gift, thereby allowing him to intoxicate her with beer and rape her. Enki's wife Ninhursag heard Uttu's screams and rescued her, removing Enki's semen from her vagina and planting it in the ground to produce eight previously-nonexistent plants.
In a story told by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Arachne (Ancient Greek for "spider") was a Lydian girl who challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving contest. Arachne won, but Athena destroyed her tapestry out of jealousy, causing Arachne to hang herself. In an act of mercy, Athena brought Arachne back to life as the first spider. Stories about the trickster-spider Anansi are prominent in the folktales of West Africa and the Caribbean.
In some cultures, spiders have symbolized patience due to their hunting technique of setting webs and waiting for prey, as well as mischief and malice due to their venomous bites. The Italian tarantella is a dance to rid the young woman of the lustful effects of a spider bite. Web-spinning also caused the association of the spider with creation myths, as they seem to have the ability to produce their own worlds. Dreamcatchers are depictions of spiderwebs. The Moche people of ancient Peru worshipped nature. They placed emphasis on animals and often depicted spiders in their art.
## See also
- Arachnidism
- Glossary of spider terms
- List of animals that produce silk
- List of endangered spiders
- Spider taxonomy
- Toxins
## General and cited references
|
25,845,248 |
Hy Cohen
| 1,161,167,331 |
American baseball player (1931–2021)
|
[
"1931 births",
"2021 deaths",
"American people of Polish-Jewish descent",
"Baseball players from Brooklyn",
"Brooklyn College alumni",
"California State University, Los Angeles alumni",
"Chicago Cubs players",
"Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in California",
"Des Moines Bruins players",
"Erasmus Hall High School alumni",
"Grand Rapids Jets players",
"Jewish American baseball players",
"Jewish Major League Baseball players",
"LaGrange Troupers players",
"Los Angeles Angels (minor league) players",
"Major League Baseball pitchers",
"Memphis Chickasaws players",
"Military personnel from New York City",
"Nashville Vols players",
"New Orleans Pelicans (baseball) players",
"Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players",
"Tulsa Oilers (baseball) players"
] |
Hyman Cohen (January 29, 1931 – February 4, 2021) was an American baseball pitcher who played seven games for the Chicago Cubs in one season of Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1955. He batted and threw right-handed and served as a relief pitcher.
Cohen was signed as an amateur free agent by the New York Yankees in 1948 and played for one of their minor league affiliates until 1949, when the Chicago Cubs drafted him in that year's minor league draft. After spending two seasons with the organization, he was drafted into the US Army. As a result, he missed the 1952 and 1953 seasons. Upon his return, he pitched in the minors until 1955, when the Cubs promoted him to the major leagues. He played his last game on June 2, 1955. He subsequently worked as a teacher and coach at Birmingham High School.
## Early life
Cohen was born in Brooklyn on January 29, 1931. His family was Jewish and both of his parents were Polish immigrants. His father, Joseph, immigrated from Warsaw, while his mother, Bessie, was originally from Brest-Litovsk. One of his childhood idols was Harry Danning, the catcher for the New York Giants of Major League Baseball (MLB). Cohen attended Erasmus Hall High School before studying at Brooklyn College. He was signed as an amateur free agent by the New York Yankees before the 1948 season.
## Professional career
### Minor leagues
Cohen began his professional baseball career with the La Grange Troupers, a minor league baseball team that were members of the Georgia–Alabama League. During his first year with the team, he finished with a 7–5 win–loss record and a 5.50 earned run average (ERA) in 72 innings pitched. In his second season, he had a 11–15 record, a 3.33 ERA, and 148 strikeouts over 192 innings. His unremarkable performance reportedly led the Yankees to overlook the renewal of his contract. He was subsequently selected by the Chicago Cubs in the minor league draft at the end of 1949.
In his only season with the Grand Rapids Jets (the Cubs' Class-A affiliate in the Central League), Cohen compiled a 12–9 win–loss record and a 3.41 ERA in 206 innings. This earned him a promotion to the Des Moines Bruins of the Class-A Western League in the following year. He finished the 1951 season with a 16–10 record and a 2.86 ERA across 236 innings pitched, along with three wins in the playoffs. He considered this to be the best season in his professional baseball career. He was later chosen in the Selective Service draft and joined the US Army to fight in the Korean War. Consequently, Cohen did not play professional baseball from 1952 to 1953. He was stationed in San Antonio and played baseball there with future major leaguers such as Bobby Brown, Don Newcombe, Gus Triandos, Bob Turley, Joe Margoneri, Dick Kokos, Owen Friend, and Marv Rotblatt.
Upon his return from military service, Cohen was placed with the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. He pitched poorly during his nine-game stint with the team, posting a 6.60 ERA and 6 strikeouts in just 15 innings pitched. He rebounded after being promptly sent back to the Bruins. His 1.88 ERA led the Western League, and he finished second with a 1.051 walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) and seventh in wins (16).
### Chicago Cubs
Cohen made his MLB debut on April 17, 1955, relieving Harry Perkowski and giving up seven earned runs and striking out two over seven innings in a 14–1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. His best performance came during his second game on April 27, in which he held the Pittsburgh Pirates to one hit and one walk across three scoreless innings. He played five more games for the Cubs. During his only career start in the first game of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies on May 1, he surrendered five earned runs across three innings pitched. Cohen played his final major league game on June 2, 1955, at the age of 24. Topps had initially approached him for input on the baseball card of him that they were intending to produce. However, his time in the major leagues ended before the card could be made.
### Return to minor leagues
Cohen went back to the minor leagues and compiled a 5–10 record, a 3.59 ERA, and 40 strikeouts in 100+1⁄3 innings pitched during his second stint with the Angels in 1955. He also recorded 4 complete games and 2 shutouts. During the 1956 season, he pitched for three teams – the Angels, Tulsa Oilers, and New Orleans Pelicans – posting a combined 16–8 record. He was assigned to the Memphis Chicks in 1957, and had the fourth-lowest ERA (2.72), the fifth-best WHIP (1.163), and the sixth most wins (15) in the Southern Association that season. He was selected by the Detroit Tigers in the minor league draft at the end of that same year. He played the first part of the 1958 season with the Nashville Volunteers, where he had a 2–6 win–loss record, a 8.51 ERA, and 8 strikeouts over 37 innings. His contract was subsequently purchased by the Toronto Maple Leafs for \$50,000. Jack Kent Cooke, the owner of the Leafs, wanted to sign a Jewish player to drum up support for the team from the city's sizable Jewish population. Cohen ultimately pitched only five games for the club before discomfort in his arm caused him to retire from professional baseball in 1958.
## Later life
After retiring from baseball, Cohen went back to school at California State University, Los Angeles, and obtained a Master of Education in 1966. He proceeded to teach social studies and physical education at Birmingham High School in Los Angeles. He also coached the school's football, tennis, and baseball teams into the 1980s. The baseball team won two city championships during his time there, in 1966 and 1969. Cohen was recognized at Dodger Stadium in 1995 for his important contributions to baseball education. One year later, he was inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
Cohen was married to Terry Cohen until his death. Together, they had two children: Jeff and Jill. He died on February 4, 2021, at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 90, and had contracted COVID-19 several months before his death. He continued to suffer health issues from the virus after his supposed recovery.
|
17,104,784 |
M-derived filter
| 1,084,673,304 |
Type of electronic filter
|
[
"Analog circuits",
"Electronic filter topology",
"Image impedance filters"
] |
m-derived filters or m-type filters are a type of electronic filter designed using the image method. They were invented by Otto Zobel in the early 1920s. This filter type was originally intended for use with telephone multiplexing and was an improvement on the existing constant k type filter. The main problem being addressed was the need to achieve a better match of the filter into the terminating impedances. In general, all filters designed by the image method fail to give an exact match, but the m-type filter is a big improvement with suitable choice of the parameter m. The m-type filter section has a further advantage in that there is a rapid transition from the cut-off frequency of the passband to a pole of attenuation just inside the stopband. Despite these advantages, there is a drawback with m-type filters; at frequencies past the pole of attenuation, the response starts to rise again, and m-types have poor stopband rejection. For this reason, filters designed using m-type sections are often designed as composite filters with a mixture of k-type and m-type sections and different values of m at different points to get the optimum performance from both types.
## Background
Zobel patented an impedance matching network in 1920 which, in essence, used the topology of what are now called m-type filters, but Zobel did not name them as such or analyse them by the image method. This pre-dated George Campbell's publication of his constant k-type design in 1922 on which the m-type filter is based. Zobel published the image analysis theory of m-type filters in 1923. Once popular, M-type filters and image parameter designed filters in general are now rarely designed, having been superseded by more advanced network synthesis methods.
## Derivation
The building block of m-derived filters, as with all image impedance filters, is the "L" network, called a half-section and composed of a series impedance Z, and a shunt admittance Y. The m-derived filter is a derivative of the constant k filter. The starting point of the design is the values of Z and Y derived from the constant k prototype and are given by
$k^2=\frac{Z}{Y}$
where k is the nominal impedance of the filter, or R<sub>0</sub>. The designer now multiplies Z and Y by an arbitrary constant m (0 \< m \< 1). There are two different kinds of m-derived section; series and shunt. To obtain the m-derived series half section, the designer determines the impedance that must be added to 1/mY to make the image impedance Z<sub>`iT`</sub> the same as the image impedance of the original constant k section. From the general formula for image impedance, the additional impedance required can be shown to be
$\frac{1-m^2}{m}Z.$
To obtain the m-derived shunt half section, an admittance is added to 1/mZ to make the image impedance Z<sub>`iΠ`</sub> the same as the image impedance of the original half section. The additional admittance required can be shown to be
$\frac{1-m^2}{m}Y.$
The general arrangements of these circuits are shown in the diagrams to the right along with a specific example of a low-pass section.
A consequence of this design is that the m-derived half section will match a k-type section on one side only. Also, an m-type section of one value of m will not match another m-type section of another value of m except on the sides which offer the Z<sub>`i`</sub> of the k-type.
### Operating frequency
For the low-pass half section shown, the cut-off frequency of the m-type is the same as the k-type and is given by
$\omega_c=\frac{1}{\sqrt{LC}}.$
The pole of attenuation occurs at;
$\omega_\infin=\frac{\omega_c}{\sqrt{1-m^2}}.$
From this it is clear that smaller values of m will produce $\omega_\infin$ closer to the cut-off frequency $\omega_c\,\!$ and hence will have a sharper cut-off. Despite this cut-off, it also brings the unwanted stopband response of the m-type closer to the cut-off frequency, making it more difficult for this to be filtered with subsequent sections. The value of m chosen is usually a compromise between these conflicting requirements. There is also a practical limit to how small m can be made due to the inherent resistance of the inductors. This has the effect of causing the pole of attenuation to be less deep (that is, it is no longer a genuinely infinite pole) and the slope of cut-off to be less steep. This effect becomes more marked as $\omega_\infin$ is brought closer to $\omega_c\,\!$, and there ceases to be any improvement in response with an m of about 0.2 or less.
### Image impedance
The following expressions for image impedances are all referenced to the low-pass prototype section. They are scaled to the nominal impedance R<sub>0</sub> = 1, and the frequencies in those expressions are all scaled to the cut-off frequency ω<sub>c</sub> = 1.
#### Series sections
The image impedances of the series section are given by
$Z_{iT}=\sqrt{1-\omega^2}$
and is the same as that of the constant k section
$Z_{i\Pi m}=\frac{1-\left(\omega/\omega_\infin\right)^2}{\sqrt{1-\omega^2}}.$
#### Shunt sections
The image impedances of the shunt section are given by
$Z_{i\Pi}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-\omega^2}}$
and is the same as that of the constant k section
$Z_{iT m}=\frac{\sqrt{1-\omega^2}}{1-\left(\omega/\omega_\infin\right)^2}$
As with the k-type section, the image impedance of the m-type low-pass section is purely real below the cut-off frequency and purely imaginary above it. From the chart it can be seen that in the passband the closest impedance match to a constant pure resistance termination occurs at approximately m = 0.6.
### Transmission parameters
For an m-derived section in general the transmission parameters for a half-section are given by
$\gamma=\sinh^{-1}\frac{mZ}{\sqrt{k^2+(1-m^2)Z^2}}$
and for n half-sections
$\gamma_n=n\gamma\,\!$
For the particular example of the low-pass L section, the transmission parameters solve differently in three frequency bands.
For $0<\omega<\omega_c\,\!$ the transmission is lossless:
$\gamma = \alpha + i\beta = 0 + i\frac{1}{2} \cos^{-1} \left(1-\frac{2m^2} {\left(\frac{\omega_c}{\omega}\right)^2 - \left(\frac{\omega_c}{\omega_{\infin}} \right)^2} \right)$
For $\omega_c<\omega<\omega_\infin$ the transmission parameters are
$\gamma = \alpha + i\beta = \frac{1}{2} \cosh^{-1} \left(\frac{2m^2}{\left(\frac{\omega_c}{\omega}\right)^2 - \left( \frac{\omega_c}{\omega_{\infin}} \right)^2} - 1 \right) + i\frac{\pi}{2}$
For $\omega_\infin<\omega<\infin$ the transmission parameters are
$\gamma = \alpha + i\beta = \frac{1}{2} \cosh^{-1} \left(1-\frac{2m^2}{\left(\frac{\omega_c}{\omega}\right)^2 - \left( \frac{\omega_c}{\omega_{\infin}}\right)^2} \right) +i0$
### Prototype transformations
The plots shown of image impedance, attenuation and phase change are the plots of a low-pass prototype filter section. The prototype has a cut-off frequency of ω<sub>c</sub> = 1 rad/s and a nominal impedance R<sub>0</sub> = 1 Ω. This is produced by a filter half-section where L = 1 henry and C = 1 farad. This prototype can be impedance scaled and frequency scaled to the desired values. The low-pass prototype can also be transformed into high-pass, band-pass or band-stop types by application of suitable frequency transformations.
## Cascading sections
Several L half-sections may be cascaded to form a composite filter. Like impedance must always face like in these combinations. There are therefore two circuits that can be formed with two identical L half-sections. Where Z<sub>`iT`</sub> faces Z<sub>`iT`</sub>, the section is called a `Π` section. Where Z<sub>`iΠ`</sub> faces Z<sub>`iΠ`</sub> the section formed is a T section. Further additions of half-sections to either of these forms a ladder network which may start and end with series or shunt elements.
It should be born in mind that the characteristics of the filter predicted by the image method are only accurate if the section is terminated with its image impedance. This is usually not true of the sections at either end which are usually terminated with a fixed resistance. The further the section is from the end of the filter, the more accurate the prediction will become since the effects of the terminating impedances are masked by the intervening sections. It is usual to provide half half-sections at the ends of the filter with m = 0.6 as this value gives the flattest Z<sub>`i`</sub> in the passband and hence the best match in to a resistive termination.
## See also
- Image impedance
- Constant k filter
- General m<sub>n</sub>-type image filters
- mm'-type filter
- Composite image filter
|
40,243,894 |
United States v. Ramsey (1926)
| 1,170,724,093 | null |
[
"1926 in United States case law",
"Native American history of Oklahoma",
"United States Native American criminal jurisdiction case law",
"United States Supreme Court cases",
"United States Supreme Court cases of the Taft Court"
] |
United States v. Ramsey, 271 U.S. 467 (1926), was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the government had the authority to prosecute crimes against Native Americans (Indians) on reservation land that was still designated Indian Country by federal law. The Osage Indian Tribe held mineral rights that were worth millions of dollars. A white rancher, William K. Hale, devised a plot to kill tribal members to allow his nephew, who was married to a tribal member, to inherit the mineral rights. The tribe requested the assistance of the federal government, which sent Bureau of Investigation agents to solve the murders. Hale and several others were arrested and tried for the murders, but they claimed that the federal government did not have jurisdiction. The district court quashed the indictments, but on appeal, the Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Osage lands were Indian Country and that the federal government therefore had jurisdiction. This put an end to the Osage Indian murders.
## Background
### Federal law
In 1834, Congress passed the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act to regulate trade with the Indians and to provide the United States with criminal jurisdiction for crimes committed by or against Indians. This law provided for trial in a federal court for crimes committed by an Indian against a non-Indian or vice versa. At the time of passage, federal jurisdiction over the Indian Territory was given to the U.S. court in Arkansas and, in 1851, this was clarified as the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. In 1890, this law was amended to create the Oklahoma Territory and to give the federal courts in western Arkansas, southern Kansas, and eastern Texas jurisdiction over the Indian Territory.
### Territory, statehood and allotment
In 1870, the federal government purchased the Kansas reservation from the Osage Nation. The tribe then purchased 1,470,559 acres of land in the Indian Territory from the Cherokee Nation. The land was not suited for farming, but had abundant game. In 1890 when Congress passed the Oklahoma Organic Act forming both the Oklahoma and Indian territories, the Osage Indian Reservation was part of the Oklahoma Territory. In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act, which served to break up reservations and allot the land to tribal members. The act did not apply to the Five Civilized Tribes or other tribes in the Indian territory nor to the Osage tribe in the Oklahoma territory. In 1898 the Curtis Act applied allotment to the Five Civilized Tribes, leaving the Osage tribe as the only tribe with a reservation in Oklahoma.
Under the provisions that Congress had established, Oklahoma could not become a state until all reservations were eliminated. The Osage tribe, seeing the disastrous effects of allotment, resisted it until 1906 when they negotiated an allotment different in two major respects. First, no Osage land would be opened up for white settlement as surplus land because the tribe had purchased it, and second, mineral rights were retained by the tribe, and not in a trust status through the federal government. Even though the Osage reservation remained, this allotment was deemed sufficient and Oklahoma became a state in 1907.
### Reign of terror
This ownership of the land and mineral rights had another consequence. In 1896, Edwin B. Foster signed an oil lease for the entire Osage reservation. By 1902 he was shipping 37,000 barrels of oil and by 1906 his companies were producing over 5 million barrels annually. The Osage tribe was one of the wealthiest in the United States, but with the mineral rights transferring to the land owners in 1926, their murder rates also became the highest in the United States. By 1925, Osage families were earning about \$65,000 per year, compared to white families that were averaging \$1,000. Congress also passed a law providing that an Osage Indian who was less than half blood, as determined by the Secretary of the Interior, did not have to wait to sell his or her land.
In the early 1920s, Osage Indians who owned headrights, or land where they would obtain mineral rights, began to be murdered—the first two were Charles Whitehorn and Anna Brown, both Osage Indians but killed separately. In February 1923, Henry Roan, another Osage, was found in his car, shot once in the back of the head with a .45 caliber pistol. Less than a month later, an explosion in an Osage home killed Reta Smith, an Osage, her white husband W.E. Smith, and their white maid. Reta Smith was Brown's sister and the daughter of Lizzie Q. Kyle (also known as Lizzie Que), who had died and was thought to have been poisoned. Roan was Reta Smith's cousin. Que had three headrights and both daughters had a full headright and a fractional headright, worth a considerable amount of money. These would be inherited by a third daughter, Molly Burkhart, who was married to a white man, Ernie Burkhart. Ernie Burkhart was the nephew of a wealthy Texas rancher, William K. Hale, who had moved to the Osage area.
### Federal investigation
Following these deaths and several others, the Osage Tribal Council requested federal assistance since local authorities were apparently making no effort to solve the crimes. The U.S. Bureau of Investigation (BOI), which later became the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was assigned to conduct the investigation. The BOI responded by sending in undercover agents disguised as cattle buyers and cowhands and, through their investigation, determined that the murders had been planned and executed at the direction of Hale. Hale was implicated in the murder of Brown when Kelsie Morrison confessed in court. The BOI also discovered that Hale held a \$25,000 insurance policy on Roan and noted that his nephew's wife had inherited all of the Kyle headrights. Hale and John Ramsey were charged in federal court with the murder of Roan; Ernie Burkhart was charged in state court with arranging the Smith bombing.
### The trials
Ernie Burkhart was tried first. Two weeks into the trial, realizing that he could not win, he changed his plea to guilty and became a witness for the state in exchange for a life sentence. Burkhart testified that Hale was behind the scheme, that Asa "Ace" Kirby was the bomber, and that Henry Grammer was the go-between.
Hale and Ramsey were transferred to Guthrie, Oklahoma in 1926, where they stood trial in state court for the murder of Roan. The trial resulted in a hung jury and a mistrial. The United States Attorney then transferred the case to Oklahoma City and indicted Hale and Ramsey for murder on federal land for the death of Roan. On being indicted, both demurrered on the grounds that the federal government did not have jurisdiction. The U.S. District Court sustained the defendants' motion and the government made a direct appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
## Opinion of the court
Justice George Sutherland delivered the opinion of the court. He noted that the indictment was drawn under Revised Statute § 2145, which provides for federal jurisdiction of crimes committed in "Indian Country". This section was no longer applicable to general crimes in Oklahoma after statehood. Crimes committed by or against Indians could still be prosecuted under § 2145 if the crime occurred in Indian Country. The question before the court was whether allotted land, with a restriction on sale by the Indian it was allotted to, was still Indian Country. Since the government controlled whether the land could be sold or otherwise alienated, it was no different from land held in trust and was therefore still Indian Country. The judgment of the district court was in error and was reversed.
## Subsequent developments
### Trial in U.S. District Court
Following the decision of the Supreme Court, Hale, Burkhart, and Ramsey were tried in federal court. Ernie Burkhart testified that Hale hired Ramsey to kill Roan. Burkhart also testified to Hale's involvement in the Smith bombing, while Hale testified that he was in Fort Worth, Texas at the time of the killings. All three defendants were convicted and sentenced to life in prison; within days, both Hale and Ramsey appealed.
### Appeal
Hale's appeal was heard first in 1928. It was based on improper procedure in admitting Burkhart's testimony as to the Smith bombing and again on the contention that the federal government did not have jurisdiction to try the case. The Eighth Circuit Court denied the plea to the jurisdiction, noting that the Supreme Court had ruled on that very issue earlier in the case. The court did find that the testimony as to the Smith bombing was not relevant to the Roan murder, was prejudicial against Hale, and required that the case be remanded for retrial. Ramsey's appeal was likewise successful on the same grounds in 1929.
### Retrial
In 1929, both Hale and Ramsey were retried for the murder. Ramsey testified in court and explained how Hale hired him to kill Roan, but later changed his story to claim another person killed Roan. Hale again testified that he had nothing to do with the crime. Both were convicted and again sentenced to life in prison.
### Aftermath
Hale entered the Fort Leavenworth Federal Prison on May 30, 1929, and, over the protests of the Osage tribe, was paroled on July 31, 1947. Ramsey was paroled four months later. Burkhart was released in October 1959.
` Morrison was sentenced to life in prison in 1926 for Brown's murder. In January 1931, his conviction was overturned since he'd been promised immunity in exchange for testifying for the prosecution. Morrison was killed in a shootout with police on May 25, 1937. In 1966, Governor Henry Bellmon granted Burkhart a full pardon.`
|
43,488,967 |
Modesta Avila
| 1,055,684,835 |
First state prisoner of the United States
|
[
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"1891 deaths",
"Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway",
"Californios",
"Chicana feminism",
"Deaths from pneumonia in California",
"History of Orange County, California",
"Mexican-American culture in California",
"People from San Juan Capistrano, California",
"San Quentin State Prison inmates"
] |
Modesta Avila (1867 or 1869 – September 1891) was a Californio ranchera and protester, best known for being the first convicted felon and first state prisoner in Orange County, California. Avila had only received a minor warning in 1889 for placing an obstruction on the tracks to protest against the Santa Fe Railroad being built through her property without adequate compensation, but she continued to taunt the authorities, and was eventually arrested four months later.
Although the jury in her first trial was unable to reach agreement, Avila was convicted after a second trial at Orange County Supreme Court and was sentenced to three years in San Quentin State Prison. Today Avila is considered to be a folk heroine of Latino people of the county, and is suggested as the "White Lady", a ghost said to haunt the area, reported to have been seen walking along the railroad tracks since the 1930s.
## Background
Avila was born in 1867 or 1869 in San Juan Capistrano, in Orange County, California. Little is known about her early life, but by the age of 20 she had inherited land from her mother just to the north of the Capistrano train station and was occupied in chicken rearing. Physically Avila was described as a "dark-eyed beauty" in appearance and an "extremely proud woman". The authorities would have considered her a Mexican even though she had been born in San Juan Capistrano; Mexicans were unpopular in the county at the time and subject to racism. She had spent 30 days in Los Angeles County Jail in 1888 for "vagrancy" (often a euphemism for prostitution) and this, coupled with the fact that she was reportedly unmarried and pregnant at the time of her second trial, led to a belief that she supplemented her income by working as a prostitute; her obituary in the Santa Ana Standard seemed to add weight to this by referring to her as "a well-known favorite of the Santa Ana boys".
## Protest
Avila was upset by the construction of the Santa Fe Railroad through her family's land and only 15 feet away from her home, believing that she had not been properly compensated for the railway which was having a negative impact on her chicken rearing and her quality of life because of the noise. In 1889, she decided to protest against the railroad's incursion into her life and property. Local sources say she tied a clothesline hung with her laundry across the track, but other reports say she placed a railroad tie across the tracks and erected a fence post between the rails to which she attached a note of protest that read: "This land belongs to me. And if the railroad wants to run here, they will have to pay me ten thousand dollars". Max Mendelson, the Southern Pacific's agent in San Juan Capistrano, reported that he had removed the post, informed Avila that the Southern Pacific were perfectly within their rights in the building of the railroad, and ordered her not to interfere again.
There is some doubt over what occurred between Avila and Mendelson. Avila seemed to believe that she would be compensated, and is even documented to have traveled to a bank in Santa Ana to ask how she might receive a \$10,000 payment and organized a party in celebration of her expected payment. She was arrested at the party for disturbing the peace, and annoyed the authorities by boasting at her trial of her victory over the railroad company and government. According to historian Lisbeth Haas in the book Conquests and Historical Identities in California, 1769–1936, it was her actions after her initial protest rather than the act itself which led to her arrest four months later for "attempted obstruction of a train", and that she was made an example of to demonstrate that protests would be punished under the new state legal system.
## Prosecution and imprisonment
The first trial of Avila for interfering with the tracks was held at the then newly opened Orange County Superior Court under Edward Eugenes, a "hot shot" legal figure who was also in the state assembly. The first trial ended with a 6-6 hung jury. In the week leading up to the retrial, rumors spread that Avila was pregnant out of wedlock, an act considered to be gravely sinful at the time. Her lawyer, George Hayford "inexperienced and probably crooked", was forced to confirm that she was pregnant and believed that the real decision to incarcerate her for three years in San Quentin State Prison was largely due to this, writing that "her real crime is that she is a poor girl not having sense enough to have been married". Hayford appealed to the court on grounds that she had been "convicted on her reputation, not her deed". He received a hearing at the Supreme Court, but lost the case on a technicality. Avila's case was perhaps also used as the "vehicle for polishing Orange County’s law-and-order image", as she was the first person to be convicted of a felony in the county. Avila's boyfriend at the time was fired from his job for refusing to distance himself from her.
If she had been pregnant, what became of her baby is unknown: no mention of it appears in the penitentiary's records. Avila was released from prison eight months early on March 3, 1892, although one reporter stated that she died there of pneumonia in September 1891 at the age of 22 or 24 after serving two years and five months of her sentence. Her obituary in the Santa Ana Standard concluded: "Let those who are without sin throw the first stone".
## Legacy
Today, Avila is considered to be an important figure in local legend and has been cited as a "folklore heroine" for Latinos in the county. The San Juan Capistrano Historical Society unveiled a plaque in the town commemorating her and her place in history. Mary P. Nolan, executive director of the Central Orange County YWCA, included Avila among 30 prominent "women of courage" in Orange County's history.
As part of the celebrations for the centenary of the building of the Santa Fe railroad in August 1988, a re-enactment of her protest was performed near the railway station by a local woman, Irma Camarena, and actors playing Mendelson and a sheriff. City manager Steve Julian narrated: "Modesta hated the train. It was noisy, dirty and a bit frightening. It kept her chickens from laying eggs, and its whistle kept her awake at night. Plus, the powerful California Central, parent company to the Santa Fe, had paid a pittance to people for the right of way through their property. Something had to be done. In an act of pure frustration, Modesta chose a symbolic act to voice her displeasure."
Numerous writers on Latino oppression and history in the United States cite Avila as one of many Mexican-Americans victimized during this period. Suzanne Oboler, Professor of Latin American Studies at the City University of New York, for instance, considers the imprisonment of Avila and others such as Jimmy Santiago Baca, Ricardo Sánchez, Raúl Salinas, Fred Gómez Carrasco, Judy Lucero and Alvaro Luna Hernandez to be "inextricably linked to colonial domination and the subsequent struggle for material resources in the southwestern United States". An opera entitled Modesta Avila: An American Folk Opera written by an Orange County biomedical engineer was performed in Westminster in 1986 but was dismissed as "neo-imperialist nostalgia" by B. V. Olguín in La Pinta: Chicana/o Prisoner Literature, Culture, and Politics. The Modesta Avila Coalition, an activist group in the Los Angeles area involved with fighting against firms who transport goods to and from rail yards, named themselves after her in 2005.
Avila is suggested as a possible identity for the ghost, known as the "White Lady", which has reputedly been seen in San Juan Capistrano's Los Rios Street Historic District. The ghost was first reported walking on the railway tracks in the 1930s, along the stretch that Avila had walked.
|
7,895,650 |
Gervase of Bazoches
| 1,130,836,925 | null |
[
"1108 deaths",
"Christians of the First Crusade",
"Princes of Galilee",
"Year of birth unknown"
] |
Gervase of Bazoches, who is also known as Gervaise (died in Damascus in May 1108), was Prince of Galilee from 1105/1106 until his death. He was born into a French noble family but migrated to the Holy Land, where King Baldwin I of Jerusalem made him senechal in the early 1100s and appointed him prince of Galilee in 1105/1106. Gervase was captured during a raid by Toghtekin, atabeg of Damascus, who had Gervase executed after Baldwin I refused to surrender three important towns in exchange for Gervase's release.
## Early life
The contemporaneous Guibert of Nogent described Gervase as a "knight ... of noble blood, from the castle of Basilcas in Soissons". Albert of Aix referred to Gervase as "a famous and very noble man who was born in the realm of western France". Gervase's brother Hugh was lord of Bazoches-sur-Vesles, a village near Soissons. They were related to the lords of Milly. Gervase was the advocate of the church in Mont-Notre-Dame before he settled in the Holy Land.
## Prince of Galilee
Gervase became an important member of the royal court in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He witnessed one of the charters of Baldwin I of Jerusalem as Gervasius dapifer (or senechal) in 1104. After Hugh of Fauquembergues, Prince of Galilee, was ambushed and killed during a pillaging raid in late 1105 or early 1106, the king conferred Galilee on Gervase. In 1106, the Muslims of Tyre attacked the Galilean fortress of Toron while Toghtekin, the atabeg of Damascus, raided the region of Tiberias, but they could not do much harm. Baldwin and Toghtekin's envoys signed an armistice, temporarily ending the Muslim raids against Galilee.
Toghtekin again invaded Galilee, and captured Gervase and his retainers outside Tiberias in early 1108. He demanded Acre, Haifa, and Tiberias as their ransom from Baldwin, who was only willing to pay a large sum of money. Outraged by the king's answer, Toghtekin ordered Gervase be executed in Damascus in May. On Toghtekin's order, his soldiers tied Gervase to a tree and shot arrows at him until he died. His scalp was put on a pole to be carried before Toghtekin's army and his skull was made into a goblet for Toghtekin. After Gervase's death, Baldwin granted the title Prince of Galilee to Tancred, who had held the principality before Hugh of Fauquembergues. Royal officials administered the principality during the following five years.
|
40,670,386 |
Do What U Want
| 1,171,669,472 | null |
[
"2013 singles",
"2013 songs",
"American contemporary R&B songs",
"Christina Aguilera songs",
"Interscope Records singles",
"Lady Gaga songs",
"Male–female vocal duets",
"Music video controversies",
"Music videos directed by Terry Richardson",
"Number-one singles in Greece",
"Number-one singles in Hungary",
"Obscenity controversies in music",
"R. Kelly songs",
"Self-censorship",
"Song recordings produced by Lady Gaga",
"Songs about fame",
"Songs written by DJ Snake",
"Songs written by DJ White Shadow",
"Songs written by Lady Gaga",
"Songs written by R. Kelly",
"Songs written by Tchami"
] |
"Do What U Want" is a song by American singer Lady Gaga, featuring R. Kelly. The song was released on October 21, 2013, as the second single from Gaga's third studio album Artpop (2013). The singers wrote the song with DJ White Shadow, Martin Bresso, and William Grigahcine. DJ White Shadow first presented Gaga with the song's initial concept two years prior to its release. Production on "Do What U Want" was completed in 2013, with Kelly's vocals added soon after. Its sudden popularity upon premiering led to the song becoming the album's second single.
It is a synth-pop, electropop and R&B song featuring 1980s-style synthesizers and an electronic instrumental track. The song's lyrics discuss the media's appetite for publishing opinion and critique, with Gaga telling detractors that her thoughts, dreams, and feelings are her own, no matter what one does with her body. Critics praised the song's simplicity and production. The single cover for "Do What U Want", a close-up of Gaga's buttocks in a floral thong, was photographed by Terry Richardson who had also directed the song's music video. The clip was planned to be released through BitTorrent in December 2013 but was cancelled for unknown reasons.
"Do What U Want" reached number one in Hungary while peaking within the top 10 in Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Norway, Scotland, South Korea, Spain and the United Kingdom as well as the top 20 in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. Live performances of the song were televised on the 2013 American Music Awards, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Saturday Night Live, America's The Voice, and Britain's The X Factor. Several remixes of the song were released, including ones with vocals from Christina Aguilera and Rick Ross.
On January 10, 2019, Gaga decided to have the single removed from music streaming services after the airing of a television documentary, Surviving R. Kelly, exposed new allegations of sexual misconduct and assault by Kelly, who had previously been charged regarding similar accusations in 2002 but was acquitted in 2008. The song was removed from new vinyl and CD pressings of the album in November 2019.
## Writing and development
"Do What U Want" was co-written by Lady Gaga, Paul Blair, R. Kelly, Martin Bresso and William Grigahcine. It was produced by Blair and Gaga and features vocals by Kelly. Gaga had been living in Chicago and completing the songs for Artpop, which was being influenced by the R&B and hip hop music predominant there. One day, the singer came to know about an article discussing her weight and she was angered with such news. She decided that it was through her music that she could take a stance against "shallow journalism". After the release of the first single from the album, titled "Applause", the singer was also determined to create something different and unfamiliar to her past hit singles, and "Do What U Want" stemmed from these thoughts.
Blair recalled how in 2011 his friend Martin was playing him a particular beat from his own remix project. Blair liked the music and presented it to Gaga who had begun writing the song's lyrics while on the Born This Way Ball tour. Blair described its beat as "some space age George Jetson R&B sound". After the lyrics were completed in September 2013, Blair suggested bringing Kelly on board as a collaborator. Kelly was in the process of completing his album, Black Panties, and agreed to participate following a telephone conversation with Gaga. Kelly told Billboard that working with the singer was "natural jelling". Gaga told MTV News about the song:
> I've been living in Chicago and spending a lot of time there, and that's where R. Kelly hails from. I was working on Artpop and I wrote ['Do What U Want'] on tour. It was about my obsession with the way people view me. I have always been an R. Kelly fan and actually it is like an epic pastime in the Haus of Gaga that we just get fucked up and play R. Kelly. This is a real R&B song and I [said 'I] have to call the king of R&B and I need his blessing.' It was a mutual love.
## Recording and composition
"Do What U Want" is a mid-tempo synth-pop, electropop and R&B track, drawing influence from 1980s-inspired throbbing synths and an electronic beat. Eric R. Danton of Rolling Stone described it as a "muscular club beat". James Montgomery from MTV News said that a "lurching, lascivious beat" was the main backbone of the song, interspersed with Gaga's loud-voiced vocals, a "corky" chorus and Kelly's "cool, coital" singing. The song's chorus is built around arpeggios. Complex described its "Do what you want, what you want with my body" hook as "catchy and somewhat raunchy". The song's lyrics represent Gaga telling off detractors that her thoughts, dreams, and feelings are her own, no matter what one says about her. Jim Farber of New York Daily News suggested "Do What U Want" to be a response to "everyone who ever made a tart comment about her — which, by now, involves half the planet". Gaga and Kelly alternate singing the lines "Do what u want/ What u want with my body/ Do what u want/ What u want with my body/ Write what you want, say what you want about me/ If you want you know that I'm not sorry".
According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com, "Do What U Want" is set in the time signature of common time, with a moderate tempo of 96 beats per minute. It is composed in the key of A major with Gaga's vocals spanning the tonal nodes of E<sub>3</sub> to F<sub>5</sub>. The song follows a basic sequence of D–E–Fm–E–D–E as its chord progression. "Do What U Want" was recorded at Record Plant Studios in Hollywood, California and at PatchWerk Recording Studios, in Atlanta, Georgia. Gaga's vocals were recorded by Dave Russell and Bill Malina, while Kelly's by Abel Garibaldi and Ian Moonness. Russell held primary mixing of the track at Record Plant, with additional support from Benjamin Rice, Ghazi Hourani, Zane Shoemake, and Dino "SpeedoVee" Zisis. The song's instrumentals include guitars by Tim Stewart, programming by Rick Pearl, and audio mastering done by Gene Grimaldi at Oasis Mastering Studios in Burbank, California.
## Release and promotion
On September 3, 2013, Gaga asked her fans through Twitter to help her choose the second single: options given were "Manicure", "Sexxx Dreams", "Aura" and "Swine". On September 20, 2013, Gaga announced that "Venus" had been chosen as the second single, and that it would be released before the album. A snippet of "Do What U Want" debuted in a US commercial for Best Buy/Beats on October 17, 2013. It was also used in promotion for British mobile company, O2, as part of their "Be More Dog" campaign. Because of how popular "Do What U Want" quickly became upon its premiere on October 21, 2013 when topping various iTunes charts, Gaga and her label decided to release that as the second official single from Artpop, instead of "Venus". "Do What U Want" officially impacted Italian radio stations four days later, and on October 30, 2013 in the UK. The song impacted mainstream and rhythmic contemporary radio stations in the United States six days afterwards. Lipshutz compared the song's last-minute release to that of "Judas" from Born This Way in April 2011. After quick commercial success, the label soon decided to rush a single release.
The first promotional artwork features Gaga naked with moss covering her genitals. The single's official cover art was released on October 21, showing Gaga's backside, wearing a floral thong. The cover art was shot by photographer Terry Richardson. In an interview with German television station ProSieben, Gaga explained that the explicit imagery for the cover art was due to the constant criticism and discussion surrounding her, adding that "When I look at how society has changed, I feel like this is a good time to show you my ass, because it's all I choose to give you."
According to Digital Spy's Catherine Earp, the shoot resembles a polaroid. Leigh Silver from Complex magazine compared it to Andy Warhol's polaroid series, where the artist shot pictures of blonds and their rear. Hilary Hughes from Esquire called the cover art "awful" but felt that the image paved way for much imagination in lieu of the suggestive theme of the song. The night before the song's release, Gaga tweeted lyrics of "Do What U Want" in reference to critics and rumors that had surfaced throughout her career, including those claiming the singer to be a hermaphrodite, gaining weight in 2012, and her drug addiction. She also addressed media fabrications on her alleged negative relationships with Madonna and Katy Perry. Alex Camp from Slant Magazine felt Gaga's stunt cheapened the song's intent, pointing out how it highlighted the singer's preoccupation with social media and her public image.
## Critical reception
Upon release, "Do What U Want" received generally positive response from reviewers. Lars Brandle of Billboard, Slant Magazine contributor Alexa Camp, and Kevin Fallon from The Daily Beast compared Gaga's vocals to those of Aguilera. Camp describes the track as "a measured electro banger that smartly doubles as a love song." Brandle complimented the song as "radio-friendly" and concluded that "Gaga is in good form." Lipshutz, also from Billboard, the same publication wrote that the song and its lyrics were a "thrilling listen, intoxicatingly defiant". Fallon was highly enthusiastic toward the song, calling it "pure pop heaven" and giving his praise to its "chorus that will make it a radio hit..... and driving, danceable beat throughout." Carl Williot of Idolator website summarized the song as "a pretty flawless piece of R&B." Dharmic X from Complex praised "Do What U Want" as "catchy". Latifah Muhammad from Black Entertainment Television felt that "Between the two, Kelly seems the furthest of his sonic comfort zone but nestles into a groove over the dance beat" and described the track as "musical genius".
Jim Farber of New York Daily News gave the song four out of five stars, saying that the "music provides its own quirk. To match the R&B-style beat — and the guest appearance by R. Kelly — Gaga finds a new soul edge to her voice. She belts, scoring a hit in every sense." Slate magazine's Aisha Harris felt that Gaga and Kelly's efforts worked "surprisingly well". Nidhi Tewari of International Business Times said that Gaga sounded her "rebellious best" on the upbeat song. Lewis Corner from Digital Spy gave the song four out of five stars, stating that its "ear-snagging melody revives some of her earlier pop perfection." Hilary Hughes from Esquire felt that Kelly's guest appearance on the song, improved its quality much more than the preceding single "Applause". Hughes added that Gaga's Whitney Houston-esque vocals are elevated further by Kelly's "standard, soaring tenor". "Do What U Want" was listed as one of the 100 Best Songs Of 2013 by Rolling Stone, ranked at number 17.
A mixed review came from Kyle Anderson from Entertainment Weekly, who felt that Gaga and Kelly's vocals track did not "come together" since Gaga's singing style interfered with the composition of the song as well as Kelly's R&B vocals. Anderson also felt that the lyrics sung by Kelly were rehash and subpar. He concluded saying that the song is "an intriguing mind-meld nonetheless". Marc Hogan from Spin magazine said that the song was "as usual" about fame but felt that the cover art complemented the theme the song portrayed. In 2015, Daisy Jones of Dazed said "Do What U Want" was one of the most controversial songs ever because of its theme and Kelly's involvement. Jones said the song provoked controversy "for all the wrong reasons."
## Chart performance
In the United States, Nielsen SoundScan reported that "Do What U Want" entered the Hot Digital Songs chart at number three with 156,000 digital downloads in its first week, becoming Gaga's 14th top ten on that chart. Consequently, it debuted at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song is Kelly's 52nd Hot 100 entry and highest rank since "I'm a Flirt" peaked at number 12 in 2007. The song fell to number 58 the following week. In its third week, "Do What U Want" climbed to number 48 on the chart, aided by its move upwards on the Radio Songs chart, from number 64 to 51, with an audience impression of 23 million, up by about 22% from the second week. Following the release of Artpop, the song returned to the top twenty of Hot 100, moving into number 18. The song has sold 1.3 million copies in the US as of February 2018, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). On the Pop Songs chart, "Do What U Want" debuted at number 39 for the issue of November 11, 2013, and moved up to number 29 the next week with a spin increase of 991 on the US radio stations. Next week, the song acquired a further 1,096 spins and moved to number 23 on the chart. It has reached a peak of number seven on Pop Songs, with 9,237 spins. The song also peaked at number eight on the Rhythmic chart with 2,662 spins. "Do What U Want" became the second single by Gaga—the first being her debut single "Just Dance"—not to reach the top of the Hot Dance Club Songs chart, where it stalled inside the top-ten at number seven.
In Australia, "Do What U Want" entered the Australian Singles Chart at number 21; also debuting on the New Zealand Singles Chart at number twelve. The song entered the Irish Singles Chart at number nine and the Netherlands' Mega Single Top 100 at number 27. It also entered the Finnish Download Chart at number two. In South Korea, the song sold 10,576 digital downloads, reaching number eight in the Gaon Digital Chart. It fell to number 13 the next week, selling a further 7,184 copies. Following the album release, the song sold 20,309 copies and reached a new peak of number two. "Do What U Want" reached the top of the charts in Greece, and also reached the top-ten in Finland, France, Italy, and Spain. The song debuted at number 50 on the Japan Hot 100, and rose to a peak of number 26 after two weeks. "Do What U Want" also debuted at number seven on the Canadian Hot 100 and in its eleventh week on the chart, the song reached a new peak of number three. It was certified gold by Music Canada, for selling over 40,000 digital downloads.
In the United Kingdom, "Do What U Want" was deemed ineligible to enter the UK Singles Chart. The Official Charts Company released a statement explaining that the song would be allowed to chart only after the associated album's pre-order offer ended. The rules of the Official Chart Company "allow one 'instant grat' promotion per album, i.e a single track download given away as an album pre-order incentive. 'Do What U Want' is the second track [following 'Applause'] to be delivered to fans who pre-order Artpop". Thus the song was not eligible to enter the chart until the promotion finished and the album was released. According to Alan Jones from Music Week, in the week following its release the single sold 22,915 copies in the UK. After the release of Artpop, "Do What U Want" debuted at number nine on the UK charts with sales of 29,657 copies becoming her 11th top-ten single there. It also entered the Scottish Singles Chart at the same position. "Do What U Want" has sold 383,000 copies in the United Kingdom as of April 2021, and was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for 400,000 copies of streaming equivalent units. It has been streamed 8.5 million times, becoming Gaga's highest streamed song in the country.
## Live performances
Gaga performed the song live along with "Venus" on the tenth series of The X Factor (UK) on October 27, 2013, at Fountain Studios in Wembley. Jason Lipshutz from Billboard denoted it as "intoxicatingly weird". ITV, which aired the performance, and Ofcom, the British media regulator, received around 260 complaints regarding the performance, due to Gaga's costume and the suggestive lyrics of the track, which was broadcast before the 9pm watershed. A spokesperson from the channel released a statement that they did not believe the performance to be inappropriate. During her ArtRave party for the release of Artpop, Gaga performed eight songs from the album, closing the set with "Do What U Want". The performance ended with the singer mirroring the pose of the album cover art—a Jeff Koons sculpture—on the stage, by sitting down and spreading her legs apart, while cupping her breasts. On November 16, 2013, Gaga performed "Do What U Want" at episode 751 of the 39th season of comedy show Saturday Night Live. Kelly appeared as the guest vocalist, doing the similar routine with Gaga, and picking her up from the stage on his shoulder. There was also sex simulations, dry humping and they ended the performance in an embrace. According to Zach Johnson from E!, the performance drew mixed reaction from the media.
Gaga had revealed during ArtRave that she and Kelly would perform "Do What U Want" at the American Music Awards of 2013 on November 24. During the performance, Gaga enacted the role of a secretary for the President of the United States, which was played by Kelly, pantomiming fellatio that invoked the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. The stage was set up to be reminiscent of the Oval Office. Gaga belted out the final chorus of the song alone, as the backdrops displayed a video of the singer playing a piano as a child. The epilogue featured self-depreciating newspaper headlines in the backdrops, proclaiming "Lady Gaga is Over" and "Lady Gaga is Fat". Jason Lipshutz of Billboard called it "the most elaborate performance" of the ceremony and found parallels with Kelly's own rap opera Trapped in the Closet in its storytelling.
At the British chat show, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Gaga performed another acoustic version of the track. Wearing a Kansai Yamamoto bodice with an iPad attached to it, Gaga belted out the song while playing the piano. Another performance took place at the 2013 Jingle Bell Ball on December 8, 2013, where she sang "Do What U Want" along with other songs from her discography. It was first announced that Gaga would perform on the fifth-season finale of The Voice on December 12, 2013, with the assumption that R. Kelly would accompany her during a performance of "Do What U Want". However, a television commercial aired on December 17, the evening of the finale, teased that "Christina [Aguilera] joins Lady Gaga for one epic performance"; they sang "Do What U Want" as the final performance of the evening. Both appeared in "matching clothes" with few differences, Gaga wore a "jumpsuit all sharp, off-kilter angles", while Aguilera was dressed in a "slinky-sexy gown emphasizing her smooth curves". A writer from Rap-Up praised it as an "over-the-top" performance. Los Angeles Times writer Amy Reiter commended the pair's vocal ability as "triumphant". On the 2014 ArtRave: The Artpop Ball tour, the song was performed after "Paparazzi". Gaga perched atop a silver chair shaped like a hand, and sang the song. Kelly's verses were removed from the live rendition. Eric Leijon from The Gazette praised the song saying that it had "earned [its] place alongside crowd pleasers 'Paparazzi' and 'Bad Romance'" from Gaga's catalogue of hits.
## Music video
Gaga confirmed Richardson as the director during her ArtRave party. Richardson had previously shot the "Cake Like Lady Gaga" snippet video, featuring the singer playing with cake. He had been wanting to do music videos for some time, and started his work in the medium with the video for Miley Cyrus' single "Wrecking Ball" and Beyoncé's "XO". After her provocative performance of the song on Saturday Night Live, many interviewers had questioned Gaga regarding her chemistry with Kelly, leading the singer to tweet the following message: "Many interviewers quelped today about my 'SHOCKING' performance w/ R Kelly on SNL I'm beginning to think y'all aren't ready for the video."
On November 26, 2013, Interscope announced that the video would be released through file sharing service BitTorrent and Vice, sometime in December 2013. This is BitTorrent's second initiative, following a similar release for singer Madonna and her secretprojectrevolution video. The bundle would consist of the music video, pictures, a separate clip in 4K resolution documenting the making of the release, and interviews with Gaga and director Richardson. Interscope described the bundle as a means of "explor[ing] the link between open expression and open technology; providing an inside look at the creative process, with original film, music, archival content and behind-the-scenes footage direct from artists."
On December 4, 2013, Gaga tweeted that she was intent on making the video "perfect" since it was unlike her previous endeavors, adding that it was "very personal". Two days later, Richardson posted a black-and-white photo from the set of the video, which showed Gaga being held by Kelly; with her legs wrapped around his waist. She wore nothing but a black bikini, while Kelly gestured his middle finger towards the camera in a leather pant/kilt dress. One week later, a colored behind-the-scenes photo was released, showing the singers in the same garments as the previous image, while Kelly stood with his legs spread apart as Gaga crawled in between them.
However, the bundle as well as the video was not released in December; Gaga later released a statement in her social networking website Little Monsters that the video was delayed since the singer was given just one week to plan and complete it, like the video for "Applause". She added that it was unlike her since she preferred planning her videos over a period of time to honor her creativity. The clip remained unreleased and on June 19, 2014, celebrity news website TMZ published footage from the video showing sexually suggestive scenes. In one of them, Kelly, playing a doctor, reaches under a sheet covering a naked Gaga, causing her to moan. In another scene, Richardson appeared to be photographing Gaga as she writhes on newspapers, which was compared to Jelena Karleuša's 2013 artwork for "Baš je dobro biti ja". Pitchfork described the video as "Kelly hosting a softcore orgy with Gaga's anesthetized body". According to the TMZ report, the video was cancelled possibly due to weariness and fear of backlash for Kelly's past trial on child pornography, as well as sexual harassment claims by several models who had previously worked with Richardson. According to Page Six's unnamed source, "[She] had a video directed by an alleged sexual predator, starring another sexual predator [...] With the theme, 'I'm going to do whatever I want with your body'? It was literally an ad for rape." Daisy Jones of Dazed said it was for the better that the video was not released. She opined the song's lyrics, Kelly's and Richardson's involvement, and the music video's concept were "bad ideas all around."
## Remixes
### DJWS Remix
The DJWS Remix of "Do What U Want" featuring R. Kelly and rapper Rick Ross was released on December 20, 2013. Ross told in an interview with MTV that he was not prepared for collaborating with Gaga. The remix starts with Kelly's vocals with a new introduction, followed by Ross rapping on a verse, adding new lines like "Photos of the Bawse just to post 'em on a blog/Get alotta views cause they know we be the top/Jean Basquiats in the hall, she my work of art so I pin her to the wall." During Gaga's vocals, the "groove" of the song is updated which was described by Fuse as "nostalgic, banging, sex-freaky and new all at the same time. It's a 2013 ode to another era of synth R&B." Molly Wardlow from the channel was however dismissive of Ross' verse, calling it unnecessary. Spin magazine's Chris Martin noted that Ross' contribution to "Do What U Want" sounded "awkward" and found similarity with Jay-Z's rap verse in singer Beyoncé's song, "Drunk in Love". Mike Wass from Idolator commented that the remix felt unnecessary, following controversy in the media surrounding Ross' lyrics in the song "U.O.E.N.O." about date rape, and recapitulation of Kelly's child-sex abuse case.
### Remix featuring Christina Aguilera
An alternate studio version of "Do What U Want" featuring Christina Aguilera was released on January 1, 2014; it marked Gaga and Aguilera's first collaboration. The song was released in the United States, Canada and Mexico on January 1, 2014, and then released a day later worldwide. Days before, on December 24, 2013, Aguilera tweeted that she was "working on something special" and attached an image of her singing in a recording studio. The session took place in the living room of singer Carly Simon's home at Martha's Vineyard, with assistance from Oak Bluffs-based producer Jimmy Parr. The following week, it was announced that a revised studio version of "Do What U Want" would be released, where the original vocals by Kelly are substituted for a verse performed by Aguilera.
The final version was digitally released shortly after midnight on January 1, 2014. On February 11, 2014, Gaga uploaded four other remixes of the version with Aguilera, all commissioned by Interscope and mixed by Steven Redant. The Aguilera remix received generally favorable reviews from music critics; Melissa Locker from Time magazine felt that the re-recorded version of the track "will allow more sales of the track without the moral dilemma that comes with supporting Kelly", who had previously been charged and acquitted for child pornography in the 2000s, and also complimented Gaga as a "savvy marketer" for releasing "two versions of a hit song with two different megastars". Attitudes Jamie Tabberer considered the original version of "Do What U Want" to be Gaga's "most problematic", "worst-ever" single, but noted that it was "somewhat redeemed by the Christina-featured remix", which he thought was "elegant".
## Removal
Gaga initially defended her collaboration with Kelly, saying that they both have had "sometimes [...] very untrue things written about" them. However, on January 10, 2019, Gaga spoke out after the release of the Lifetime series, Surviving R. Kelly, which documented the sexual abuse allegations against Kelly. The singer confessed her regret about working with Kelly, explaining that her thinking was "explicitly twisted" and that she had "poor judgment" at that time. Gaga vowed to support women who had been through abuse and by the next day had the track removed from iTunes and all streaming services. Keith Caulfield from Billboard reported that even the remixes featuring Kelly were not playable on Spotify and other platforms, only the version featuring Aguilera was present. He theorized that since changes to digital music services take time, Gaga's management were working and removing the song from every medium gradually. Following Gaga's statement and just hours before the song's removal, sales of "Do What U Want" rose by 13,720% in the US to 2,000 music downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The song was removed from new vinyl and CD pressings of Artpop in November 2019.
## Track listing and formats
Digital download
1. "Do What U Want" feat. R. Kelly – 3:48
Digital download – remix single
1. "Do What U Want" feat. R. Kelly and Rick Ross (DJWS Remix) – 4:19
Digital download – remix single
1. "Do What U Want" feat. Christina Aguilera – 3:36
Digital remixes EP'''
1. "Do What U Want" feat. R. Kelly (DJ White Shadow Remix) – 4:03
2. "Do What U Want" feat. R. Kelly (Samantha Ronson Remix) – 4:27
3. "Do What U Want" feat. R. Kelly (Kronic Remix) – 5:12
4. "Do What U Want" feat. Christina Aguilera (Steven Redant Madrid Radio Remix) – 4:00
5. "Do What U Want" feat. Christina Aguilera (Steven Redant Madrid Club Remix) – 7:31
6. "Do What U Want" feat. Christina Aguilera (Steven Redant Barcelona Remix) – 6:28
7. "Do What U Want" feat. Christina Aguilera (Red Ant & Amp Lexvas Deep House Remix) – 6:50
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Artpop''.
### Management
- Recorded at Record Plant Studios, Hollywood, California and PatchWerk Recording Studios, West Midtown, Atlanta, Georgia
- R. Kelly appears courtesy of RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment
- Stefani Germanotta P/K/A Lady Gaga (BMI) Sony ATV Songs LLC / Haus of Gaga Publishing, LLC / GloJoe Music Inc. (BMI), Maxwell and Carter Publishing, LLC (ASCAP)
- Administered by Universal Music Publishing Group, Etrange Fruit (SACEM), Fuzion (SACEM), Administered by Get Familiar Music (ASCAP), R. Kelly Publishing Inc. / Universal Music – Z Music LLC (BMI)
### Personnel
- Lady Gaga – songwriter, lead vocals, producer, synth arrangement
- Paul "DJ White Shadow" Blair – songwriter, producer
- R. Kelly – songwriter, guest vocals
- Christina Aguilera – guest vocals
- Martin Bresso – songwriter
- William Grigahcine – songwriter
- Dave Russell – recording (Lady Gaga), mixing
- Bill Malina – recording (Lady Gaga), additional recording
- Abel Garibaldi – recording (R. Kelly)
- Ian Moonness – recording (R. Kelly)
- Ghazi Hourani – additional recording, mixing assistant
- Benjamin Rice – recording and mixing assistant
- Zane Shoemake – recording assistant
- Dino "SpeedoVee" Zisis – additional recording
- Tim Stewart – guitars
- Donnie Lyle – musical director for R. Kelly
- Ivy Skoff – union contract administrator
- Gene Grimaldi – mastering
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications and sales
## Release history
|
12,725,936 |
Margaret Gowing
| 1,149,046,611 |
English historian (1921–1998)
|
[
"1921 births",
"1998 deaths",
"20th-century English historians",
"Academics of the University of Kent",
"British women historians",
"Civil servants from London",
"Commanders of the Order of the British Empire",
"Deaths from Alzheimer's disease",
"Deaths from dementia in England",
"English archivists",
"English non-fiction writers",
"Fellows of Linacre College, Oxford",
"Fellows of the British Academy",
"Fellows of the Royal Society (Statute 12)",
"Female Fellows of the Royal Society",
"Female archivists",
"Historians of World War II",
"Historians of nuclear weapons",
"People associated with the nuclear weapons programme of the United Kingdom",
"People from Kensington"
] |
Margaret Mary Gowing (née Elliott), CBE, FBA, FRS (26 April 1921 – 7 November 1998) was an English historian. She was involved with the production of several volumes of the officially sponsored History of the Second World War, but was better known for her books, commissioned by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, covering the early history of Britain's nuclear weapons programmes: Britain and Atomic Energy 1939–1945, published in 1964, and the two-volume Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy 1945–52, published in 1974.
Through her work in the Cabinet Office from 1945 to 1959, she knew personally many of the people involved. As historian archivist at the UK Atomic Energy Authority from 1959 to 1966 she had access to the official papers and files of the British nuclear weapons programmes. She was the first occupant of a chair in the history of science at the University of Oxford, which she held from 1972 until her retirement in 1986. As co-founder with physicist Nicholas Kurti of the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre in Oxford, she helped ensure the preservation of contemporary scientific manuscripts.
## Early life
Margaret Elliott was born on 26 April 1921 in Kensington, London, the youngest of three children of Ronald Elliott, a motor engineer, and his wife, Mabel née Donaldson, a school teacher. She had an older sister, Audrey, and an older brother, Donald. The family was poor; her father suffered, and ultimately died, from tuberculosis and was frequently unemployed, while her mother was barred from working as a school teacher after she was married. The family therefore often had to live on a weekly sickness benefit. For entertainment, they took advantage of free entry to art galleries, museums and libraries. Elliot's direct experience of poverty led to her becoming an ardent socialist later in life. She attended Portobello Elementary School in North Kensington, and won a London County Council scholarship to Christ's Hospital in 1932. She excelled academically, was a prefect, and played hockey for her house.
Elliott completed her School Certificate in 1936, earning distinctions in Latin, English and French and a pass in German. She won a Leverhulme Entry Scholarship to the London School of Economics (LSE), which she entered in 1938. Her first-year studies advisor was the economist Vera Anstey, who considered that Elliott had "a decided bent for economic history", Elliot later attributed her interest in the subject to lectures by her second-year studies advisor, Eileen Power, who urged her to pursue an academic career. She won both the Gladstone Memorial Prize and the Lillian Knowles Scholarship for economic history in 1939. Later that year, with the outbreak of the Second World War, the LSE was evacuated to Oxford, where Elliott graduated in 1941 with a BSc degree in economics with first-class honours.
## Civil Service
Academic jobs in history were not easy to find in 1941, so Elliott joined the Civil Service, working in the Prices and Statistics Section of the Iron and Steel Control directorate in the Ministry of Supply. She subsequently moved to the Board of Trade, and the Directorate of Housing Fitments, where she rose to the rank of Assistant Principal, before moving to the Cabinet Office in 1945. There she became involved with the Official History of the Second World War, as assistant to Keith Hancock who was overall editor of the United Kingdom Civil Series of books within the Official History. As an official historian of the History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Civil Series, Gowing had access to unpublished official papers and files. She came to know personally many of the politicians and senior civil servants involved.
On 7 June 1944, Elliot married Donald James Graham Gowing at the Wimbledon Registry Office. He was a vocalist who had also attended Christ's Hospital before winning a choral scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, in 1939. He had joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1941, and was serving at Combined Operations Headquarters. They married shortly before he was shipped overseas. He was taught Japanese in the United States and went on serve in the Pacific as a translator. The marriage bar was suspended for the duration and Gowing was allowed to remain in the Civil Service. They had two children, both sons: Nicholas Keith (Nik), a journalist who was born in 1951 and named after Hancock, and James, born in 1954. Her husband, frustrated by his lack of professional success compared to hers, became an alcoholic, and died from a massive stroke in 1969.
In 1950, Sir Norman Brook attempted to have Gowing retained in the Cabinet Office as the permanent historian, but was stymied by the Treasury and the Civil Service Commission. In 1951, she was told that she had no chance of being appointed to the grade of Principal, which would have carried retirement benefits with it. She later said that her years at the Cabinet Office were the happiest of her life, but she began looking for another position. In 1955, she applied for a chair in economic history at Oxford, and for a position as a reader at LSE, but was unsuccessful. Sir Norman exploited various administrative loopholes to allow her to be retained at the Cabinet Office, and was prepared to make her the Cabinet Office Archivist, but he could not offer her a pension.
The Public Records Act 1958 required all government departments to set up archives and records management systems. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) was nominally exempt from the act, being a government corporation rather than a department, but voluntarily asked to be included under the Act. This created a position at the UKAEA for an historian and archivist. Gowing applied for and secured the job in 1959. This involved organising systems and criteria for the selection for preservation of scientific, engineering and administrative records, and writing the history of the British atomic project since it had begun in 1939, the UKAEA having inherited the files of predecessor organisations including the Tube Alloys Directorate.
By this time, the UKAEA employed some 40,000 people in offices, laboratories and factories scattered around Britain. Gowing knew little about atomic energy; she once remarked that when she was appointed, she "didn't know an atom from a molecule". This was rectified, and she won the respect of Sir Christopher Hinton and Sir James Chadwick, and became friends with Nicholas Kurti, Sir Rudolf Peierls and Niels Bohr. At one point she asked Chadwick what he intended to do with all the documents in wooden filing cabinets in his attic, and he just said "burn them". Such heart-stopping moments led her to help establish the Centre for Scientific Archives in 1972.
Gowing's first volume, Britain and Atomic Energy 1939–1945, was published in 1964, and achieved widespread acclaim. Stephen Toulmin declared that "No better example of contemporary narrative history of science has yet appeared". It prompted Mark Oliphant to seek the appointment of a historian to the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra, and the Cabinet Office to commission a new series of peacetime official histories in 1966.
## Academia
In 1966, Gowing became Reader in Contemporary History at the new University of Kent, Canterbury, covering scientific, technical, economic and social history. The UKAEA retained her as a consultant, paying her £1,000 per annum for three years. Her main task was to write a two-volume sequel to Britain and Atomic Energy 1939–1945 covering the period from 1945 to 1952. To help out, the UKAEA brought in Lorna Arnold from its Health and Safety Division in 1967 to become the Departmental Records Officer (DRO) and Gowing's Assistant Historian. Despite their being accredited as official historians, the Atomic Weapons Establishment would not let them take their notes away, so they had to do their writing on site, under the watchful eye of Aldermaston's DRO. To get there Gowing had to catch the train each day from Canterbury to London Waterloo station, and then the Tube to Paddington and the railway to Reading, where Arnold picked Gowing up in her car and drove to Harwell.
Gowing attempted to negotiate better conditions at the University of Kent that would allow more time to work on the books, but this was denied. She applied for a vacant chair in the History and Philosophy of Science at University College London in 1970, without success. Then, in February 1972, Sir Rudolf Peierls and Nicholas Kurti informed her that the University of Oxford had created a new chair in the history of science, the first of its kind in the university's long history. She did not expect to get the chair, but Peierls, Sir Frederick Dainton and Hugh Trevor-Roper were on the selection panel, and in the end offered the chair in the history of science to Gowing, a woman who did not have a degree in history or science.
Gowing was based at Linacre College. Her appointment, Roy MacLeod wrote, "struck a conspicuous blow for modern, as against medieval and early modern, science, and for a reading of history that favoured social, economic and political perspectives, as against the examination of scientific practice." She delivered her inaugural lecture, What's Science to History or History to Science?, on 27 May 1975. In this lecture, she examined the reasons why the history of science had grown apart from other forms of history, and endeavoured to reconcile them and bring them together again. In her subsequent Wilkins Lecture in 1976 she examined the history of British prejudice against science dating back to Victorian times.
The two-volume opus, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy 1945–52, finally appeared in 1974. The publication of her books brought accolades. Gowing was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1975, and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1981. She received honorary doctorates in literature from the University of Leeds in 1976, the University of Leicester in 1982, and Manchester in 1985, and in science from the University of Bath in 1987. When she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1988 under the provisions of Statute 12 of its Charter, which allowed for the election of non-scientists who had made distinguished contributions to science, she became only the third person to become a Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society, after Sir Karl Popper and Joseph Needham. Gowing never got around to writing a planned sequel to Independence and Deterrence that would take the story up 1958, when the nuclear Special Relationship between Britain and the United States resumed. Arnold would later write three books to fill in this gap.
In the 1980s, Gowing served as a trustee of the Science Museum, London, and the Imperial War Museum but, remembering her own childhood, she resigned from the latter in protest at the introduction of entry fees. She was also a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery from 1978 to 1992. She began suffering from what was most likely Alzheimer's disease, and retired from Oxford in 1986, two years before the official retirement age. Although she had worked in the Civil Service and Academia for 45 years, only 27 of them counted, so she was not eligible for a full pension; her son Nik supported her. She died at Kingston Hospital in Kingston upon Thames on 7 November 1998. An archive of her papers is held by the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, presented by her in 1991, with additions on her death.
|
47,307,562 |
Archbishopric of Moravia
| 1,053,835,903 |
Ecclesiastical province
|
[
"Former Roman Catholic dioceses in Europe",
"Great Moravia",
"Old Church Slavonic language"
] |
The Archbishopric of Moravia (Latin: Sancta Ecclesia Marabensis) was an ecclesiastical province, established by the Holy See to promote Christian missions among the Slavic peoples. Its first archbishop, the Byzantine Methodius, persuaded Pope John VIII to sanction the use of Old Church Slavonic in liturgy. Methodius had been consecrated archbishop of Pannonia by Pope Adrian II at the request of Koceľ, the Slavic ruler of Pannonia in East Francia in 870.
Methodius's appointment was sharply opposed by the Bavarian prelates, especially the Archbishop of Salzburg and the Bishop of Passau, because missionaries from their dioceses had already been active for decades in the territory designated to Methodius, including Pannonia and Moravia. Methodius was soon captured and imprisoned. He was only released in 873 on Pope John VIII's order. He settled in Moravia which emerged as a leading power in Central Europe during the next decade in the reign of Svatopluk. However, most clerics, who had come from East Francia, were hostile to the archbishop, who introduced Byzantine customs and promoted the use of vernacular in liturgy. They accused Methodius of heresy, but he convinced the pope of the orthodoxy of his views. The pope also strengthened Methodious's position, declaring that all clerics in Moravia, including the newly consecrated bishop of Nitra, were to be obedient to Methodius in 880.
Methodius died on 6 April 885. Wiching, Bishop of Nitra, who had always been hostile to the archbishop, expelled his disciples from Moravia. No new archbishop was appointed, and Wiching, who remained the only prelate with a see in Moravia, settled in East Francia in the early 890s. Church hierarchy was only restored in Moravia when the legates of Pope John IX consecrated an archbishop and three bishops around 899. However, the Magyars occupied Moravia in the first decade of the 10th century.
## Origins
The Avar Khaganate, the dominant power of Central Europe in the early Middle Ages, had a decisive impact on the neighboring Slavic rulers' way of life. The Avars' power collapsed after the Franks launched military campaigns against the western territories of the Khaganate in the 790s. At a synod that Charlemagne's son, Pepin, held in 796, the bishops made decisions on several aspects of missionary work in the newly conquered Pannonia. They ruled that the local Christians who had been baptised correctly (in the name of the Trinity) should not be rebaptised in contrast with those who had not received baptism properly.
Charlemagne divided the newly conquered territory along the river Drava between the Bishopric of Salzburg and the Patriarchate of Aquileia in 796 or 797, with Salzburg receiving the lands to the north of the river. The see of Salzburg became an archbishopric in 798, with five suffragan bishoprics, including the Diocese of Passau. Missionaries from Salzburg were especially active among the Slavs in Carantania; clerics dispatched by the bishops of Passau worked primarily in Moravia.
Adalram, who was archbishop of Salzburg between 821 and 836, consecrated a church for Pribina "on his estate at a place over the Danube called Nitrava", according to the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum (a report, written around 870, about the missionary activities of clerics from Salzburg). Historians date this event between 828 and 832, but Pribina was only baptised in the Carolingian Empire after Mojmir I of Moravia expelled him from his homeland around 833. Pribina settled in Pannonia where he received extensive domains in the late 830s. He cooperated closely with Liupramm, Archbishop of Salzburg, who consecrated churches for him in Mosaburg, Ptuj, Pécs and other settlements in Pannonia between 850 and 859.
The Notae de episcopis Pateviensibus records that Reginhar, Bishop of Passau, "baptised all Moravians" in 831. However, 21 years later, the prelates in East Francia still considered Moravian Christianity "coarse". The Life of Methodius mentions that "many Christian teachers", or missionaries, came to Moravia "from among the Italians, Greeks and Germans" who taught the local Christians "in various ways". The Life of Constantine the Philosopher emphasizes that the German missionaries "forbade neither the offering of sacrifices according to the ancient custom, nor shameful marriages".
Mojmir I's successor, Rastislav of Moravia, Rastislav's nephew, Svatopluk, and Pribina's son and successor, Koceľ, approached the Holy See to ask for "a teacher" in the early 860s, according to the letter Gloria in excelsis Deo, of dubious authenticity, which was recorded in the Life of Methodius and is attributed to Pope Adrian II. Even if the report of the Slavic princes' request is reliable, they did not receive an answer. Rastislav sent his envoys to the Byzantine Emperor, Michael III, asking him to send missionaries to educate the local priests in Moravia. Rastislav's actions show that he wanted to reduce the influence of the clergy from Salzburg and Passau in his realm.
Emperor Michael III dispatched two experienced diplomats and missionaries, Constantine and Methodius—the sons of a military officer from Thessaloniki—to Rastislav's court. The brothers and their retinue arrived in Moravia in 863 and 864. Constantine translated religious texts (first the Gospel of John) to Slavic, using an alphabet he had invented for this purpose. The use of the vernacular enabled the missionaries to accelerate the education of local priests. However, it contradicted trilingualism— the acceptance of Latin, Greek and Hebrew as sacred languages—which was the dominant view in Western Europe.
Three or four years after their arrival, Constantine and Methodius left Moravia to achieve the consecration of their pupils, because they did not know which bishop could ordain priests in Rastislav's realm. During the journey, they spent some time in Pannonia (within the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Salzburg) and taught the "Slavic letters" to the local ruler, Koceľ, and fifty new students. From Pannonia, they went to Venice where "bishops, priests and monks gathered against [Constantine] like ravens against a falcon", condemning the use of Slavic liturgy, but Constantine defended his case, especially referring to Paul the Apostle's First Epistle to the Corinthians. He stated that the uneducated Slavs could not understand the basic concepts of Christianity if it were presented in a foreign language to them.
After learning of the brothers' activities, Pope Nicholas I summoned them to Rome. He either wanted to prevent them from returning to the Byzantine Empire because of his conflict with Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, or had decided to take advantage of the brothers' missionary activities to hinder the expansion of the Salzburg see. By the time Constantine and Methodius arrived in Rome in early 867, Pope Nicholas had died, but his successor, Pope Adrian II, sanctioned the use of the books that Constantine had translated to Slavic. Maddalena Betti proposes that the Pope regarded Slavic as a medium of instruction, limiting its use to missionary activities. On the Pope's orders, some pupils of Constantine and Methodius were ordained priests or lectors.
Constantine died in Rome on 14 February 869, urging his brother on his deathbed not to abandon the mission among the Slavs. Koceľ sent his envoys to Rome, asking Pope Adrian II to send Methodius to Pannonia. In the letter Gloria in excelsis Deo, addressed to Rastislav, Svatopluk and Koceľ, the pope informed the three Slavic rulers that he made Methodius papal legate to continue the mission in their realms. The pope also sanctioned the use of Slavic liturgy. Methodius arrived in Pannonia in the summer or autumn of 869.
## History
### Methodius, bishop of Saint Andronicus's see
In response to Koceľ''s demand, Methodius returned to Rome where he was "consecrated to the bishopric of Pannonia, to the seat of Saint Andronicus, an Apostle of the seventy" in early 870. Most historians identify Saint Andronicus's seat with Sirmium (near modern Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia), but no primary sources associate Sirmium with the apostle. If Methodius's see was identical with Sirmium, his appointment shows that the pope wanted to strengthen his authority in the western regions of the Balkan Peninsula, because Sirmium had been the center of the church in the Diocese of Illyricum in the Roman Empire. In the early 870s, papal correspondence referred to Methodius as bishop or archbishop – "a bishop dispatched by the Apostolic See" or "archbishop of Pannonia, apostolic legate", without specifying his see. Methodius was made archbishop but no suffragan bishops were consecrated to serve under him. This was not unprecedented: Saint Boniface had been made "archbishop of Germania province" in a similar way in 732.
Methodius's promotion to bishopric in Rome was recorded in Slavic sources (including his Life and the Encomium to Cyril and Methodius), but it was not mentioned in Pope Adrian's documents. Historian Maddalena Betti says that the absence of Roman sources implies that negotiations over Methodius's appointment between the Holy See and Koceľ were conducted confidentially, because the pope did not want to come into conflict with Louis the German, King of East Francia, who was making attempts to assert his authority over the neighboring Slavic rulers. Although the pope granted Kocel''s request, no papal envoys accompanied Methodius back to Pannonia. Methodius's appointment jeopardized the interests of the Salzburg see, ignoring its jurisdiction in the domains of Koceľ. To defend Salzburg's position, clergymen from the archdiocese compiled the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum, which emphasized the role of missionaries from Salzburg in the conversion of Bavaria, Carantania and Pannonia around 870. The document refers to Methodius as "a certain Greek", without mentioning his appointment to bishopric.
> So, from the time when the people of eastern Pannonia, by order of [Charlemagne], began to be ruled by the bishops of Salzburg, seventy-five years have passed until the present time, during which no bishop, from whatever place, possessed ecclesiastic jurisdiction in that region except the bishop of Salzburg, and no priest from any other place has dared to celebrate his office there for more than three months before he presented his letter of commission to the bishop. This was practiced there until the new teaching of the philosopher Methodius arose.
Before 14 May 870, Svatopluk captured his uncle, Rastislav, and handed him over to the Franks. Rastislav was sentenced to prison in Regensburg and the Franks occupied his realm. The Life of Methodius describes a debate between Methodius with "all the bishops". The bishops accused him of working illicitly in their territory. Methodius refuted the allegation, stating that he had been authorized by the Pope to work in a territory that the bishops had illegally seized from the Holy See. The bishops "banished Methodius to Swabia" and imprisoned him.
Taking advantage of a rebellion, Svatopluk expelled the Frankish troops from Moravia in 871. Pope John VIII, who succeeded Adrian II on 14 December 872, soon started to search for Methodius. After learning of Methodius's trial, the Pope dispatched his legate, Paul, Bishop of Ancona, to East Francia, demanding Methodius's release in his letters addressed to Louis the German and three Bavarian prelates. The Pope condemned Adalwin, Archbishop of Salzburg for Methodius's expulsion, and Ermanrich, Bishop of Passau for his capture before the trial, suggesting that Methodius had been active in territories claimed by the two prelates. The Pope imposed an interdict on their dioceses, prohibiting the celebration of Mass as long as Method was held in captivity. Pope John also sent letters to Svatopluk, Kocel' and Mutimir of Serbia. In the letters, the pope mentions Methodius's bishopric as the "Diocese of Pannonia" and declared that the three Slavic rulers' realms were included in Method's diocese. According to Maddalena Betti, the designation "has little bearing on the actual geographical context of the Methodian diocese", the pope only wanted to emphasize the right of the Holy See against the Bavarian prelates in the territory.
Methodius was released in May 873. He went to Moravia, because Pope John VIII had asked Svatopluk to defend his interests. Around the same time, the Pope instructed Methodius to read the Epistle and the Gospel in Latin or Greek before repeating it in the vernacular but otherwise supported the use of Slavic in liturgy. Svatopluk and his subjects received Methodius and "entrusted to him all the churches and clergy in all the towns", according to the Life of Methodius. During the next years, as it was emphasized in the Life of Methodius, "the Moravians began to grow and multiply, and the pagans to believe in the true God ... [and] the Province of Moravia began to expand much more into all lands and to defeat its enemies successfully". The expansion of Svatopluk's realm contributed to the growth of Methodius's ecclesiastic province. For instance, Methodius's hagiography mentioned a "very powerful pagan prince" who "settled on the Vistula and began mocking the Christians and doing evil", but Svatopluk invaded his country and forced him to be baptised.
Most clerics in Svatopluk's realm, especially those who had come from Bavaria, remained hostile to Methodius. The Holy See was also informed of their disobedience of the archbishop. They accused Methodius of heresy because he did not use the filioque ("and from the Son") phrase when reciting the Nicene Creed. The Bavarian clerics persuaded Svatopluk to question Methodius's orthodoxy. On Svatopluk's request, Pope John VIII summoned Methodius to Rome to answer the charges.
### Archdiocese of Moravia
Methodius quickly convinced the pope of the orthodoxy of his views in early 880. In June 880, Pope John VIII informed Svatopluk of the validation of Methodius's orthodoxy in an apostolic letter, known as Industriae tuae. The pope also reaffirmed Methodius's position as archbishop and determined the territory of his archbishopric, associating it with Svatopluk's realm. John VIII explicitly declared that all "priests, deacons or clergy of whatever order, whether they be Slavs or any people whatsoever, who reside within the borders" of Svatopluk's realm should be "subject and obedient in all things" to Methodius. He also ordered that the Masses were to be officiated in Latin for Svatopluk if he requested it, but otherwise confirmed the limited use of Slavonic for liturgical purposes.
In the letter, the pope did not mention the Diocese of Pannonia, instead referred to Methodius as the archbishop of the sancta ecclesia Marabensis ("Holy Church of Maraba"). The change in terminology suggests that the Holy See set up a territorially defined archbishopric in Moravia (or "Maraba") on this occasion, according to a widely accepted scholarly theory. In contrast with this view, historian Imre Boba says that the terminology did not change, the new title only reflects the vernacular "Maraba" form of the name of Methodius's see, Sirmium. There is no direct evidence that Sirmium was ever named "Maraba".
Pope John VIII consecrated a Swabian monk, Wiching, bishop of Nitra, ordering that he be obedient to Methodius. In a letter, written about 20 years later, Dietmar I, Archbishop of Salzburg and his suffragans declared that Pope John had ordained Wiching bishop at Svatopluk's request, sending the new bishop "to a newly baptized people whom [Svatopluk] had defeated in war and converted from paganism to Christianity". Pope John VIII also urged Svatopluk to send "another useful priest or deacon" with Methodius's consent to Rome to be consecrated "as bishop to another church, in which [Svatopluk] discern that Episcopal care is needed". The latter text shows that the Holy See acknowledged Svatopluk's right to determine the ecclesiastic administration of his realm, granting him a special privilege, unprecedented in other Christian monarchies outside the Carolingian Empire.
The confirmation of Methodius's position by the pope did not put an end to his conflicts with the German clerics. Wiching even tried to forge documents to convince Svatopluk that the Pope had made him archbishop and forbidden the use of vernacular in liturgy. At Methodius's request, Pope John VIII issued a new apostolic letter to Moravia, reconfirming his previous decisions. Methodius visited Constantinople in 881. After his return in 882, he dedicated himself to the translation of the Bible. However, his conflict with Wiching continued, and Methodius excommunicated his disobedient suffragan. Methodius died on 6 April 885, however, but only after he had nominated his Moravian disciple Gorazd as his successor.
### Collapse
Wiching left for Rome shortly before or just after Methodius's death. He convinced Pope Stephen V that Methodius had disregarded Pope John VIII's orders, persuading the Pope to send a new epistle to Svatopluk. In his letter Quia te zelo, Stephen V prohibited the Slavonic liturgy, endorsed the inclusion of the filioque phrase in the Creed and expressed his disapproval of fasting on Saturdays, which was the customary practise in the Byzantine Church.
Soon after returning to Moravia, Wiching tried to persuade Gorazd, Clement, Angelar and Methodius's other leading disciples to accept the pope's orders. Since they refused to obey, Wiching captured and imprisoned them, and later (before the arrival of a papal legate) expelled them from Moravia with Svatopluk's approval. Naum and some other disciples were sold to Jewish slave-traders who bought them to Venice. However, Wiching was never made archbishop. After he came into conflict with Svatopluk and fled to East Francia between 891 and 893, the church in Moravia was left without a bishop.
Svatopluk died in 894 and his empire started to disintegrate, especially after the Magyars settled in the Carpathian Basin around 895. Svatopluk's son, Mojmir II of Moravia, approached Pope John IX in 898 or 899, asking him to restore church hierarchy in Moravia. The Pope agreed and sent his three legates to Moravia who consecrated an archbishop and three suffragan bishops. Neither the four prelates' names nor their sees were recorded. The Bavarian prelates—Archbishop Dietmar of Salzburg and his suffragans—protested against the papal legates' action.
## See also
- History of the Catholic Church
- List of medieval Slavic tribes
- List of the Roman Catholic dioceses of the Czech Republic
- Moravia
- Roman Catholicism in Europe
- Slavic peoples
- Timeline of the Catholic Church
|
35,019,480 |
Farm to Market Road 1938
| 1,120,677,201 |
State road in Texas
|
[
"Farm to Market Roads in Texas",
"North Richland Hills, Texas",
"Transportation in Tarrant County, Texas"
] |
Farm to Market Road 1938 (FM 1938) is a Farm to Market Road in the US state of Texas. The highway runs from State Highway 26 (SH 26) to FM 1709, in Tarrant County. While located in Westlake, FM 1938 is named Precinct Line Road. While located in Southlake, from the northern border of Southlake to its junction with FM 1709, FM 1938 is named Randol Mill Avenue, and from the FM 1709 intersection to its southern terminus, the highway is named Davis Boulevard. FM 1938 was designated in 1952, in Hockley County, but was cancelled and redesignated in 1955, at its modern location in Tarrant County. In 1995, the entire route of FM 1938 was redesignated as Urban Road 1938 (UR 1938) by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). FM 1938 passes through central North Richland Hills and Southlake, providing access to several businesses. As of 2012, FM 1938 is in the process of being extended from an intersection with FM 1709 to the north frontage road of SH 114.
## Route description
FM 1938 (Davis Boulevard) begins at its southern terminus with SH 26, directly besides the raised Interstate 820 (I-820) freeway. FM 1938 continues on for about 0.2 miles (0.32 km) before two exit ramps coming from I-820 merge with it, giving incomplete access to the freeway. The highway proceeds as a paved, asphalt, six-lane highway, with a center left-turn lane dividing it. The road continues through "downtown North Richland Hills", passing several small businesses and large residential neighborhoods. Along this stretch, FM 1938 is traveling due north. After an intersection with Smithfield Road, the highway turns in a northeastern direction and heads that way. It continues through North Richland Hills, intersecting with several large roads and passing a set of railroad tracks. The highway heads north for about 5.5 miles before intersecting with FM 3029 and entering the city of Keller. The highway proceeds through Keller, passing several small businesses and large neighborhoods. FM 1938 passes through Keller for about one mile (1.6 km) before passing over a small creek and entering the city of Southlake. Just after entering Southlake, the highway passes a large landscaping and stone supplies facility. FM 1938 continues through Southlake for approximately one mile (1.6 km), passing several small businesses, before reaching its northern terminus, as of 2012, FM 1709.
### Continuation
On August 23, 2007, TxDOT authorized an extension of FM 1938 from the intersection with FM 1709 to the northern frontage road of SH 114. This will include the designation of approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of Randol Mill Road, and the creation of approximately two miles (3.2 km) of road, which will be named Precinct Line Road. This is in order to connect the current length of Randol Mill Road to SH 114. With the extension, FM 1938 is estimated to total 11.1 miles (17.9 km) long.
## History
On January 18, 1952, FM 1938 was designated in Hockley County, traveling from an intersection with FM 1490 to an intersection with Hockley County Road 237 (now FM 303). On November 1, 1954, FM 1938 was cancelled and combined with FM 597 when it was extended. On August 24, 1955, FM 1938 was redesignated for a route in Tarrant County, traveling from FM 1709 to the SH 121 freeway, which was 7.514 miles (12.093 km) long. On June 27, 1995, the entire route was redesignated as Urban Road 1938, although, like other routes like this, the signage did not change. On August 23, 2007, an extension of FM 1938 was authorized from FM 1709 to SH 114, adding approximately 3.6 miles (5.8 km) to the road. The extension to SH 114 opened in August 2012 but construction on the Randol Mill Avenue section of the extension in addition to landscaping and sidewalk work on the whole extension is ongoing. On November 15, 2018, Urban Road 1938 was redesignated as FM 1938
## Major junctions
## See also
|
17,894,203 |
Brayden Schenn
| 1,163,287,435 |
Canadian ice hockey player
|
[
"1991 births",
"Adirondack Phantoms players",
"Brandon Wheat Kings players",
"Canadian expatriate ice hockey players in the United States",
"Canadian ice hockey left wingers",
"Ice hockey people from Saskatoon",
"Living people",
"Los Angeles Kings draft picks",
"Los Angeles Kings players",
"Manchester Monarchs (AHL) players",
"National Hockey League All-Stars",
"National Hockey League first-round draft picks",
"Philadelphia Flyers players",
"Saskatoon Blades players",
"St. Louis Blues players",
"Stanley Cup champions"
] |
Brayden Michael Schenn (/ˈʃɛn/ born August 22, 1991) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre and alternate captain for the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was selected by the Los Angeles Kings fifth overall in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft. He also played for the Philadelphia Flyers, 2016 - 2017, before being traded to St. Louis in 2017 for Jori Lehtera, and two first round picks.
Schenn has represented Canada internationally at several tournaments, and won two silver medals at the 2010 and 2011 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships. At the 2011 tournament, Schenn tied Canada's record for points in a single tournament, and was selected to the Tournament's All-Star Team as well as being named Top Forward, and Most Valuable Player. Schenn won the Stanley Cup as a member of the Blues in 2019.
## Playing career
### Minor
Schenn played minor hockey in his hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He played AAA midget hockey for the Saskatoon Contacts. During the 2006–07 season, his teammates included Jared Cowen and Carter Ashton. In the 2006 WHL Bantam Draft, Schenn was selected in the first round, ninth overall, by the Brandon Wheat Kings. His teammates Cowen and Ashton were selected first and eighth overall, respectively. In his last season of midget hockey, he scored 70 points in 41 games.
### Junior
Schenn started his major junior career with the Brandon Wheat Kings in 2007–08. He was Brandon's first pick in the 2006 WHL Bantam Draft. Schenn made his WHL debut on September 21, 2007, against the Saskatoon Blades, earning his first WHL point, an assist. Later in the season, on October 17, he notched his first WHL goal against the Red Deer Rebels. Schenn finished his first season as the Wheat Kings' leading scorer and as the top rookie scorer in the WHL tallying 28 goals and 43 assists for 71 points, earning him the Jim Piggott Memorial Trophy as WHL Rookie of the Year, and a spot on the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) All-Rookie Team. He was also the inaugural winner of the 2007–08 Boston Pizza WHL 'Fan's Choice' Award. He also picked up the Wheat Kings team awards for Rookie of the Year and Most Popular Player.
Schenn spent the 2008–09 season playing with the Wheat Kings and served as their co-captain alongside Matt Calvert. In January 2009, he was named the WHL and CHL Player of the Week, after scoring 7 points in two games. Also in January, Schenn was selected as the winner of the H. L. (Krug) Crawford Memorial Medal which is emblematic of athletic achievement in western Manitoba. He finished the season with 85 points in 69 games to lead the Wheat Kings in scoring a second consecutive season. He finished seventh overall in scoring for the WHL, and was named to the WHL's Eastern Conference Second All-Star Team. During the season, Schenn played in the CHL Top Prospects Game and represented the WHL in the ADT Canada-Russia Challenge.
Leading up to the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, Schenn had been listed as the third highest prospect among WHL players in the NHL Central Scouting Service (CSS)'s preliminary rankings, while International Scouting (ISS) ranked him at fifth overall and first in the WHL. Schenn's ranking remained the same at fifth overall with the NHL CSS's midway ranking. E. J. McGuire, the director of NHL's Central Scouting Bureau compared facets of Schenn's game to Jonathan Cheechoo and Joe Thornton. At the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, he managed to be drafted in exactly the same amateur selection position his brother Luke had two years earlier, as he was drafted fifth overall by the Los Angeles Kings.
At the start of the 2009–10 hockey season, Schenn attended training camp with the Kings, but was considered a long shot to make the team. Schenn was returned to Brandon after being one of the last cuts at camp. He served as Brandon's captain for the 2009–10 WHL season. During the season, Schenn again represented the WHL in the Canada-Russia Challenge series. He finished the regular season with 99 points (34 goals, 65 assists) in 59 games, which tied him for fourth overall in WHL scoring with teammate Matt Calvert. Schenn was named to the WHL Eastern Conference First All-Star Team.
On December 3, 2010, the Kings returned Schenn to the Brandon Wheat Kings. He played two games with the Wheat Kings during the 2010-11 season before joining Team Canada at the 2011 World Junior Championships. After the tournament was complete, Schenn was dealt to his hometown Saskatoon Blades for a package of draft picks and prospects. He played in 27 games with the Blades, scoring 21 goals and adding 32 assists. Despite playing less than half a season in the WHL, Schenn was named to the league's Eastern Conference Second All-Star Team at the end of the regular season.
### Professional
#### Los Angeles Kings
Schenn played his first NHL game on November 26, 2009, against the Vancouver Canucks after being called up on an emergency basis and signed to an amateur, one-game try-out contract. At the time of his debut, Schenn was the third youngest player of all-time to skate for the team. On March 3, 2010, he was signed to a three-year contract with the Kings. After training camp for the 2010–11 season, Schenn made the Kings roster but saw limited playing time. He appeared in nine games with the Kings, and spent time with the Manchester Monarchs of the American Hockey League (AHL) for conditioning purposes. On December 3, 2010, the Kings returned Schenn to the Brandon Wheat Kings. Following the Saskatoon Blades' exit from the 2011 WHL Playoffs, he was assigned by the Kings back to the Monarchs on April 17, 2011.
#### Philadelphia Flyers
Schenn was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers, along with Wayne Simmonds and a 2012 second round pick, for Mike Richards and Rob Bordson on June 23, 2011. After sustaining an apparent shoulder injury in the Flyers' 2011–12 training camp, Schenn was sent down to the Adirondack Phantoms of the AHL for conditioning and salary cap purposes. He recorded two assists in his Phantoms debut, a 6–3 win over the Connecticut Whale. In his second game with Adirondack, he registered three goals and an assist in a 6–3 win against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.
On October 20, 2011, Schenn made his Flyers debut in a 5–2 loss to the Washington Capitals, a game in which he struggled and registered a plus-minus rating of –3. He played three more games with the Flyers, but on October 26, he broke a bone in his foot blocking a slapshot in a 5–1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens. He missed just under a month of playing time. Upon returning from injury, he was reassigned to Adirondack for conditioning purposes. On January 2, 2012, Schenn scored his first NHL goal on a rebound during the second period against the New York Rangers, scoring against Henrik Lundqvist during the 2012 NHL Winter Classic. Schenn scored his first career hat trick on February 29, 2016, in a 5–3 win over the Calgary Flames. In response to Schenn's potent offensive style and scoring ability, the Philadelphia Flyers signed him to a four-year, \$20.5 million contract in July 2016, for an average annual salary of \$5,125,000 until the end of the 2019–20 season.
#### St. Louis Blues
On June 23, 2017, at the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, Schenn was traded by the Flyers to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for Jori Lehtera, a 2017 first-round pick (27th overall) and a conditional 2018 first-round pick. In his first season with the Blues, Schenn broke out and put up career highs in points, assists, and goals. He recorded his third career hat trick on December 5, 2017, in a 4–3 win over the Montreal Canadiens and lead the Three Stars of the Week. The following month, Schenn was named to the 2018 National Hockey League All-Star Game after recording 42 points in 32 games. He finished the season with a career-high 70 points in 82 games.
On June 12, 2019, the Blues won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, defeating the Boston Bruins in seven games. Schenn recorded five goals and 12 points in 26 postseason games.
On October 4, 2019, the Blues signed Schenn to an eight-year, \$52 million contract extension.
## International play
Schenn started his Hockey Canada career by representing Saskatchewan at the 2007 Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse, Yukon, where his team finished seventh. During the 2007–08 season, Schenn played for Canada West at the 2008 World U-17 Hockey Challenge, where he was the leading scorer. After his season with Brandon was over, Schenn played with Team Canada at the 2008 IIHF World U18 Championships in Kazan, Russia, as one of five 16-year-olds, capturing a gold medal. He tallied 1 goal and 2 assists in 7 games in the tournament. During the summer, he also competed in the 2008 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament, earning another gold medal in the Czech Republic. Schenn served as an alternate captain at the Hlinka Memorial Tournament, and recorded six points (two goals and four assists) in four games.
During the 2008–09 season, Schenn was invited to Team Canada's tryout camp for the 2009 World Junior Championships, but did not make the final squad. Schenn was invited to Hockey Canada's summer evaluation camp in August 2009, and also to the December selection camp for the 2010 World Junior Championships. He made the team and competed in the tournament that was hosted in his home province of Saskatchewan. Schenn won a silver medal with Canada, after they lost the gold medal game in overtime to the American team.
When the Kings returned Schenn to the WHL in December 2010, it allowed him to try out for Canada's team at the 2011 World Junior Hockey Championships. Schenn made the team after the December selection camp, and was selected as one of the alternate captains. In Canada's preliminary round game against the Czech Republic, Schenn was named player of the game. Against Norway, Schenn tied Canada's record for goals in a single game (held by Mario Lemieux and Simon Gagné) with four. He also added an assist to finish the game with five points. In Canada's gold medal loss to Russia, Schenn scored a goal and added an assist. He recorded 18 points in the tournament, tying Canada's all-time record for a single tournament, set by Dale McCourt in 1977. After the tournament, Schenn was the tournament's top scorer, and was named to the media All-Star team for the event. The IIHF Directorate named him Best Forward and Tournament MVP. Canada's coaching staff selected him as one of the team's top three players for the tournament. At the end of the tournament, it was revealed that Schenn had been playing with a separated shoulder he suffered during Canada's quarter-final victory against Switzerland.
## Personal life
Schenn was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to Jeff and Rita Schenn. His older brother, Luke, is a defenceman for the Nashville Predators. They have two younger sisters, Madison and Macy.
## Career statistics
### Regular season and playoffs
### International
## Awards
### Junior
### NHL
### International
### Other
|
2,547 |
Agent Orange
| 1,173,595,669 |
Herbicide used by the US in the Vietnam War
|
[
"Aftermath of the Vietnam War",
"Anti-communist terrorism",
"Articles containing video clips",
"Auxinic herbicides",
"Carcinogens",
"Chemical weapons",
"Defoliants",
"Dioxins",
"Environmental controversies",
"Environmental impact of war",
"Imperial Chemical Industries",
"Malayan Emergency",
"Medical controversies",
"Military equipment of the Vietnam War",
"Monsanto",
"Operation Ranch Hand",
"Teratogens"
] |
Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant, one of the tactical use Rainbow Herbicides.
It was used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. It is a mixture of equal parts of two herbicides, 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D. In addition to its damaging environmental effects, traces of dioxin (mainly TCDD, the most toxic of its type) found in the mixture have caused major health problems for many individuals who were exposed, and their offspring.
Agent Orange was produced in the United States from the late 1940s and was used in industrial agriculture, and was also sprayed along railroads and power lines to control undergrowth in forests. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military procured over 20 million gallons (75 million liters), consisting of a fifty-fifty mixture of 2,4-D and dioxin-contaminated 2,4,5-T. Nine chemical companies produced it: Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto Company, Diamond Shamrock Corporation, Hercules Inc., Thompson Hayward Chemical Co., United States Rubber Company (Uniroyal), Thompson Chemical Co., Hoffman-Taff Chemicals, Inc., and Agriselect.
The government of Vietnam says that up to four million people in Vietnam were exposed to the defoliant, and as many as three million people have suffered illness because of Agent Orange, while the Vietnamese Red Cross estimates that up to one million people were disabled or have health problems as a result of exposure to Agent Orange. The United States government has described these figures as unreliable, while documenting cases of leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and various kinds of cancer in exposed U.S. military veterans. An epidemiological study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that there was an increase in the rate of birth defects of the children of military personnel as a result of Agent Orange. Agent Orange has also caused enormous environmental damage in Vietnam. Over 3,100,000 hectares (31,000 km<sup>2</sup> or 11,969 mi<sup>2</sup>) of forest were defoliated. Defoliants eroded tree cover and seedling forest stock, making reforestation difficult in numerous areas. Animal species diversity is sharply reduced in contrast with unsprayed areas. The environmental destruction caused by this defoliation has been described by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, lawyers, historians and other academics as an ecocide.
The use of Agent Orange in Vietnam resulted in numerous legal actions. The United Nations ratified United Nations General Assembly Resolution 31/72 and the Environmental Modification Convention. Lawsuits filed on behalf of both U.S. and Vietnamese veterans sought compensation for damages.
Agent Orange was first used by the British Armed Forces in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency. It was also used by the U.S. military in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War because forests near the border with Vietnam were used by the Viet Cong.
## Chemical composition
The active ingredient of Agent Orange was an equal mixture of two phenoxy herbicides – 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T) – in iso-octyl ester form, which contained traces of the dioxin 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). TCDD was a trace (typically 2-3 ppm, ranging from 50 ppb to 50 ppm) - but significant - contaminant of Agent Orange.
### Toxicology
TCDD is the most toxic of the dioxins and is classified as a human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The fat-soluble nature of TCDD causes it to enter the body readily through physical contact or ingestion. Dioxins accumulate easily in the food chain. Dioxin enters the body by attaching to a protein called the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), a transcription factor. When TCDD binds to AhR, the protein moves to the nucleus, where it influences gene expression.
According to U.S. government reports, if not bound chemically to a biological surface such as soil, leaves or grass, Agent Orange dries quickly after spraying and breaks down within hours to days when exposed to sunlight and is no longer harmful.
## Development
Several herbicides were developed as part of efforts by the United States and the United Kingdom to create herbicidal weapons for use during World War II. These included 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, MCPA (2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid, 1414B and 1414A, recoded LN-8 and LN-32), and isopropyl phenylcarbamate (1313, recoded LN-33).
In 1943, the United States Department of the Army contracted botanist (and later bioethicist) Arthur Galston, who discovered the defoliants later used in Agent Orange, and his employer University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to study the effects of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T on cereal grains (including rice) and broadleaf crops. While a graduate and post-graduate student at the University of Illinois, Galston's research and dissertation focused on finding a chemical means to make soybeans flower and fruit earlier. He discovered both that 2,3,5-triiodobenzoic acid (TIBA) would speed up the flowering of soybeans and that in higher concentrations it would defoliate the soybeans. From these studies arose the concept of using aerial applications of herbicides to destroy enemy crops to disrupt their food supply. In early 1945, the U.S. Army ran tests of various 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T mixtures at the Bushnell Army Airfield in Florida. As a result, the U.S. began a full-scale production of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T and would have used it against Japan in 1946 during Operation Downfall if the war had continued.
In the years after the war, the U.S. tested 1,100 compounds, and field trials of the more promising ones were done at British stations in India and Australia, in order to establish their effects in tropical conditions, as well as at the U.S. testing ground in Florida. Between 1950 and 1952, trials were conducted in Tanganyika, at Kikore and Stunyansa, to test arboricides and defoliants under tropical conditions. The chemicals involved were 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, and endothall (3,6-endoxohexahydrophthalic acid). During 1952–53, the unit supervised the aerial spraying of 2,4,5-T in Kenya to assess the value of defoliants in the eradication of tsetse fly.
## Early use
In Malaya the local unit of Imperial Chemical Industries researched defoliants as weed killers for rubber plantations. Roadside ambushes by the Malayan National Liberation Army were a danger to the British military during the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) so trials were made to defoliate vegetation that might hide ambush sites, but hand removal was found cheaper. A detailed account of how the British experimented with the spraying of herbicides was written by two scientists, E.K. Woodford of Agricultural Research Council's Unit of Experimental Agronomy and H.G.H. Kearns of the University of Bristol.
After the Malayan Emergency ended in 1960, the U.S. considered the British precedent in deciding that the use of defoliants was a legal tactic of warfare. Secretary of State Dean Rusk advised President John F. Kennedy that the British had established a precedent for warfare with herbicides in Malaya.
## Use in the Vietnam War
In mid-1961, President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam asked the United States to help defoliate the lush jungle that was providing cover to his Communist enemies. In August of that year, the Republic of Vietnam Air Force conducted herbicide operations with American help. Diem's request launched a policy debate in the White House and the State and Defense Departments. Many U.S. officials supported herbicide operations, pointing out that the British had already used herbicides and defoliants in Malaya during the 1950s. In November 1961, Kennedy authorized the start of Operation Ranch Hand, the codename for the United States Air Force's herbicide program in Vietnam. The herbicide operations were formally directed by the government of South Vietnam.
During the Vietnam War, between 1962 and 1971, the United States military sprayed nearly 20,000,000 U.S. gallons (76,000 m<sup>3</sup>) of various chemicals – the "rainbow herbicides" and defoliants – in Vietnam, eastern Laos, and parts of Cambodia as part of Operation Ranch Hand, reaching its peak from 1967 to 1969. For comparison purposes, an olympic size pool holds approximately 660,000 U.S. gal (2,500 m<sup>3</sup>). As the British did in Malaya, the goal of the U.S. was to defoliate rural/forested land, depriving guerrillas of food and concealment and clearing sensitive areas such as around base perimeters and possible ambush sites along roads and canals. Samuel P. Huntington argued that the program was also a part of a policy of forced draft urbanization, which aimed to destroy the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside, forcing them to flee to the U.S.-dominated cities, depriving the guerrillas of their rural support base.
Agent Orange was usually sprayed from helicopters or from low-flying C-123 Provider aircraft, fitted with sprayers and "MC-1 Hourglass" pump systems and 1,000 U.S. gallons (3,800 L) chemical tanks. Spray runs were also conducted from trucks, boats, and backpack sprayers. Altogether, over 80 million litres of Agent Orange were applied.
The first batch of herbicides was unloaded at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam, on January 9, 1962. U.S. Air Force records show at least 6,542 spraying missions took place over the course of Operation Ranch Hand. By 1971, 12 percent of the total area of South Vietnam had been sprayed with defoliating chemicals, at an average concentration of 13 times the recommended U.S. Department of Agriculture application rate for domestic use. In South Vietnam alone, an estimated 39,000 square miles (10,000,000 ha) of agricultural land was ultimately destroyed. In some areas, TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered safe by the EPA.
The campaign destroyed 20,000 square kilometres (5×10^<sup>6</sup> acres) of upland and mangrove forests and thousands of square kilometres of crops. Overall, more than 20% of South Vietnam's forests were sprayed at least once over the nine-year period. 3.2% of South Vietnam's cultivated land was sprayed at least once between 1965 and 1971. 90% of herbicide use was directed at defoliation.
The U.S. military began targeting food crops in October 1962, primarily using Agent Blue; the American public was not made aware of the crop destruction programs until 1965 (and it was then believed that crop spraying had begun that spring). In 1965, 42% of all herbicide spraying was dedicated to food crops. In 1965, members of the U.S. Congress were told, "crop destruction is understood to be the more important purpose ... but the emphasis is usually given to the jungle defoliation in public mention of the program." The first official acknowledgment of the programs came from the State Department in March 1966.
When crops were destroyed, the Viet Cong would compensate for the loss of food by confiscating more food from local villages. Some military personnel reported being told they were destroying crops used to feed guerrillas, only to later discover, most of the destroyed food was actually produced to support the local civilian population. For example, according to Wil Verwey, 85% of the crop lands in Quang Ngai province were scheduled to be destroyed in 1970 alone. He estimated this would have caused famine and left hundreds of thousands of people without food or malnourished in the province. According to a report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the herbicide campaign had disrupted the food supply of more than 600,000 people by 1970.
Many experts at the time, including Arthur Galston, opposed herbicidal warfare because of concerns about the side effects to humans and the environment by indiscriminately spraying the chemical over a wide area. As early as 1966, resolutions were introduced to the United Nations charging that the U.S. was violating the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which regulated the use of chemical and biological weapons. The U.S. defeated most of the resolutions, arguing that Agent Orange was not a chemical or a biological weapon as it was considered a herbicide and a defoliant and it was used in effort to destroy plant crops and to deprive the enemy of concealment and not meant to target human beings. The U.S. delegation argued that a weapon, by definition, is any device used to injure, defeat, or destroy living beings, structures, or systems, and Agent Orange did not qualify under that definition. It also argued that if the U.S. were to be charged for using Agent Orange, then the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth nations should be charged since they also used it widely during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s. In 1969, the United Kingdom commented on the draft Resolution 2603 (XXIV): "The evidence seems to us to be notably inadequate for the assertion that the use in war of chemical substances specifically toxic to plants is prohibited by international law." The environmental destruction caused by this defoliation has been described by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, lawyers, historians and other academics as an ecocide.
A study carried out by the Bionetic Research Laboratories between 1965 and 1968 found malformations in test animals caused by 2,4,5-T, a component of Agent Orange. The study was later brought to the attention of the White House in October 1969. Other studies reported similar results and the Department of Defense began to reduce the herbicide operation. On April 15, 1970, it was announced that the use of Agent Orange was suspended. Two brigades of the Americal Division in the summer of 1970 continued to use Agent Orange for crop destruction in violation of the suspension. An investigation led to disciplinary action against the brigade and division commanders because they had falsified reports to hide its use. Defoliation and crop destruction were completely stopped by June 30, 1971.
## Health effects
There are various types of cancer associated with Agent Orange, including chronic B-cell leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, prostate cancer, respiratory cancer, lung cancer, and soft tissue sarcomas.
### Vietnamese people
The government of Vietnam states that 4 million of its citizens were exposed to Agent Orange, and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses because of it; these figures include their children who were exposed. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange contamination. The United States government has challenged these figures as being unreliable.
According to a study by Dr. Nguyen Viet Nhan, children in the areas where Agent Orange was used have been affected and have multiple health problems, including cleft palate, mental disabilities, hernias, and extra fingers and toes. In the 1970s, high levels of dioxin were found in the breast milk of South Vietnamese women, and in the blood of U.S. military personnel who had served in Vietnam. The most affected zones are the mountainous area along Truong Son (Long Mountains) and the border between Vietnam and Cambodia. The affected residents are living in substandard conditions with many genetic diseases.
In 2006, Anh Duc Ngo and colleagues of the University of Texas Health Science Center published a meta-analysis that exposed a large amount of heterogeneity (different findings) between studies, a finding consistent with a lack of consensus on the issue. Despite this, statistical analysis of the studies they examined resulted in data that the increase in birth defects/relative risk (RR) from exposure to agent orange/dioxin "appears" to be on the order of 3 in Vietnamese-funded studies, but 1.29 in the rest of the world. There is data near the threshold of statistical significance suggesting Agent Orange contributes to still-births, cleft palate, and neural tube defects, with spina bifida being the most statistically significant defect. The large discrepancy in RR between Vietnamese studies and those in the rest of the world has been ascribed to bias in the Vietnamese studies.
Twenty-eight of the former U.S. military bases in Vietnam where the herbicides were stored and loaded onto airplanes may still have high levels of dioxins in the soil, posing a health threat to the surrounding communities. Extensive testing for dioxin contamination has been conducted at the former U.S. airbases in Da Nang, Phù Cát District and Biên Hòa. Some of the soil and sediment on the bases have extremely high levels of dioxin requiring remediation. The Da Nang Air Base has dioxin contamination up to 350 times higher than international recommendations for action. The contaminated soil and sediment continue to affect the citizens of Vietnam, poisoning their food chain and causing illnesses, serious skin diseases and a variety of cancers in the lungs, larynx, and prostate.
### U.S. veterans
While in Vietnam, US-allied soldiers were told not to worry about agent orange and were persuaded the chemical was harmless. After returning home, Vietnam veterans began to suspect their ill health or the instances of their wives having miscarriages or children born with birth defects might be related to Agent Orange and the other toxic herbicides to which they had been exposed in Vietnam. Veterans began to file claims in 1977 to the Department of Veterans Affairs for disability payments for health care for conditions they believed were associated with exposure to Agent Orange, or more specifically, dioxin, but their claims were denied unless they could prove the condition began when they were in the service or within one year of their discharge. In order to qualify for compensation, veterans must have served on or near the perimeters of military bases in Thailand during the Vietnam Era, where herbicides were tested and stored outside of Vietnam, veterans who were crew members on C-123 planes flown after the Vietnam War, or were associated with Department of Defense (DoD) projects to test, dispose of, or store herbicides in the U.S.
By April 1993, the Department of Veterans Affairs had compensated only 486 victims, although it had received disability claims from 39,419 soldiers who had been exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.
In a November 2004 Zogby International poll of 987 people, 79% of respondents thought the U.S. chemical companies which produced Agent Orange defoliant should compensate U.S. soldiers who were affected by the toxic chemical used during the war in Vietnam and 51% said they supported compensation for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims.
#### National Academy of Medicine
Starting in the early 1990s, the federal government directed the Institute of Medicine (IOM), now known as the National Academy of Medicine, to issue reports every 2 years on the health effects of Agent Orange and similar herbicides. First published in 1994 and titled Veterans and Agent Orange, the IOM reports assess the risk of both cancer and non-cancer health effects. Each health effect is categorized by evidence of association based on available research data. The last update was published in 2016, entitled "Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2014."
The report shows sufficient evidence of an association with soft tissue sarcoma; non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL); Hodgkin disease; Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL); including hairy cell leukemia and other chronic B-cell leukemias. Limited or suggested evidence of an association was linked with respiratory cancers (lung, bronchus, trachea, larynx); prostate cancer; multiple myeloma; and bladder cancer. Numerous other cancers were determined to have inadequate or insufficient evidence of links to Agent Orange.
The National Academy of Medicine has repeatedly concluded that any evidence suggestive of an association between Agent Orange and prostate cancer is, "limited because chance, bias, and confounding could not be ruled out with confidence."
At the request of the Veterans Administration, the Institute Of Medicine evaluated whether service in these C-123 aircraft could have plausibly exposed soldiers and been detrimental to their health. Their report "Post-Vietnam Dioxin Exposure in Agent Orange-Contaminated C-123 Aircraft" confirmed it.
#### U.S. Public Health Service
Publications by the United States Public Health Service have shown that Vietnam veterans, overall, have increased rates of cancer, and nerve, digestive, skin, and respiratory disorders. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that in particular, there are higher rates of acute/chronic leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, throat cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, Ischemic heart disease, soft tissue sarcoma, and liver cancer. With the exception of liver cancer, these are the same conditions the U.S. Veterans Administration has determined may be associated with exposure to Agent Orange/dioxin and are on the list of conditions eligible for compensation and treatment.
Military personnel who were involved in storage, mixture and transportation (including aircraft mechanics), and actual use of the chemicals were probably among those who received the heaviest exposures. Military members who served on Okinawa also claim to have been exposed to the chemical, but there is no verifiable evidence to corroborate these claims.
Some studies have suggested that veterans exposed to Agent Orange may be more at risk of developing prostate cancer and potentially more than twice as likely to develop higher-grade, more lethal prostate cancers. However, a critical analysis of these studies and 35 others consistently found that there was no significant increase in prostate cancer incidence or mortality in those exposed to Agent Orange or 2,3,7,8-tetracholorodibenzo-p-dioxin.
#### U.S. Veterans of Laos and Cambodia
During the Vietnam War, the United States fought the North Vietnamese, and their allies, in Laos and Cambodia, including heavy bombing campaigns. They also sprayed large quantities of Agent Orange in each of those countries. According to one estimate, the U.S. dropped 475,500 gallons (1.8 million liters) of Agent Orange in Laos and 40,900 gallons (155,000 L) in Cambodia. Because Laos and Cambodia were both officially neutral during the Vietnam War, the U.S. attempted to keep secret its military operations in those countries, from the American population and has largely avoided compensating American veterans and CIA personnel stationed in Cambodia and Laos who suffered permanent injuries as a result of exposure to Agent Orange there.
One noteworthy exception, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, is a claim filed with the CIA by an employee of "a self-insured contractor to the CIA that was no longer in business." The CIA advised the Department of Labor that it "had no objections" to paying the claim and Labor accepted the claim for payment:
> Civilian Exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam: GAO-05-371 April 2005.Figure 3: Overview of the Workers' Compensation Claims Process for Contract Employees: " ... Of the 20 claims filed by contract employees [of the united States government], 9 were initially denied by the insurance carriers and 1 was approved for payment. ... The claim that was approved by Labor for payment involved a self-insured contractor to the CIA that was no longer in business. Absent an employer or insurance carrier, the CIA--acting in the role of the employer and the insurance carrier--stated that it "had no objections" to paying the claim. Labor reviewed the claim and accepted it for payment."
## Ecological impact
About 17.8%—3,100,000 hectares (31,000 km<sup>2</sup>; 12,000 sq mi)—of the total forested area of Vietnam was sprayed during the war, which disrupted the ecological equilibrium. The persistent nature of dioxins, erosion caused by loss of tree cover, and loss of seedling forest stock meant that reforestation was difficult (or impossible) in many areas. Many defoliated forest areas were quickly invaded by aggressive pioneer species (such as bamboo and cogon grass), making forest regeneration difficult and unlikely. Animal species diversity was also impacted; in one study a Harvard biologist found 24 species of birds and 5 species of mammals in a sprayed forest, while in two adjacent sections of unsprayed forest there were, respectively, 145 and 170 species of birds and 30 and 55 species of mammals.
Dioxins from Agent Orange have persisted in the Vietnamese environment since the war, settling in the soil and sediment and entering the food chain through animals and fish which feed in the contaminated areas. The movement of dioxins through the food web has resulted in bioconcentration and biomagnification. The areas most heavily contaminated with dioxins are former U.S. air bases.
## Sociopolitical impact
American policy during the Vietnam War was to destroy crops, accepting the sociopolitical impact that that would have. The RAND Corporation's Memorandum 5446-ISA/ARPA states: "the fact that the VC [the Vietcong] obtain most of their food from the neutral rural population dictates the destruction of civilian crops ... if they are to be hampered by the crop destruction program, it will be necessary to destroy large portions of the rural economy – probably 50% or more". Crops were deliberately sprayed with Agent Orange and areas were bulldozed clear of vegetation forcing many rural civilians to cities.
## Legal and diplomatic proceedings
### International
The extensive environmental damage that resulted from usage of the herbicide prompted the United Nations to pass Resolution 31/72 and ratify the Environmental Modification Convention. Many states do not regard this as a complete ban on the use of herbicides and defoliants in warfare, but it does require case-by-case consideration. Article 2(4) of Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons contains the "Jungle Exception", which prohibits states from attacking forests or jungles "except if such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or military objectives or are military objectives themselves". This exception voids any protection of any military and civilian personnel from a napalm attack or something like Agent Orange, and it has been argued that it was clearly designed to cover situations like U.S. tactics in Vietnam.
### Class action lawsuit
Since at least 1978, several lawsuits have been filed against the companies which produced Agent Orange, among them Dow Chemical, Monsanto, and Diamond Shamrock. Attorney Hy Mayerson was an early pioneer in Agent Orange litigation, working with environmental attorney Victor Yannacone in 1980 on the first class-action suits against wartime manufacturers of Agent Orange. In meeting Dr. Ronald A. Codario, one of the first civilian doctors to see affected patients, Mayerson, so impressed by the fact a physician would show so much interest in a Vietnam veteran, forwarded more than a thousand pages of information on Agent Orange and the effects of dioxin on animals and humans to Codario's office the day after he was first contacted by the doctor. The corporate defendants sought to escape culpability by blaming everything on the U.S. government.
In 1980, Mayerson, with Sgt. Charles E. Hartz as their principal client, filed the first U.S. Agent Orange class-action lawsuit in Pennsylvania, for the injuries military personnel in Vietnam suffered through exposure to toxic dioxins in the defoliant. Attorney Mayerson co-wrote the brief that certified the Agent Orange Product Liability action as a class action, the largest ever filed as of its filing. Hartz's deposition was one of the first ever taken in America, and the first for an Agent Orange trial, for the purpose of preserving testimony at trial, as it was understood that Hartz would not live to see the trial because of a brain tumor that began to develop while he was a member of Tiger Force, special forces, and LRRPs in Vietnam. The firm also located and supplied critical research to the veterans' lead expert, Dr. Codario, including about 100 articles from toxicology journals dating back more than a decade, as well as data about where herbicides had been sprayed, what the effects of dioxin had been on animals and humans, and every accident in factories where herbicides were produced or dioxin was a contaminant of some chemical reaction.
The chemical companies involved denied that there was a link between Agent Orange and the veterans' medical problems. However, on May 7, 1984, seven chemical companies settled the class-action suit out of court just hours before jury selection was to begin. The companies agreed to pay \$180 million as compensation if the veterans dropped all claims against them. Slightly over 45% of the sum was ordered to be paid by Monsanto alone. Many veterans who were victims of Agent Orange exposure were outraged the case had been settled instead of going to court and felt they had been betrayed by the lawyers. "Fairness Hearings" were held in five major American cities, where veterans and their families discussed their reactions to the settlement and condemned the actions of the lawyers and courts, demanding the case be heard before a jury of their peers. Federal Judge Jack B. Weinstein refused the appeals, claiming the settlement was "fair and just". By 1989, the veterans' fears were confirmed when it was decided how the money from the settlement would be paid out. A totally disabled Vietnam veteran would receive a maximum of \$12,000 spread out over the course of 10 years. Furthermore, by accepting the settlement payments, disabled veterans would become ineligible for many state benefits that provided far more monetary support than the settlement, such as food stamps, public assistance, and government pensions. A widow of a Vietnam veteran who died of Agent Orange exposure would receive \$3,700.
In 2004, Monsanto spokesman Jill Montgomery said Monsanto should not be liable at all for injuries or deaths caused by Agent Orange, saying: "We are sympathetic with people who believe they have been injured and understand their concern to find the cause, but reliable scientific evidence indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of serious long-term health effects."
### New Jersey Agent Orange Commission
In 1980, New Jersey created the New Jersey Agent Orange Commission, the first state commission created to study its effects. The commission's research project in association with Rutgers University was called "The Pointman Project". It was disbanded by Governor Christine Todd Whitman in 1996. During the first phase of the project, commission researchers devised ways to determine trace dioxin levels in blood. Prior to this, such levels could only be found in the adipose (fat) tissue. The project studied dioxin (TCDD) levels in blood as well as in adipose tissue in a small group of Vietnam veterans who had been exposed to Agent Orange and compared them to those of a matched control group; the levels were found to be higher in the exposed group. The second phase of the project continued to examine and compare dioxin levels in various groups of Vietnam veterans, including Army, Marines and brown water riverboat Navy personnel.
### U.S. Congress
In 1991, Congress enacted the Agent Orange Act, giving the Department of Veterans Affairs the authority to declare certain conditions "presumptive" to exposure to Agent Orange/dioxin, making these veterans who served in Vietnam eligible to receive treatment and compensation for these conditions. The same law required the National Academy of Sciences to periodically review the science on dioxin and herbicides used in Vietnam to inform the Secretary of Veterans Affairs about the strength of the scientific evidence showing association between exposure to Agent Orange/dioxin and certain conditions. The authority for the National Academy of Sciences reviews and addition of any new diseases to the presumptive list by the VA expired in 2015 under the sunset clause of the Agent Orange Act of 1991. Through this process, the list of 'presumptive' conditions has grown since 1991, and currently the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, type II diabetes mellitus, Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange as conditions associated with exposure to the herbicide. This list now includes B cell leukemias, such as hairy cell leukemia, Parkinson's disease and ischemic heart disease, these last three having been added on August 31, 2010. Several highly placed individuals in government are voicing concerns about whether some of the diseases on the list should, in fact, actually have been included.
In 2011, an appraisal of the 20-year long Air Force Health Study that began in 1982 indicates that the results of the AFHS as they pertain to Agent Orange, do not provide evidence of disease in the Operation Ranch Hand veterans caused by "their elevated levels of exposure to Agent Orange".
The VA initially denied the applications of post-Vietnam C-123 aircrew veterans because as veterans without "boots on the ground" service in Vietnam, they were not covered under VA's interpretation of "exposed". In June 2015, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs issued an Interim final rule providing presumptive service connection for post-Vietnam C-123 aircrews, maintenance staff and aeromedical evacuation crews. The VA now provides medical care and disability compensation for the recognized list of Agent Orange illnesses.
### U.S.–Vietnamese government negotiations
In 2002, Vietnam and the U.S. held a joint conference on Human Health and Environmental Impacts of Agent Orange. Following the conference, the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) began scientific exchanges between the U.S. and Vietnam, and began discussions for a joint research project on the human health impacts of Agent Orange. These negotiations broke down in 2005, when neither side could agree on the research protocol and the research project was canceled. More progress has been made on the environmental front. In 2005, the first U.S.-Vietnam workshop on remediation of dioxin was held.
Starting in 2005, the EPA began to work with the Vietnamese government to measure the level of dioxin at the Da Nang Air Base. Also in 2005, the Joint Advisory Committee on Agent Orange, made up of representatives of Vietnamese and U.S. government agencies, was established. The committee has been meeting yearly to explore areas of scientific cooperation, technical assistance and environmental remediation of dioxin.
A breakthrough in the diplomatic stalemate on this issue occurred as a result of United States President George W. Bush's state visit to Vietnam in November 2006. In the joint statement, President Bush and President Triet agreed "further joint efforts to address the environmental contamination near former dioxin storage sites would make a valuable contribution to the continued development of their bilateral relationship." On May 25, 2007, President Bush signed the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007 into law for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that included an earmark of \$3 million specifically for funding for programs for the remediation of dioxin 'hotspots' on former U.S. military bases, and for public health programs for the surrounding communities; some authors consider this to be completely inadequate, pointing out that the Da Nang Airbase alone will cost \$14 million to clean up, and that three others are estimated to require \$60 million for cleanup. The appropriation was renewed in the fiscal year 2009 and again in FY 2010. An additional \$12 million was appropriated in the fiscal year 2010 in the Supplemental Appropriations Act and a total of \$18.5 million appropriated for fiscal year 2011.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated during a visit to Hanoi in October 2010 that the U.S. government would begin work on the clean-up of dioxin contamination at the Da Nang Airbase. In June 2011, a ceremony was held at Da Nang airport to mark the start of U.S.-funded decontamination of dioxin hotspots in Vietnam. Thirty-two million dollars has so far been allocated by the U.S. Congress to fund the program. A \$43 million project began in the summer of 2012, as Vietnam and the U.S. forge closer ties to boost trade and counter China's rising influence in the disputed South China Sea.
### Vietnamese victims class action lawsuit in U.S. courts
On January 31, 2004, a victim's rights group, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/dioxin (VAVA), filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, against several U.S. companies for liability in causing personal injury, by developing, and producing the chemical, and claimed that the use of Agent Orange violated the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, 1925 Geneva Protocol, and the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Dow Chemical and Monsanto were the two largest producers of Agent Orange for the U.S. military and were named in the suit, along with the dozens of other companies (Diamond Shamrock, Uniroyal, Thompson Chemicals, Hercules, etc.). On March 10, 2005, Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District – who had presided over the 1984 U.S. veterans class-action lawsuit – dismissed the lawsuit, ruling there was no legal basis for the plaintiffs' claims. He concluded Agent Orange was not considered a poison under international law at the time of its use by the U.S.; the U.S. was not prohibited from using it as a herbicide; and the companies which produced the substance were not liable for the method of its use by the government. In the dismissal statement issued by Weinstein, he wrote "The prohibition extended only to gases deployed for their asphyxiating or toxic effects on man, not to herbicides designed to affect plants that may have unintended harmful side-effects on people."
> The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency's (ARPA) Project AGILE was instrumental in the United States' development of herbicides as a military weapon, an undertaking inspired by the British use of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T to destroy jungle-grown crops and bushes during the insurgency in Malaya. The United States considered British precedent in deciding that the use of defoliants was a legally accepted tactic of war. On November 24, 1961, Secretary of State Dean Rusk advised President John F. Kennedy that herbicide use in Vietnam would be lawful, saying that "[t]he use of defoliant does not violate any rule of international law concerning the conduct of chemical warfare and is an accepted tactic of war. Precedent has been established by the British during the emergency in Malaya in their use of helicopters for destroying crops by chemical spraying."
Author and activist George Jackson had written previously that "if the Americans were guilty of war crimes for using Agent Orange in Vietnam, then the British would be also guilty of war crimes as well since they were the first nation to deploy the use of herbicides and defoliants in warfare and used them on a large scale throughout the Malayan Emergency. Not only was there no outcry by other states in response to the United Kingdom's use, but the U.S. viewed it as establishing a precedent for the use of herbicides and defoliants in jungle warfare." The U.S. government was also not a party in the lawsuit because of sovereign immunity, and the court ruled the chemical companies, as contractors of the U.S. government, shared the same immunity. The case was appealed and heard by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on June 18, 2007. Three judges on the court upheld Weinstein's ruling to dismiss the case. They ruled that, though the herbicides contained a dioxin (a known poison), they were not intended to be used as a poison on humans. Therefore, they were not considered a chemical weapon and thus not a violation of international law. A further review of the case by the entire panel of judges of the Court of Appeals also confirmed this decision. The lawyers for the Vietnamese filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. On March 2, 2009, the Supreme Court denied certiorari and declined to reconsider the ruling of the Court of Appeals.
### Help for those affected in Vietnam
To assist those who have been affected by Agent Orange/dioxin, the Vietnamese have established "peace villages", which each host between 50 and 100 victims, giving them medical and psychological help. As of 2006, there were 11 such villages, thus granting some social protection to fewer than a thousand victims. U.S. veterans of the war in Vietnam and individuals who are aware and sympathetic to the impacts of Agent Orange have supported these programs in Vietnam. An international group of veterans from the U.S. and its allies during the Vietnam War working with their former enemy—veterans from the Vietnam Veterans Association—established the Vietnam Friendship Village outside of Hanoi.
The center provides medical care, rehabilitation and vocational training for children and veterans from Vietnam who have been affected by Agent Orange. In 1998, The Vietnam Red Cross established the Vietnam Agent Orange Victims Fund to provide direct assistance to families throughout Vietnam that have been affected. In 2003, the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) was formed. In addition to filing the lawsuit against the chemical companies, VAVA provides medical care, rehabilitation services and financial assistance to those injured by Agent Orange.
The Vietnamese government provides small monthly stipends to more than 200,000 Vietnamese believed affected by the herbicides; this totaled \$40.8 million in 2008. The Vietnam Red Cross has raised more than \$22 million to assist the ill or disabled, and several U.S. foundations, United Nations agencies, European governments and nongovernmental organizations have given a total of about \$23 million for site cleanup, reforestation, health care and other services to those in need.
Vuong Mo of the Vietnam News Agency described one of the centers:
> May is 13, but she knows nothing, is unable to talk fluently, nor walk with ease due to for her bandy legs. Her father is dead and she has four elder brothers, all mentally retarded ... The students are all disabled, retarded and of different ages. Teaching them is a hard job. They are of the 3rd grade but many of them find it hard to do the reading. Only a few of them can. Their pronunciation is distorted due to their twisted lips and their memory is quite short. They easily forget what they've learned ... In the Village, it is quite hard to tell the kids' exact ages. Some in their twenties have a physical statures as small as the 7- or 8-years-old. They find it difficult to feed themselves, much less have mental ability or physical capacity for work. No one can hold back the tears when seeing the heads turning round unconsciously, the bandy arms managing to push the spoon of food into the mouths with awful difficulty ... Yet they still keep smiling, singing in their great innocence, at the presence of some visitors, craving for something beautiful.
On June 16, 2010, members of the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin unveiled a comprehensive 10-year Declaration and Plan of Action to address the toxic legacy of Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam. The Plan of Action was released as an Aspen Institute publication and calls upon the U.S. and Vietnamese governments to join with other governments, foundations, businesses, and nonprofits in a partnership to clean up dioxin "hot spots" in Vietnam and to expand humanitarian services for people with disabilities there. On September 16, 2010, Senator Patrick Leahy acknowledged the work of the Dialogue Group by releasing a statement on the floor of the United States Senate. The statement urges the U.S. government to take the Plan of Action's recommendations into account in developing a multi-year plan of activities to address the Agent Orange/dioxin legacy.
## Use outside of Vietnam
### Australia
In 2008, Australian researcher Jean Williams claimed that cancer rates in Innisfail, Queensland, were 10 times higher than the state average because of secret testing of Agent Orange by the Australian military scientists during the Vietnam War. Williams, who had won the Order of Australia medal for her research on the effects of chemicals on U.S. war veterans, based her allegations on Australian government reports found in the Australian War Memorial's archives. A former soldier, Ted Bosworth, backed up the claims, saying that he had been involved in the secret testing. Neither Williams nor Bosworth have produced verifiable evidence to support their claims. The Queensland health department determined that cancer rates in Innisfail were no higher than those in other parts of the state.
### Canada
The U.S. military, with the permission of the Canadian government, tested herbicides, including Agent Orange, in the forests near Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in New Brunswick. In 2007, the government of Canada offered a one-time ex gratia payment of \$20,000 as compensation for Agent Orange exposure at CFB Gagetown. On July 12, 2005, Merchant Law Group, on behalf of over 1,100 Canadian veterans and civilians who were living in and around CFB Gagetown, filed a lawsuit to pursue class action litigation concerning Agent Orange and Agent Purple with the Federal Court of Canada. On August 4, 2009, the case was rejected by the court, citing lack of evidence. In 2007, the Canadian government announced that a research and fact-finding program initiated in 2005 had found the base was safe.
On February 17, 2011, the Toronto Star revealed that Agent Orange had been employed to clear extensive plots of Crown land in Northern Ontario. The Toronto Star reported that, "records from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s show forestry workers, often students and junior rangers, spent weeks at a time as human markers holding red, helium-filled balloons on fishing lines while low-flying planes sprayed toxic herbicides including an infamous chemical mixture known as Agent Orange on the brush and the boys below." In response to the Toronto Star article, the Ontario provincial government launched a probe into the use of Agent Orange.
### Guam
An analysis of chemicals present in the island's soil, together with resolutions passed by Guam's legislature, suggest that Agent Orange was among the herbicides routinely used on and around Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Air Station Agana. Despite the evidence, the Department of Defense continues to deny that Agent Orange was stored or used on Guam. Several Guam veterans have collected evidence to assist in their disability claims for direct exposure to dioxin containing herbicides such as 2,4,5-T which are similar to the illness associations and disability coverage that has become standard for those who were harmed by the same chemical contaminant of Agent Orange used in Vietnam.
### Korea
Agent Orange was used in Korea in the late 1960s. In 1999, about 20,000 South Koreans filed two separated lawsuits against U.S. companies, seeking more than \$5 billion in damages. After losing a decision in 2002, they filed an appeal. In January 2006, the South Korean Appeals Court ordered Dow Chemical and Monsanto to pay \$62 million in compensation to about 6,800 people. The ruling acknowledged that "the defendants failed to ensure safety as the defoliants manufactured by the defendants had higher levels of dioxins than standard", and, quoting the U.S. National Academy of Science report, declared that there was a "causal relationship" between Agent Orange and a range of diseases, including several cancers. The judges failed to acknowledge "the relationship between the chemical and peripheral neuropathy, the disease most widespread among Agent Orange victims".
In 2011, the United States local press KPHO-TV in Phoenix, Arizona, alleged that in 1978 the United States Army had buried 250 drums of Agent Orange in Camp Carroll, the U.S. Army base in Gyeongsangbuk-do, Korea.
Currently, veterans who provide evidence meeting VA requirements for service in Vietnam and who can medically establish that anytime after this 'presumptive exposure' they developed any medical problems on the list of presumptive diseases, may receive compensation from the VA. Certain veterans who served in Korea and are able to prove they were assigned to certain specified around the DMZ during a specific time frame are afforded similar presumption.
### New Zealand
The use of Agent Orange has been controversial in New Zealand, because of the exposure of New Zealand troops in Vietnam and because of the production of herbicide used in Agent Orange which has been alleged at various times to have been exported for use in the Vietnam War and to other users by the Ivon Watkins-Dow chemical plant in Paritutu, New Plymouth. There have been continuing claims, as yet unproven, that the suburb of Paritutu has also been polluted. However, the agriscience company Corteva (which split from DowDupont in 2019) agreed to clean up the Paritutu site in September 2022. There are cases of New Zealand soldiers developing cancers such as bone cancer, but none has been scientifically connected to exposure to herbicides.
### Philippines
Herbicide persistence studies of Agents Orange and White were conducted in the Philippines.
### Johnston Atoll
The U.S. Air Force operation to remove Herbicide Orange from Vietnam in 1972 was named Operation Pacer IVY, while the operation to destroy the Agent Orange stored at Johnston Atoll in 1977 was named Operation Pacer HO. Operation Pacer IVY collected Agent Orange in South Vietnam and removed it in 1972 aboard the ship MV Transpacific for storage on Johnston Atoll. The EPA reports that 6,800,000 L (1,800,000 U.S. gal) of Herbicide Orange was stored at Johnston Island in the Pacific and 1,800,000 L (480,000 U.S. gal) at Gulfport, Mississippi.
Research and studies were initiated to find a safe method to destroy the materials, and it was discovered they could be incinerated safely under special conditions of temperature and dwell time. However, these herbicides were expensive, and the Air Force wanted to resell its surplus instead of dumping it at sea. Among many methods tested, a possibility of salvaging the herbicides by reprocessing and filtering out the TCDD contaminant with carbonized (charcoaled) coconut fibers. This concept was then tested in 1976 and a pilot plant constructed at Gulfport.
From July to September 1977 during Operation Pacer HO, the entire stock of Agent Orange from both Herbicide Orange storage sites at Gulfport and Johnston Atoll was subsequently incinerated in four separate burns in the vicinity of Johnston Island aboard the Dutch-owned waste incineration ship MT Vulcanus. As of 2004, some records of the storage and disposition of Agent Orange at Johnston Atoll have been associated with the historical records of Operation Red Hat.
### Okinawa, Japan
There have been dozens of reports in the press about use and/or storage of military formulated herbicides on Okinawa that are based upon statements by former U.S. service members that had been stationed on the island, photographs, government records, and unearthed storage barrels. The U.S. Department of Defense has denied these allegations with statements by military officials and spokespersons, as well as a January 2013 report authored by Dr. Alvin Young that was released in April 2013.
In particular, the 2013 report rebuts articles written by journalist Jon Mitchell as well as a statement from "An Ecological Assessment of Johnston Atoll" a 2003 publication produced by the United States Army Chemical Materials Agency that states, "in 1972, the U.S. Air Force also brought about 25,000 200L drums of the chemical, Herbicide Orange (HO) to Johnston Island that originated from Vietnam and was stored on Okinawa." The 2013 report states: "The authors of the [2003] report were not DoD employees, nor were they likely familiar with the issues surrounding Herbicide Orange or its actual history of transport to the Island." and detailed the transport phases and routes of Agent Orange from Vietnam to Johnston Atoll, none of which included Okinawa.
Further official confirmation of restricted (dioxin containing) herbicide storage on Okinawa appeared in a 1971 Fort Detrick report titled "Historical, Logistical, Political and Technical Aspects of the Herbicide/Defoliant Program", which mentions that the environmental statement should consider "Herbicide stockpiles elsewhere in PACOM (Pacific Command) U.S. Government restricted materials Thailand and Okinawa (Kadena AFB)." The 2013 DoD report says that the environmental statement urged by the 1971 report was published in 1974 as "The Department of Air Force Final Environmental Statement", and that the latter did not find Agent Orange was held in either Thailand or Okinawa.
### Thailand
Agent Orange was tested by the United States in Thailand during the Vietnam War. In 1999, buried drums were uncovered and confirmed to be Agent Orange. Workers who uncovered the drums fell ill while upgrading the airport near Hua Hin District, 100 km south of Bangkok. Vietnam-era veterans whose service involved duty on or near the perimeters of military bases in Thailand anytime between February 28, 1961, and May 7, 1975, may have been exposed to herbicides and may qualify for VA benefits. A declassified Department of Defense report written in 1973, suggests that there was a significant use of herbicides on the fenced-in perimeters of military bases in Thailand to remove foliage that provided cover for enemy forces. In 2013, the VA determined that herbicides used on the Thailand base perimeters may have been tactical and procured from Vietnam, or a strong, commercial type resembling tactical herbicides.
### United States
The University of Hawaii has acknowledged extensive testing of Agent Orange on behalf of the United States Department of Defense in Hawaii along with mixtures of Agent Orange on Kaua'i Island in 1967–68 and on Hawaii Island in 1966; testing and storage in other U.S. locations has been documented by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
In 1971, the C-123 aircraft used for spraying Agent Orange were returned to the United States and assigned various East Coast USAF Reserve squadrons, and then employed in traditional airlift missions between 1972 and 1982. In 1994, testing by the Air Force identified some former spray aircraft as "heavily contaminated" with dioxin residue. Inquiries by aircrew veterans in 2011 brought a decision by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs opining that not enough dioxin residue remained to injure these post-Vietnam War veterans. On 26 January 2012, the U.S. Center For Disease Control's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry challenged this with their finding that former spray aircraft were indeed contaminated and the aircrews exposed to harmful levels of dioxin. In response to veterans' concerns, the VA in February 2014 referred the C-123 issue to the Institute of Medicine for a special study, with results released on January 9, 2015.
In 1978, the EPA suspended spraying of Agent Orange in national forests. Agent Orange was sprayed on thousands of acres of brush in the Tennessee Valley for 15 years before scientists discovered the herbicide was dangerous. Monroe County, Tennessee, is one of the locations known to have been sprayed according to the Tennessee Valley Authority. Forty-four remote acres were sprayed with Agent Orange along power lines throughout the National Forest.
In 1983, New Jersey declared a Passaic River production site to be a state of emergency. The dioxin pollution in the Passaic River dates back to the Vietnam era, when Diamond Alkali manufactured it in a factory along the river. The tidal river carried dioxin upstream and down, contaminating a 17-mile stretch of riverbed in one of New Jersey's most populous areas.
A December 2006 Department of Defense report listed Agent Orange testing, storage, and disposal sites at 32 locations throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Korea, and in the Pacific Ocean. The Veteran Administration has also acknowledged that Agent Orange was used domestically by U.S. forces in test sites throughout the United States. Eglin Air Force Base in Florida was one of the primary testing sites throughout the 1960s.
## Cleanup programs
In February 2012, Monsanto agreed to settle a case covering dioxin contamination around a plant in Nitro, West Virginia, that had manufactured Agent Orange. Monsanto agreed to pay up to \$9 million for cleanup of affected homes, \$84 million for medical monitoring of people affected, and the community's legal fees.
On 9 August 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical on part of Danang International Airport, marking the first time the U.S. government has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam. Danang was the primary storage site of the chemical. Two other cleanup sites the United States and Vietnam are looking at is Biên Hòa, in the southern province of Đồng Nai—a hotspot for dioxin—and Phù Cát airport in the central province of Bình Định, says U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear. According to the Vietnamese newspaper Nhân Dân, the U.S. government provided \$41 million to the project. As of 2017, some 110,000 cubic meters of soil have been cleaned.
The Seabee's Naval Construction Battalion Center at Gulfport, Mississippi was the largest storage site in the United States for agent orange. It was 30 odd acres in size and was still being cleaned up in 2013.
In 2016, the EPA laid out its plan for cleaning up an 8-mile stretch of the Passaic River in New Jersey, with an estimated cost of \$1.4 billion. The contaminants reached to Newark Bay and other waterways, according to the EPA, which has designated the area a Superfund site. Since destruction of the dioxin requires high temperatures over 1,000 °C (1832 °F), the destruction process is energy intensive.
## See also
- Environmental impact of war
- Orange Crush (song)
- Rainbow herbicides
- Scorched earth
- Teratology
- Vietnam Syndrome
|
18,557,394 |
Saint Lucia at the 2008 Summer Olympics
| 1,114,185,490 | null |
[
"2008 in Saint Lucian sport",
"Nations at the 2008 Summer Olympics",
"Saint Lucia at the Summer Olympics by year"
] |
Saint Lucia sent a delegation to compete at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. The 2008 Saint Lucian team included four athletes that competed in two sports: swimming and athletics. Of these four athletes, Danielle Beaubrun, at age 18, was the youngest of the competitors. Dominic Johnson, at age 32, was the oldest, and was the only man sent as part of the 2008 delegation; additionally, Johnson was the only Saint Lucian athlete in the 2008 delegation who had previously participated in the Olympics.
None of the four athletes advanced past the qualifying stages, and thus did not win any medals. Evans ranked thirtieth overall in the qualifying round for javelin; Johnson also ranked thirtieth overall in the pole vault qualifying round; and Spencer ranked twenty-seventh in the qualifying round for high jump. Additionally, Beaubrun ranked forty-second in the swimming qualifying stages.
## Background
The Saint Lucia Olympic Committee sent President Richard Peterkin, Minister of Youth and Sports Lenard Montoute, Chief de Mission Alfred Emmanuel, Coach Henry Bailey, and Coach Karen Beaubrun to Beijing alongside the four-person athletic delegation. Saint Lucia was the 67th nation in line at the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, in which high jumper Levern Spencer was the flagbearer. Saint Lucians were unable to view the 7:00 am opening ceremony because of issues with the local cable provider.
## Athletics
Three of Saint Lucia's four athletes competed in athletics: Dominic Johnson, Lavern Spencer, and Erma-Gene Evans. Johnson, at age 32, was the oldest of Saint Lucia's athletes to participate in the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Erma-Gene Evans participated in athletics as a javelin thrower. The 2008 Summer Olympics was her Olympic debut. Evans moved forward through two rounds after qualifying under the B standard during her event on 18 August 2008, but did not rank in the third qualifying round. With a best mark distance of 56.27, Evans ranked thirtieth overall. She did not advance.
Dominic Johnson participated in athletics as a pole vaulter, returning to the Olympics for his third time; Johnson had previously participated as a pole vaulter (and, at one time, a relay runner) on behalf of Saint Lucia in the 2000 Summer Olympics and 1996 Summer Olympics. Johnson flew to San Diego days before the competition cutoff and made the qualifying preliminary height for the Olympics shortly after winning a silver medal at the Central American and Caribbean Championships in Cali, Colombia. Johnson's event took place on 20 August 2008. With a height of 5.30 metres, Johnson did not qualify, although he tied for seventeenth place in his qualifying group. As such, he did not advance. Johnson tied with the Czech pole vaulter Štěpán Janáček for thirtieth place overall.
Levern Spencer participated in athletics as a high jumper, making her first appearance in the Olympics. Spencer trained with Coach Wayne Norton of the University of Georgia to hone her skills in the time preceding her performance in the Olympics. Levern Spencer's personal best time has been compared to medal winners in the event from the 2004 Summer Olympics. Spencer's best height cleared was 1.85, placing fourteenth in Qualifying Group B. However, during her event on 20 August 2008, Spencer placed twenty-seventh overall, and did not advance.
Men
Women
Key
- Note–Ranks given for track events are within the athlete's heat only
- Q = Qualified for the next round
- q = Qualified for the next round as a fastest loser or, in field events, by position without achieving the qualifying target
- NR = National record
- N/A = Round not applicable for the event
- Bye = Athlete not required to compete in round
## Swimming
Danielle Beaubrun was the only Saint Lucian swimmer to participate in the Beijing Olympics. She was the youngest member of the Saint Lucian delegation, at age 18. The 2008 Summer Olympics served as Beaubrun's Olympic debut. Beaubrun did not initially qualify for Olympic standards. However, because Saint Lucia had no naturally qualifying swimmers, the country was invited by FINA to send two swimmers to the Olympics, granted the swimmer had participated in the 2007 World Championships. Beaubrun met this criterion, and was selected for this reason. At the time, Beaubrun was enrolled at The Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida and trained with coach Sergio Lopez.
The event in which Beaubrun participated was the 100 meter breaststroke. This event took place on 10 August 2008. In the second heat of the qualifying round, Beaubrun scored third, with a time of 1:12.85. However, overall, Danielle Beaubrun ranked forty-second, and, as a result, did not advance.
Women
## See also
- Saint Lucia at the 2007 Pan American Games
- Saint Lucia at the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Games
|
20,208,903 |
SM U-1 (Austria-Hungary)
| 1,137,475,653 |
Austro-Hungarian Navy's U-1-class submarine
|
[
"1909 ships",
"Ships built in Pola",
"U-1-class submarines",
"U-boats commissioned in 1911",
"World War I submarines of Austria-Hungary"
] |
SM U-1 or U-I was the lead boat of the U-1-class of submarines or U-boats built for and operated by the Austro-Hungarian Navy (German: kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine or k.u.k. Kriegsmarine). U-1 was designed by American naval architect Simon Lake of the Lake Torpedo Boat Company, and constructed at the Navy Yard in Pola. She was one of two Lake-designed submarines purchased as part of a competitive evaluation of foreign submarine designs after domestic proposals were rejected by the Navy.
Ordered on 24 November 1906, U-1 was laid down in July 1907 before being launched in February 1909. She was 30.48 meters (100 ft 0 in) long and displaced 229.7 metric tons (226 long tons; 253 short tons) while surfaced and 248.9 metric tons (245 long tons; 274 short tons) while submerged. An experimental design, U-1 included unique features such as a diving chamber and wheels for traveling along the seabed. Originally powered by gasoline engines for surface running, sea trials throughout 1909 and 1910 showed these engines to be incapable of reaching the submarine's contracted speed and to pose a risk of poisoning the crew. U-1 was commissioned in April 1911 and served as a training boat through 1914, though she was mobilized briefly during the Balkan Wars. U-1's design has been described by naval historians as a failure that was rendered obsolete by the time she was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Despite these criticisms, tests of her design provided information which the Navy used to construct subsequent submarines.
At the beginning of World War I, U-1 was in drydock awaiting new batteries and replacement diesel engines. U-1 returned to service as a training boat until October 1915. From November she conducted reconnaissance cruises out of Trieste and Pola until being declared obsolete in early 1918. She continued to serve in a training role at the submarine base on Brioni, but was at Pola at the end of the war. Facing defeat in October 1918, the Austro-Hungarian government transferred its navy to the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to avoid having to hand its ships over to the Allied Powers. Following the Armistice of Villa Giusti in November 1918, U-1 was seized by Italian forces and subsequently granted to the Kingdom of Italy under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1920. Italy chose to scrap the submarine, and she was broken up at Pola later that same year without ever having sunk or damaged any vessels during her career.
## Background
Prior to 1904, the Austro-Hungarian Navy had shown little to no interest in submarines, preferring to instead observe other navies experiment with the relatively new type of ship. In early 1904, after allowing the navies of other countries to pioneer submarine developments, Constructor General (German: Generalschiffbauingenieur) of the Austro-Hungarian Navy Siegfried Popper, ordered the Naval Technical Committee (German: Marinetechnisches Kommittee, MTK) to produce a submarine design. Technical problems during the initial design phase, however, delayed further any proposals from MTK for nearly a year.
After observing the MTK design submitted in early 1905, the Naval Section of the War Ministry (German: Marinesektion) remained skeptical. Additional proposals submitted by the public as part of a design competition were all rejected as well by the Austro-Hungarian Navy as being impracticable. As a result, the Navy decided to purchase designs from three different foreign firms for a class of submarines. Each design was to be accompanied by two submarines to test each ship against one another. This was done to properly evaluate the different proposals which would come forward. Simon Lake, owner of the Lake Torpedo Boat Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was chosen as one of the participants in this design competition by the Navy. After being recommended by Popper, Lake traveled to Austria-Hungary in 1906 to negotiate the details of his contract with the Navy, which formally ordered plans for the building of two boats—including U-1—on 24 November.
## Design
Although intended to serve as an experimental design when initially ordered, U-1 and her sister ship U-2 would be the first submarines of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. However, both ships would prove to be a disappointment. U-1 and her sister ship were described by the naval historians David Dickson, Vincent O'Hara, and Richard Worth as "obsolete and unreliable when completed and suffered from problems even after modifications". René Greger, another naval historian, wrote that U-1 and her sister ship "proved a total failure".
Despite these criticisms and shortcomings, the experimental nature of the submarine provided valuable information for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, and Lake's designs did address what the Navy was asking for when ordering the submarine class. John Poluhowich writes in his book Argonaut: The Submarine Legacy of Simon Lake that U-1 was "completed to the satisfaction of Austrian officials". Lake himself praised both ships, particularly their periscopes.
> Our company had built the first two boats for the Austrian Government, U-1 and U-2. Another type of boat had been built later which had only a fixed periscope...One day, when this submarine was running along with her periscope above the surface...some officers approached in a speedy little launch and left their cards tied to the periscope without the knowledge of the commander of the submerged vessel. This demonstrated perfectly that it is essential, both in war and peace times, for the commander of the submarine to know what is going on in his vicinity on the surface.
U-1 was constructed in line with Austro-Hungarian naval policy at the time, which stressed coastal defense and patrolling of the Adriatic Sea. Following the onset of World War I, however, it became clear that Austro-Hungarian U-boats were best suited for offensive operations, namely raiding Allied shipping in the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas.
### General characteristics
Built with a double hull, U-1 had an overall length of 30.48 meters (100 ft), with a beam of 4.8 meters (15 ft 9 in) and a draught of 3.85 meters (12 ft 8 in). U-1 was designed to displace 229.7 metric tons (226 long tons; 253 short tons) while surfaced, but while submerged she displaced 248.9 metric tons (245.0 long tons; 274.4 short tons). After her modernization, the length of U-1 was increased to 30.76 meters (100 ft 11 in).
U-1 was derived from an earlier concept for a submarine intended for peaceful sea exploration. As a result, she had several features typical of Lake's earlier designs. These including a diving chamber under the bow and two variable pitch propellers. The diving chamber was intended for manned underwater missions such as destroying ships with explosives and severing off-shore telegraph cables, as well as for exiting or entering the submarine during an emergency. This diving chamber ultimately proved its usefulness during the sea trials of U-1 and her sister ship when the crew of one submarine forgot to bring their lunches on-board before conducting an underwater endurance test. A diver from shore was able to transport lunch for the crew without the submarine having to resurface. Lake's design also called for two retractable wheels that, in theory, could allow travel over the seabed. The design also placed the diving tanks above the waterline of the cylindrical hull, which necessitated a heavy ballast keel for vertical stability. The location of the diving tanks also necessitated flooding to be done by pumps.
The propulsion system for U-1 consisted of two gasoline engines for surface running and two electric motors for running submerged. The gasoline engines could produce 720 bhp (540 kW), while the electric motors had an output of 200 bhp (150 kW). These engines could produce a speed of 10.3 knots (19.1 km/h; 11.9 mph) while surfaced, and 6 knots (11 km/h; 6.9 mph) when submerged. U-1 had an operational range of 950 nautical miles (1,760 km; 1,090 mi) while traveling at 6 knots (11 km/h; 6.9 mph) when surfaced, and 40 nmi (74 km; 46 mi) while traveling at 2 knots (3.7 km/h; 2.3 mph) when submerged. For underwater steering, her design featured four pairs of diving planes. These planes provided the submarines with a considerable amount of maneuverability.
The submarine had three 45-centimeter (17.7 in) torpedo tubes—two in the bow, one in the stern—and could carry up to five torpedoes, but typically carried three. In 1917, U-1 was fitted with a 37-millimeter (1.5 in) deck gun, which was ultimately removed in January 1918 when the submarine resumed training duties. U-1 was designed for a crew of 17 officers and men.
## Construction and commissioning
U-1 was laid down on 2 July 1907 at the Pola Navy Yard (German: Seearsenal) in Pola. Construction on the submarine was delayed by the need to import the American-made engines. As the first ship of her class, U-1 was launched on 10 February 1908.
Upon completion of the submarine, the Austro-Hungarian Navy evaluated U-1 in sea trials throughout 1909 and 1910. These trials were considerably longer than other sea trials due to the experimental nature of the submarines and the desire of Austro-Hungarian naval officials to test every possible aspect of the ship. During these trials, extensive technical problems with the gasoline engines of both submarines were revealed. Exhaust fumes and gasoline vapors frequently poisoned the air inside the boat and increased the risk of internal explosions, while the engines themselves were not able reach the contracted speed, which was supposed to be 12 knots (22 km/h) while surfaced and 7 knots (13 km/h) while submerged. Indeed, the engine problems for U-1 were so significant that on multiple occasions her crew had to conduct emergency resurfacing to bring fresh air into the ship. Because of the problems, the Austro-Hungarian Navy considered the engines to be unsuitable for wartime use and paid only for the hulls and armament of U-1. While replacement diesel engines were ordered from the Austrian firm Maschinenfabrik Leobersdorf, they agreed to a lease of the gasoline engines at a fee of \$4,544 USD annually for both U-1 and her sister ship U-2.
Flooding the diving tanks, which was necessary to dive, took over 14 minutes and 37 seconds in early tests, but was later reduced to 8 minutes. Despite the engine problems, U-1 and her sister ship had the best performance in diving and steering among the U-boats under evaluation by the Navy. At a depth of 40 meters (130 ft) her hull began to show signs of stress and was in danger of being crushed. As a result, the commission overseeing U-1's sea trials set her maximum dive depth at 40 meters (130 ft). While surfaced, the shape of U-1's hull resulted in a significant bow-wave, which led to the bow of the ship dipping under the water while surfaced. In order to correct this problem, the deck and bow casing of the submarine was reconstructed in January 1915. Other tests proved the use of U-1's underwater wheels on the seabed to be almost impossible. On 5 April both of U-1's electric motors were damaged in a flooding incident during her trials.
## Service history
### Pre-war
U-1 was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 15 April 1911 and served as a training boat—conducting up to ten training cruises per month—through 1914. Despite being used primarily for training duties, U-1 was mobilized in late 1912 during the Balkan Wars. By the end of November 1912, the threat of conflict between Austria-Hungary, Italy, Serbia, and Russia, coupled with allegations of Serbian mistreatment of the Austro-Hungarian consul in Prisrena led to a war scare in the Balkans. Both Russia and Austria-Hungary began mobilizing troops along their border, while Austria-Hungary began to mobilize against Serbia. During the crisis, the entire Austro-Hungarian Navy was also fully mobilized. U-1 and her sister ship U-2 were both ordered to join the rest of the Austro-Hungarian fleet assembling in the Aegean Sea in the event of a war with Serbia and Russia.
By December 1912, the Austro-Hungarian Navy had, in addition to U-1 and U-2, a total of seven battleships, six cruisers, eight destroyers, 28 torpedo boats, and four submarines ready for combat. The crisis eventually subsided after the signing of the Treaty of London, and the Austro-Hungarian Army and Navy were subsequently demobilized on 28 May 1913. After demobilization, U-1 resumed her duties as a training vessel. While conducting one of these training cruises on 13 January 1914 near Fasana, she was rammed by the Austro-Hungarian armored cruiser Sankt Georg. The damage caused by this collision destroyed the submarine's periscope.
### World War I
The outbreak of World War I found U-1 in drydock awaiting the installation of new batteries and diesel engines. To accommodate the new engines, she underwent a refit which lasted until early 1915. This refit lengthened the submarine by about 11 inches (28 cm). The modifications and new engines lowered her surface displacement to 223.0 tonnes (245.8 short tons) but increased the submarine's submerged displacement to 277.5 tonnes (305.9 short tons). Upon completion of this refit in early 1915, U-1 returned to training duties through 4 October, and was thereafter stationed at Trieste on 2 November. The relocation of U-1 to Trieste was undertaken in part to dissuade Italian naval attacks or raids on the crucial Austro-Hungarian city, and her deployment to the city helped to dissuade Italian plans to bombard the port, as Italian military intelligence suggested both U-1 and U-2 were on regular patrol in the waters of the northern Adriatic. From Trieste, U-1 conducted regular reconnaissance cruises until 22 December 1917, when she was reassigned to the naval base at Pola. On 11 January 1918, U-1 was declared obsolete alongside her sister ship, but was retained as a training boat at the Austro-Hungarian submarine base located on Brioni Island. In mid-1918, U-1 was considered a potential candidate for service as a minesweeper, as the diving chamber present on the submarine could allow divers to sever the anchoring cables of sea mines. The poor condition of the submarine, however, prevented the plan from being implemented.
Near the end of the war, she was once more taken to Pola, though it had become clear by October 1918 that Austria-Hungary was facing defeat in the war. With various attempts to quell nationalist sentiments failing, Emperor Karl I decided to sever Austria-Hungary's alliance with Germany and appeal to the Allied Powers in an attempt to preserve the empire from complete collapse. On 26 October, Austria-Hungary informed Germany that their alliance was over. In Pola, the Austro-Hungarian Navy was in the process of tearing itself apart along ethnic and nationalist lines. On 29 October the National Council in Zagreb announced Croatia's dynastic ties to Hungary had come to a formal conclusion. This new provisional government, while throwing off Hungarian rule, had not yet declared independence from Austria-Hungary. Thus Emperor Karl I's government in Vienna asked the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs for help maintaining the fleet stationed at Pola and keeping order among the navy. The National Council refused to assist unless the Austro-Hungarian Navy was first placed under its command. Emperor Karl I, still attempting to save the Empire from collapse, agreed to the transfer, provided that the other "nations" which made up Austria-Hungary would be able to claim their fair share of the value of the fleet at a later time. All sailors not of Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian, or Serbian background were thus placed on leave for the time being, while the officers were given the choice of joining the new navy or retiring.
Through this transfer, the Austro-Hungarian government decided to hand over its fleet to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs without a shot being fired. This was considered preferential to handing the fleet to the Allies, as the new state had declared its neutrality. Furthermore, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs had also not yet publicly rejected Emperor Karl I, keeping alive the possibility of reforming the Empire into a triple monarchy. The transfer to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs took place on the morning of 31 October, with Rear Admiral (German: Konteradmiral) Miklós Horthy meeting representatives from the South Slav nationalities aboard his flagship, Viribus Unitis. The arrangements were settled and the handover was completed that afternoon with the Austro-Hungarian Naval Ensign being struck from all ships in the harbor.
### Post-war
Under the terms of the Armistice of Villa Giusti, signed between Italy and Austria-Hungary on 3 November 1918, the transfer of Austria-Hungary's fleet to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was not recognized. Italian ships thus sailed into the ports of Trieste, Pola, and Fiume the following day. On 5 November, Italian troops occupied the naval installations at Pola. The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs lacked the men and officers to hold the fleet as most sailors who were not South Slavs had already gone home. Furthermore, the National Council did not order any men to resist the Italians, preferring to instead condemn Italy's actions as illegitimate. On 9 November, all remaining ships in Pola harbor had the Italian flag raised, including U-1. At a conference at Corfu, the Allied Powers agreed the transfer of Austria-Hungary's Navy to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was invalid, despite sympathy from the United Kingdom. Faced with the prospect of being given an ultimatum to surrender the former Austro-Hungarian warships, the National Council agreed to hand over the ships beginning on 10 November 1918.
It would not be until 1920 that the final distribution of the ships was settled among the Allied powers under the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Both U-1 and U-2 were subsequently ceded to Italy as war reparations and scrapped at Pola that same year. Due to the training and reconnaissance missions she engaged in throughout the war, U-1 did not sink or damage any ships during her career.
|
16,148,723 |
Lafayette Square (Buffalo)
| 1,112,022,616 |
Public square in Buffalo, New York, USA
|
[
"1884 sculptures",
"Bronze sculptures in New York (state)",
"Geography of Buffalo, New York",
"Military monuments and memorials in the United States",
"Monumental columns in the United States",
"Monuments and memorials in New York (state)",
"Squares in New York (state)",
"Statues in New York (state)",
"Tourist attractions in Buffalo, New York"
] |
Lafayette Square (formerly Court House Park or Courthouse Square) is a park in the center of downtown Buffalo, Erie County, New York, United States that hosts a Civil War monument. The block, which was once square, is lined by many of the city's tallest buildings. The square was named for General Lafayette, who visited Buffalo in 1825.
The square was part of the original urban plan for the city as laid out by Joseph Ellicott in 1804. Its eastern edge has long been defined by important civic structures; first, the Erie County Courthouse, followed by the original Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. Presidential history was made in Lafayette Square when former United States President Martin Van Buren received the Free Soil Party nomination for the 1848 election. President-elect Abraham Lincoln also spoke at the square.
Today, the square offers a clear view of Buffalo City Hall, an Art Deco building three blocks to the west. A granite Civil War monument, titled Soldiers and Sailors, gives a strong vertical and ceremonial definition to the space. Conceived by Mrs. Horatio Seymour, the monument's dedication ceremony was attended by Grover Cleveland and other prominent figures. Until 2011, Lafayette Square hosted the annual Thursday at the Square summer concert series and is occasionally the site of rallies and demonstrations.
## Location
Lafayette Square is one of three squares laid out in Joseph Ellicott's city plan. The square is located three blocks east of Niagara Square and is the second most important space in downtown Buffalo. The block is surrounded by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority's Metro Rail light rail rapid transit to the west, which runs above-ground along Main Street in what is called the Free Fare Zone, Washington Street to the east, Lafayette Square to the north (a one-way westbound continuation of Broadway) and Lafayette Square to the south (a one-way eastbound connection to Clinton Street).
Buildings flanking the square include the Liberty Building, the Main Court Building, 10 Lafayette Square, the Rand Building (14 Lafayette Square), and the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (One Lafayette Square). The south side of the square hosts two historic buildings: the 300-room Lafayette Hotel, designed by Louise Blanchard Bethune in 1904; and the Brisbane building, designed by Milton Earl Beebe and erected by James Mooney and James Brisbane in 1894–5. The corner north of the current library and northeast of the square once hosted the Buffalo Savings Bank building that was demolished in 1922.
Lafayette Square is served by several Metro Bus routes and the Lafayette Square rapid transit rail station of Buffalo's Metro Rail system. In 2003, Lafayette Square became the site of the first free municipal wifi hotspot in the city.
## Design
### Square
The square once was surrounded by an iron fence that was no longer present by 1905. By the 1860s, the square was a heavily wooded park. In 1876-7, trees that lined the square along main street were removed.
Lafayette Square was the last park in the heart of the city, but the commercialization of the downtown area caused vehicular space demands. The original parklike square was originally viewed by urban planners as an impediment to crosstown traffic. In 1912, the Buffalo Common Council authorized the extension of Broadway to Main Street through Lafayette Square, which reduced the size of the square "to devote to street purposes all that part of the Square except for a small circle around the Soldiers and Sailors Monument." The square has since been redeveloped a few times and is now more of a thoroughfare than a park. In 1920, the square circumscribed a vehicular circle with the monument in the center surrounded by sidewalks and grass.
### Monument
The monument's shaft supports a 10-foot-6-inch (3.2 m) female figure, and four 8-foot (2.4 m) bronze statues, representing the infantry, artillery, cavalry and navy, sculpted by Caspar Buberl, which face the four cardinal points. Bronze bas-reliefs encircle the column above the statues. The female figure is an allegorical figure representing the Union. By the time of the 1979 report for the Mayor's Committee on the Arts and Cultural Affairs, two plaques were missing from the monument.
The dedication on the west (Main Street) side honors those who laid down their lives "in the war to maintain the union for the cause of their country and of mankind." Half of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address graces the east side of the monument. Several bas-relief panels feature scenes of Lincoln's original cabinet: Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase, Secretary of State William H. Seward, Attorney General Edward Bates, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, Secretary of the Interior, Caleb Smith, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Major General Winfield Scott, and Secretary of War Simon Cameron.
## History
At one time, a rivulet flowed from Lafayette Square down Court Street where it eventually met a stream at Niagara and Mohawk Streets. The square hosted the Niagara County Courthouse from 1810 until it was destroyed by the British Army during the Burning of Buffalo during the War of 1812 on December 30, 1813. In 1831, the Holland Land Company gave the deed of the public park to the city.
The original Erie County court house was built facing the square park in 1818. Buffalo was the county seat of Niagara County until 1821, when Erie County was created. In 1833 an adjacent county jailhouse was added. The jail, which was crude, and a debtors' prison were located in the back of the courthouse. In 1853, the city fenced in the square and installed a US\$30,000 (\$ today) fountain. Erie County Sheriff Grover Cleveland once personally hanged a criminal in the square when it was still named Court House Square, after his subordinates refused to do so. President-elect Abraham Lincoln spoke at the square on February 16, 1861. The courthouse was used as the place for the determination of justice for the American side of the Niagara River until it was abandoned on March 11, 1876.
A Cyrus Eidlitz Buffalo Public Library building was first erected on the Court House's location and dedicated on February 7, 1887. The current Buffalo & Erie County Public Library building that replaced Eidlitz's building was constructed between 1961 and 1963. Eidlitz had won an architectural competition against the likes of Henry Richardson, who was regarded as the nation's top architect at the time. The gargoyles of the Romanesque Eidlitz building were widely respected and admired. However, they were not saved due to prohibitive expense at the time of the early 1960s demolition.
In 1825 American Revolutionary War veteran and French General Lafayette visited this square during his historic tour of the United States and gave a speech in the square. He spoke on a platform in front of the Eagle Tavern, a highly regarded hotel in its day, on June 4 as part of ceremonies to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the war. That same year, Buffalo carried out its last official public hanging when brothers Israel, Isaac and Nelson Thayer were hanged for murdering John Love, which some accounts say occurred in the square, while others say it was at Niagara Square. The square hosted many public meetings and early Erie County Fairs, such as the October 1841 fair that was held in the square and behind the courthouse.
In 1848, the Free Soil Party, which was absorbed into the Republican Party in 1854, held its national nominating convention in Buffalo. At the convention, the party selected former New York Governor and former United States President Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams as their nominees for United States President and United States Vice President for the 1848 election. Forty thousand people witnessed the event at the square. The square has hosted several notable speakers such as Henry Clay in 1842 and Daniel Webster in 1833.
The first meeting regarding the erection of a Civil War monument was held on April 14, 1866. Efforts stalled until Mrs. Horatio Seymour organized the Ladies Union Monument Association on July 2, 1874, which raised \$12,000 (\$) and approved a design by George Keller. Following this proactive effort, the city of Buffalo approved an additional \$45,000 (\$) for the project. Support for the monument effort coalesced when public interest in and support for an arch by Henry Hobson Richardson at Niagara Square in front of Buffalo City Hall faded. In 1879, the name of the square was changed from Court House Park to Lafayette Square.
Then-Mayor of Buffalo Grover Cleveland laid the cornerstone of Keller's 85-foot (25.9 m) granite-shaft Soldiers and Sailors monument in the center of the square on July 4, 1882 and returned as New York Governor to dedicate the monument July 4, 1884. When the cornerstone was laid with military pomp and Masonic ritual, Cleveland spoke, and a time capsule was sealed away. In addition, Brigadier General Stewart Woodford made remarks at the first ceremony. Woodford was among several notable people who attended the dedication, including Pennsylvania Governor John Hartranft and Brigadier General William Findlay Rogers. Columns of Union Army veterans marched down Main Street to celebrate the day.
The monument has survived two significant threats. First, in 1889, the foundation was found to have settled unevenly, causing a dangerous tilt similar to that of the Tower of Pisa. The square was cracking and crumbling due to an inadequate core of rubble and mortar to support the granite shaft and statuary. In addition the copper box time capsule was found to be three feet below its intended chamber and cracked with its contents destroyed. The monument was dismantled and rebuilt with an expanded 15-foot (4.6 m) base. On February 12, 1973, a motorist drove his vehicle into the monument, prompting calls for its demolition by 1982 by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority. Instead, the monument was repaired through fundraising efforts by the Buffalo Civil War Round Table involving a successful public awareness campaign.
## Today
Every summer from 1986 to 2011, Buffalo Place, Inc. hosted a free concert series, called Thursday at the Square on Thursday evenings in Lafayette Square, starting in May and running until September. A typical schedule includes a wide variety of musical acts. As of 2012 the concert series has been moved to the Buffalo inner harbor and renamed Thursday at Canalside.
Because of its central, symbolic location, Lafayette Square is often chosen for various rallies. After the Buffalo Bills were defeated in Super Bowl XXV, Buffalo Bills fans held a rally at the square to show their continuing support of the team. On January 16, 1981, there were a set of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations on Martin Luther King Jr. Day at Lafayette Square, Niagara Square and nearby areas by the Neo-Nazi National Socialist Party of America and opposing groups.
## See also
- List of tallest buildings in Buffalo
|
606,612 |
Eragon
| 1,173,434,962 |
2002 book by Christopher Paolini
|
[
"2003 American novels",
"2003 debut novels",
"2003 fantasy novels",
"Alfred A. Knopf books",
"American fantasy novels adapted into films",
"American young adult novels",
"Novels about dragons",
"Novels by Christopher Paolini",
"Self-published books",
"The Inheritance Cycle",
"Young adult fantasy novels"
] |
Eragon is the first book in The Inheritance Cycle by American fantasy writer Christopher Paolini. Paolini, born in 1983, began writing the novel after graduating from home school at the age of fifteen. After writing the first draft for a year, Paolini spent a second year rewriting and fleshing out the story and characters. His parents saw the final manuscript and in 2001 decided to self-publish Eragon; Paolini spent a year traveling around the United States promoting the novel. The book was discovered by novelist Carl Hiaasen, who brought it to the attention of Alfred A. Knopf. The re-published version was released on August 26, 2003.
The book tells the story of a farm boy named Eragon, who finds a mysterious stone in the mountains. The stone is revealed to be a dragon egg, and a dragon he later names Saphira hatches from it. When the evil King Galbatorix finds out about the egg, he sends monstrous servants to acquire it, making Eragon and Saphira flee from their hometown with a storyteller named Brom. Brom, an old member of an extinct group called the Dragon Riders, teaches Eragon about 'The Ways of the Rider.'
Eragon was the third-best-selling children's hardback book of 2003, and the second-best-selling paperback of 2005. It placed on the New York Times Children's Books Best Seller list for 121 weeks and was adapted as a feature film of the same name that was released on December 15, 2006.
## Background
### Origins and publication
Christopher Paolini started reading fantasy books when he was 10 years old. At the age of 14, as a hobby, he started writing a novel, endeavoring to create the sort of fantasy story that he himself would enjoy reading. However, he could not get beyond a few pages because he had "no idea" where he was going. He began reading everything he could about the "art of writing", and then plotted the whole Inheritance Cycle book series. After a month of planning out the series, he started writing the draft of Eragon by hand. It was finished a year later, and Paolini began writing the second draft of the book. After another year of editing, Paolini's parents saw the final manuscript. They immediately saw its potential and decided to publish the book through their small, home-based publishing company, Paolini International. Paolini created the cover art for this edition of Eragon, which featured Saphira's eye on the cover. He also drew the maps inside the book.
Paolini and his family toured across the United States promoting the book. He gave over 135 talks at bookshops, libraries, and schools, many with Paolini dressed up in a medieval costume; but the book did not receive much attention. Paolini said he "would stand behind a table in my costume talking all day without a break – and would sell maybe forty books in eight hours if I did really well. [...] It was a very stressful experience. I couldn't have gone on for very much longer." In the summer of 2002, American novelist Carl Hiaasen was on vacation in one of the cities that Paolini gave a talk in. While there, Hiaasen's stepson bought a copy of Eragon that he "immediately loved". He showed it to Hiaasen, who brought the book to the attention of the publishing house Alfred A. Knopf. Michelle Frey, executive editor at Knopf, contacted Paolini and his family to ask if they were interested in having Knopf publish Eragon. The answer was yes, and after another round of editing, Knopf published Eragon in August 2003, with a new cover, drawn by John Jude Palencar.
### Inspiration and influences
Paolini cites old myths, folk tales, medieval stories, the epic poem Beowulf, and authors J. R. R. Tolkien and E. R. Eddison as his biggest influences in writing. Other literary influences include David Eddings, Andre Norton, Brian Jacques, Anne McCaffrey, Raymond E. Feist, Mervyn Peake, Ursula K. Le Guin, Frank Herbert, Philip Pullman, and Garth Nix.
The ancient language used by the elves in Eragon is based "almost entirely" on Old Norse, German, Anglo Saxon, and Russian myth. Paolini commented: "[I] did a god-awful amount of research into the subject when I was composing it. I found that it gave the world a much richer feel, a much older feel, using these words that had been around for centuries and centuries. I had a lot of fun with that." Picking the right names for the characters and places was a process that could take "days, weeks, or even years". Paolini said: "if I have difficulty choosing the correct moniker, I use a placeholder name until a replacement suggests itself." He added that he was "really lucky" with the name Eragon, "because it's just dragon with one letter changed." Also, Paolini commented that he thought of both parts of the name "Eragon" - "era" and "gone" - as if the name itself changes the era in which the character lives. He thought the name fit the book perfectly, but some of the other names caused him "real headaches".
The landscape in Eragon is based on the "wild territory" of Paolini's home state, Montana. He said in an interview: "I go hiking a lot, and oftentimes when I'm in the forest or in the mountains, sitting down and seeing some of those little details makes the difference between having an okay description and having a unique description." Paolini also said that Paradise Valley, Montana is "one of the main sources" of his inspiration for the landscape in the book (Eragon takes place in the fictional continent Alagaësia). Paolini "roughed out" the main history of the land before he wrote the book, but he did not draw a map of it until it became important to see where Eragon was traveling. He then started to get history and plot ideas from seeing the landscape depicted.
Paolini chose to have Eragon mature throughout the book because, "for one thing, it's one of the archetypal fantasy elements". He thought Eragon's growth and maturation throughout the book "sort of mirrored my own growing abilities as a writer and as a person, too. So it was a very personal choice for that book." Eragon's dragon, Saphira, was imagined as "the perfect friend" by Paolini. He decided to go in a more "human direction" with her because she is raised away from her own species, in "close mental contact" with a human. "I considered making the dragon more dragon-like, if you will, in its own society, but I haven't had a chance to explore that. I went with a more human element with Saphira while still trying to get a bit of the magic, the alien, of her race." Paolini made Saphira the "best friend anyone could have: loyal, funny, brave, intelligent, and noble. She transcended that, however, and became her own person, fiercely independent and proud." Saphira's blue tinted vision was in turn inspired by Paolini's own color-blindness.
Paolini deliberately included archetypal elements of a fantasy novel like a quest, a journey of experience, revenge, romance, betrayal, and a unique sword. The book is described as a fantasy, and Booklist observed: "Paolini knows the genre well—his lush tale is full of recognizable fantasy elements and conventions". Kirkus Reviews called the book a "high fantasy"; other reviewers have compared it to other books and films of the fantasy genre, such as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, and in some instances stated Eragon's plot is too similar to those other stories.
## Plot summary
A Shade named Durza, along with a group of Urgals, ambushes a party of three elves. They kill two of them, and Durza attempts to steal an egg carried by the remaining female elf. However, she manages to use magic to teleport it elsewhere. Infuriated, Durza abducts her and keeps her prisoner at the city of Gil'ead.
Eragon is a fifteen-year-old boy who has lived with his uncle Garrow and cousin Roran on a farm near the village of Carvahall, left by his mother 15 years before. While hunting, he sees a large explosion and finds a blue dragon egg in the rubble. Later on, a baby dragon hatches from the egg, and bonds with Eragon, giving him a silver mark on his hand. Eragon names the dragon Saphira, after a name the old village storyteller Brom mentions.
He raises the dragon in secret until two of King Galbatorix's servants, the Ra'zac, come to Carvahall. Eragon and Saphira escape and hide in the Spine, but Garrow is fatally wounded and the farm is burned down by the Ra'zac. Once Garrow dies, Eragon and Saphira decide to hunt the Ra'zac, in vengeance. Brom insists on accompanying him and Saphira, and gives Eragon the sword Zar'roc.
Eragon becomes a Dragon Rider, through his bond with Saphira. He is the only known Rider in Alagaësia other than King Galbatorix, who, with the help of the now-dead Forsworn, a group of rogue Riders, killed every other Rider a century ago. As they travel, Brom teaches Eragon sword fighting, magic, the ancient elvish language, and the ways of the Dragon Riders.
They travel to the city of Teirm, where they meet with Brom's friend Jeod. Eragon's fortune is told by the witch Angela, and her companion, the werecat Solembum, gives Eragon mysterious advice. With Jeod's help, they track the Ra'zac to the city of Dras-Leona. They manage to infiltrate the city, but are forced to flee after a run-in with the Ra'zac. That night, they are ambushed by the Ra'zac. A stranger named Murtagh rescues them, but Brom is mortally wounded. Brom gives Eragon his blessing, reveals that he was once a Dragon Rider, with a dragon named Saphira, and dies. Saphira uses magic to encase Brom in a diamond tomb.
Murtagh becomes Eragon's new companion and they travel to the city of Gil'ead, seeking information on how to find the Varden, a group of rebels who seek the downfall of Galbatorix. Near Gil'ead, Eragon is captured and imprisoned in a jail that holds a female elf he had had recurring dreams about. Murtagh and Saphira stage a rescue, and Eragon takes the unconscious elf with him. After fighting Durza, Murtagh seemingly kills him with an arrow shot through his head, and they escape. Eragon telepathically communicates with the elf, named Arya, who reveals she had sent the egg to him accidentally. From her, he learns the location of the Varden. Murtagh is reluctant to journey to the Varden, revealing that he is the son of Morzan, former leader of the Forsworn.
An army of Kull, elite Urgals, chases Eragon to the Varden's headquarters, but is driven off by the Varden, who escort Eragon, Saphira, Murtagh, and Arya to Farthen Dûr, their mountain hideout. Eragon meets the leader of the Varden, Ajihad. Ajihad imprisons Murtagh after he refuses to allow his mind to be read, to determine his allegiance. Eragon is told by Ajihad that Murtagh failed to kill Durza, as the only way to kill a Shade is with a stab through the heart. Orik, nephew of the dwarf King Hrothgar, is appointed as Eragon and Saphira's guide. Eragon also meets Ajihad's daughter, Nasuada, and Ajihad's right-hand man, Jörmundur. He runs into Angela and Solembum again, and visits Murtagh in prison. He is tested by two magicians, The Twins, as well as Arya.
Eragon and the Varden are then attacked by an immense Urgal army. Eragon personally battles Durza again, and, after a mental battle, is overwhelmed by Durza, who slashes him across the back. Arya and Saphira shatter Isidar Mithrim, a large sapphire that formed the roof of the chamber, to distract Durza, allowing Eragon to stab him through the heart with his sword. He falls into a coma, and is visited telepathically by a stranger, who tells Eragon to visit him in the Elven capital, Ellesméra. He wakes up with a scar across his back, and resolves to journey to Ellesméra.
## Reception
Eragon received generally mixed reviews and was criticized for its derivative nature. Liz Rosenberg of The New York Times Book Review criticized Eragon for having "clichéd descriptions", "B-movie dialogue", "awkward and gangly prose". However, she concluded the review by noting that "for all its flaws, it is an authentic work of great talent." School Library Journal wrote that in Eragon "sometimes the magic solutions are just too convenient for getting out of difficult situations." Common Sense Media called Eragon's dialogue "long-winded" and "clichéd", with a plot "straight out of Star Wars by way of The Lord of the Rings, with bits of other great fantasies thrown in here and there..." The website did concede that the book is a notable achievement for such a young author, and that it would be "appreciated" by younger fans.
Favorable reviews of Eragon often focused on the book's characters and plot. IGN's Matt Casamassina called the book "entertaining", and added that "Paolini demonstrates that he understands how to hold the reader's eyes and this is what ultimately separates Eragon from countless other me-too fantasy novels." Chris Lawrence of About.com thought the book had all the "traditional ingredients" that make a fantasy novel "enjoyable". The book was a "fun read" for him because it is "quick and exciting" and "packed" with action and magic. Lawrence concluded his review by giving the book a rating of 3.8/5, commenting that "the characters are interesting, the plot is engrossing, and you know the good guy will win in the end."
Eragon was the third best-selling children's hardback book of 2003, and the second best-selling children's paperback of 2005. It placed on the New York Times Children's Books Best Seller list for 121 weeks. In 2006, the novel was awarded with a Nene Award by the children of Hawaii. It won the Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award and the Young Reader's Choice Award the same year.
## Adaptations
### Film
A film adaptation of Eragon was released in the United States on December 15, 2006. Plans to create the film were first announced in February 2004, when 20th Century Fox purchased the rights to Eragon. The film was directed by first-timer Stefen Fangmeier, and written by Peter Buchman. Edward Speleers was selected for the role of Eragon. Over the following months, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Chris Egan and Djimon Hounsou were all confirmed as joining the cast. Principal photography for the film took place in Hungary and Slovakia.
The film received mostly negative reviews, garnering a 16% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes; the tenth worst of 2006. The Seattle Times described it as "technically accomplished, but fairly lifeless and at times a bit silly". The Hollywood Reporter said the world of Eragon was "without much texture or depth". The story was labelled "derivative" by The Washington Post, and "generic" by the Las Vegas Weekly. Newsday stressed this point further, asserting that only "nine-year-olds with no knowledge whatsoever of any of the six Star Wars movies" would find the film original. The acting was called "lame" by the Washington Post, as well as "stilted" and "lifeless" by the Orlando Weekly. The dialogue was also criticized: MSNBC labelled it "silly"; the Las Vegas Weekly called it "wooden". Positive reviews described the film as "fun" and "the stuff boys' fantasies are made of". The CGI work was called "imaginative" and Saphira was called a "magnificent creation". Paolini stated he enjoyed the film, particularly praising the performances of Jeremy Irons and Ed Speleers.
Eragon grossed approximately \$75 million in the United States and \$173.9 million elsewhere, totaling \$249 million worldwide. It is the fifth highest-grossing film with a dragon at its focal point, and the sixth highest-grossing film of the sword and sorcery subgenre. Eragon was in release for seventeen weeks in the United States, opening on December 15, 2006 and closing on April 9, 2007. It opened in 3,020 theaters, earning \$8.7 million on opening day and \$23.2 million across opening weekend, ranking second behind The Pursuit of Happyness. Eragon's \$75 million total United States gross was the thirty-first highest for 2006. The film earned \$150 million in its opening weekend across 76 overseas markets, making it the \#1 film worldwide. The film's \$249 million total worldwide gross was the sixteenth highest for 2006.
### Television series
In June 2021, Christopher Paolini tweeted \#EragonRemake in an effort to get Disney, the intellectual rights holders following their acquisition of 21st Century Fox, to revamp the book series into a possible television show for Disney+. Within hours, the hashtag began to trend with fans pushing for a proper adaptation. On July 25, 2022, Variety reported that a live action television series adaptation of Eragon was in early development for Disney+, with Paolini serving as a co-writer on the series, and with Bert Salke executive producing.
### Video game
A video game adaptation of Eragon based primarily on the film, released in North America on November 14, 2006. The game is a third-person video game released for PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows, developed by Stormfront Studios. Also released are unique versions of Eragon for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, and mobile phone handheld gaming systems, primarily developed by Amaze Entertainment. The console and PC versions of the game are very similar, focusing on the same style of gameplay. However, the Xbox 360 edition features two exclusive levels. One is on foot as Eragon, and Saphira is controlled in the second mission.
The game has received generally negative reviews usually receiving press averages around 4–6 out of 10 (or equivalent), according to review aggregator sites Metacritic and GameRankings. The combined sales in North America were over 400,000 copies.
The majority of the game is taken up by third-person combat, usually on foot. Some missions permit the player to use the dragon Saphira in combat. The gameplay mechanics within these levels are largely similar to those in ground-based levels, with the exception of some different attack moves (such as tail attacks). Protagonist Eragon sits on Saphira's back during these sections, and can be made to fire magic arrows. The player has no choice as to whether or not they use Saphira. Similarly, the player cannot use Saphira in ground-based levels: they can call for her and she will swoop past, but it is not possible to use this feature to ride Saphira. There is a multiplayer co-op mode which allows two people to play through the main storyline. It is possible to switch from playing a one-player game to a two-player game at any time. There are no Internet multiplayer options.
|
15,825,237 |
Fabyan Windmill
| 1,142,783,758 |
Windmill in Geneva Township, Kane County, Illinois
|
[
"Buildings and structures in Kane County, Illinois",
"Dutch-American culture in Illinois",
"Geneva, Illinois",
"Grinding mills in Illinois",
"Grinding mills on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois",
"Industrial buildings completed in 1860",
"Mill museums in the United States",
"Museums in Kane County, Illinois",
"National Register of Historic Places in Kane County, Illinois",
"Nature reserves in Illinois",
"Octagonal buildings in the United States",
"Protected areas of Kane County, Illinois",
"Riverbank Laboratories",
"Smock mills in the United States",
"Towers completed in 1860",
"Windmills completed in 1860",
"Windmills in Illinois",
"Windmills on the National Register of Historic Places"
] |
The Fabyan Windmill is an authentic, working Dutch windmill dating from the 1850s located in Geneva, Kane County, Illinois, just north of Batavia, Illinois, off Illinois Route 25. The five-story wooden smock mill with a stage, which stands 68 feet (21 m) tall, sits upon the onetime estate of Colonel George Fabyan, but is now part of the Kane County Forest Preserve District.
In 1979, the windmill was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Dutch Mill. The following year, the windmill was selected to be on a U.S. postage stamp, as part of a series of five windmills in a stamp booklet called "Windmills USA." It originally operated as a custom grinding mill.
## History
During the mid-19th century, the Fabyan Windmill was constructed by German craftsmen, Louis Blackhaus, and his brother-in-law Freidrick Brockmann, on a site at Meyers Road near 16th Street in York Township between Elmhurst and Oak Brook, Illinois (now Lombard, Illinois).
By the early 20th century, the windmill had fallen into a state of disrepair. In 1914, George Fabyan purchased the disused windmill for approximately \$8,000 from Mrs. Fred Runge. He then had it moved to its present location in Geneva Township on the east side of the Fox River, close to Illinois Route 25 in July 1915. Fabyan spent an estimated \$75,000 to have it moved, reconstructed, and restored.
The Edgar E. Belding Company of West Chicago was contracted by Fabyan to move the windmill from York Center. It was slowly dismantled piece by piece, with Roman numerals carved into the beams and braces to facilitate correct reconstruction. Some of the largest beams had to be hauled by a team of mules.
The windmill was reassembled on its present site by a Danish millwright named Rasmussen, with the assistance of John Johnson and six others from the Wilson Bros. Construction Co. After nineteen months, the relocation and reconstruction were completed. The mill was a wonder in its day, because it is thought to be the only fully automatic wind-driven mill of its type.
George Fabyan died in 1936, and his wife died two years later. The estate was then sold by the executors of the will to the Kane County Forest Preserve District for \$70,500.
## Structure
The giant cypress wood beams, trimmed with black walnut, are all hand joined and doweled with wood dowels. In fact, there are no metal nails used inside the structure. Even the original gearing was handmade of hickory and maple, with all five floors containing different mechanisms.
The windmill was a functioning mill used by the Fabyans for grinding several types of grain, including corn, wheat, rye, and oats. It also served as a grain mill for Fabyan's herd of prized Jersey cattle.
At the mill's top, or cap, is a huge cogged wheel called the brake wheel, which was turned by wind blowing against the sails. The sails are covered with canvas sailcloths to help catch the wind. The sails had to be entirely reconstructed by Rasmussen and John Johnson, because they were missing when Fabyan bought the mill. The sails span 74 feet 4 inches. The brake wheel, located in the cap, rotates an upright shaft running the height of the mill. This shaft supplied power to all of the mill's operations.
There is a set of belt-driven elevators, remarkable for its time, that moved the grains from chutes to hoppers, and even from floor to floor, making the mill almost fully automatic. Most other mills required workers to hand shovel materials between operations.
During its reconstruction, the Colonel had a new foundation poured, which created a basement. In the basement, he had ovens installed whose vents and chimney extended underground beneath Route 25 to a structure that once stood on the other side. In addition to the ovens, marble slabs and cooling racks were also installed. It is thought that at one time, the windmill basement was an operating bakery. During the flour rationing of World War I, the bakery supposedly produced bread for the Fabyan family and even for their two bears, Tom and Jerry. However, the extent of use of the mill's bakery is debatable due to an inadequate oven draft.
## Significance
The wind-powered mill is a type that was rarely built in the United States, where grist mills are usually powered by water. Its wooden gears and nail-less construction techniques are of interest both technically and architecturally. The mill is also an example of an America folly, a structure built primarily to enhance the landscape or view. In this case, George Fabyan, a wealthy merchant, purchased and moved the by-then inoperative mill to beautify his estate, but maintained it as a private mill with no commercial value.
## Today
Kane County considered the windmill's demolition as early as 1990 when it became structurally unsafe for public inspection. However, local citizens began fighting to keep the mill intact. In 1997, the Forest Preserve District contracted third-generation Dutch windmill maker Lucas Verbij to fully restore the windmill for a cost of over \$900,000. It made its public debut in June 2005.
> The Fabyan Windmill is the best example of an authentic Dutch windmill in the United States, actually it's a treasure and would be the most popular windmill in the Netherlands (we currently have 1000 windmills).
The grinding mechanisms to make flour have been restored and are in use today by mill volunteers who do demonstrations to the public.
Even now, the varnish from 1915 is in near perfect condition because the climate inside the mill varies little from season to season due to its superior construction, and the Roman numeral markings carved into the beams used in original reconstruction are still visible.
|
352,992 |
Great Hurricane of 1780
| 1,172,857,001 |
Category 5 Atlantic hurricane
|
[
"1780 disasters in the United States",
"1780 in the Caribbean",
"1780 natural disasters",
"1780s Atlantic hurricane seasons",
"18th century in Guadeloupe",
"18th century in Haiti",
"Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes",
"History of British Saint Christopher and Nevis",
"Hurricanes in Barbados",
"Hurricanes in Bermuda",
"Hurricanes in Dominica",
"Hurricanes in Guadeloupe",
"Hurricanes in Martinique",
"Hurricanes in Puerto Rico",
"Hurricanes in Saba (island)",
"Hurricanes in Saint Kitts and Nevis",
"Hurricanes in Sint Eustatius",
"Hurricanes in the British Virgin Islands",
"Hurricanes in the Leeward Islands",
"Hurricanes in the United States Virgin Islands",
"Hurricanes in the Windward Islands",
"Natural disasters in the Leeward Islands",
"Natural disasters in the Windward Islands"
] |
The Great Hurricane of 1780 was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, as well as the deadliest tropical cyclone in the Western Hemisphere. An estimated 22,000 people died throughout the Lesser Antilles when the storm passed through the islands from October 10 to October 16. Specifics on the hurricane's track and strength are unknown, as the official Atlantic hurricane database only goes back to 1851.
The hurricane struck Barbados likely as a Category 5 hurricane, with at least one estimate of wind speeds as high as 200 mph (320 km/h) (greater than any in recorded Atlantic basin history) before moving past Martinique, Saint Lucia, and Sint Eustatius, and causing thousands of deaths on those islands. Coming in the midst of the American Revolution, the storm caused heavy losses to the British fleet contesting for control of the area, largely weakening British control over the Atlantic. The hurricane later passed near Puerto Rico and over the eastern portion of Hispaniola, causing heavy damage near the coastlines. It ultimately turned to the northeast and was last observed on October 20 southeast of Atlantic Canada.
The death toll from the Great Hurricane alone exceeds that of many entire decades of Atlantic hurricanes. Estimates are marginally higher than for Hurricane Mitch, the second-deadliest Atlantic storm, for which figures are likely more precise. The hurricane was part of the disastrous 1780 Atlantic hurricane season, with two other deadly storms occurring in October.
## Meteorological history
This hurricane was first encountered by a boat in the eastern Caribbean Sea, but it may have developed in early October in the eastern Atlantic Ocean off the Cape Verde Islands. The system ultimately strengthened and expanded as it tracked slowly westward; affecting Barbados late on October 9. Late on October 10, the worst of the hurricane passed over the island, with at least one estimate of winds as high as 200 mph (320 km/h) during landfall, which is higher than any other 1-minute sustained wind speed in recorded Atlantic basin history. Early on October 11, the hurricane turned north-northwest about 90 kilometers (56 mi) east of Saint Lucia, and later that night it neared the island of Martinique. The cyclone gradually weakened as it passed to the southwest of Dominica early on October 12 and subsequently struck the island of Guadeloupe.
After hitting Guadeloupe, the hurricane turned west-northwest, passing about 145 km (90 mi) southwest of Saint Kitts. The hurricane steadily neared Puerto Rico as it paralleled the southern coastline, and on October 14 made its closest point of approach, to the southwest portion of the island. It subsequently turned to the northwest, going through the Mona Passage before making landfall near the present-day Dominican Republic province of Samaná. Late on October 15, it reached the Atlantic Ocean and after passing about 260 km (160 mi) east of Grand Turk Island; it is estimated to have recurved to the northeast. The hurricane passed 240 km (150 mi) southeast of Bermuda on October 18, and was last observed two days later about 475 km (295 mi) southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland, Canada.
On October 19, strong winds and high tides were reported in the British province of East Florida (the northeastern portion of present-day Florida). Christopher W. Landsea and Al Sandrik, NOAA employees, write that it is possible the hurricane passed much closer to the province than previously thought. Another possibility considered was an extension to a hurricane in the western Caribbean Sea. Because of lack of data, the exact track of the Great Hurricane is unknown.
## Impact
Estimates of the death toll from the hurricane range from 22,000 to about 28,500, making it the deadliest hurricane in the recorded history of the Atlantic hurricane basin.
### British islands
About 4,500 people died on Barbados. The hurricane began affecting the island with rain late on October 9. The ships in the bay broke their moorings by 4:00 the afternoon of October 10, and the full impact arrived around 6:00 in the evening. The hurricane produced violent winds "so deafening that people could not hear their own voices."
> ... a dreadful hurricane which began to rage with great fury at noon [the 10th] and continue with great violence till four o'clock the next morning, the 11th; At eight o'clock at night St. Thomas's parsonage was demolished and the church where the Rector and his family sought shelter began to fall about two hours after, the Chancel fell while the family were in the church ... St. Thomas's Chapel, St. Michael's, St. George's, Christ Church's and St. Lucy's churches were totally destroyed, the other churches were severely 'injured' (except St. Peter's and St. Philip's). Because of the demolition of the parish church and chapel[,] 'divine services' continued in the 'boiling house' at the 'Rock Hall' estate of Thomas Harper by Rev Wm Duke and curate Hugh Austin of St Thomas. Most other buildings and works were blown down and many lives were lost. The dead could not be brought to a church so were buried in gardens and private land.
The hurricane stripped the bark off trees and left none standing on Barbados. Cuban meteorologist José Carlos Millás has estimated that this damage could be caused only by winds exceeding 200 miles per hour (320 km/h). Every house and fort on Barbados was destroyed. According to British Admiral George Brydges Rodney, the winds carried their heavy cannons aloft 100 feet (30 m).
The wind directions recorded during the hurricane suggest that the eye missed Barbados to the north. Northwesterly winds increased through the day on October 10. The wind gradually backed to westerly through the night of October 10 and peaked at midnight. Wind speed returned to normal by 8:00 the morning of October 11.
Strong winds affected Antigua and Saint Kitts, with many ships in Saint Kitts washed ashore. At Grenada, nineteen Dutch ships were wrecked.
The hurricane later grounded 50 ships near Bermuda.
### French islands
The hurricane produced a 25-foot (7.6 m) storm surge on Martinique, destroying all houses in Saint-Pierre and causing 9,000 deaths. A storm surge also struck the south coast of Guadeloupe and caused considerable damage.
In Saint Vincent, the hurricane destroyed 584 of the 600 houses in Kingstown.
On Saint Lucia, rough waves and a strong storm tide struck the fleet of Admiral Rodney at Port Castries, with one ship destroying the city's hospital after being lifted on top of it. The hurricane destroyed all but two houses in Port Castries, and about 6,000 perished on the island.
High winds, heavy rains, and storm surge caused severe damage at Roseau in Dominica.
The attorney general of Guadeloupe writes:
> The gale of wind which happened on the 12th Oct. was the most severe perhaps ever known. Barbadoes suffered amazingly, 6500 souls perished. Tobago laid waste, Grenades, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Martinique, suffered more than any person can conceive. St. Kitts and Eustatia, did not escape without damage: this island did but just feel it.
### Dutch islands
A Dutch sea-officer was on a ship that was blown from Sint Eustatius to Martinique. When he returned to Sint Eustatius, he reported on the damage in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, Saint Vincent, and St. Lucia. He, the author writes in his letter:
> A short while ago it pleased the Lord Almighty to show us his power. Here we had from 12 to 22 October of this year a very fierce wind & a heavy see that ruined a lot of houses and warehouses, yes even many ships were wrecked and many people were killed. The wall has been completely washed away by the sea and the back of the house has been left only on single struts, yes it was so heavy that the sea flew over our house but we may thank the Lord for his mercy that we have come off so well.
He did not mention a dramatic death toll on the island. He also said that the situation there was not as bad as on the French and English islands.
### Spanish islands
Heavy damage was reported in southern Puerto Rico, primarily in Cabo Rojo and Lajas. Severe damage also occurred in the eastern region of the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo.
### Losses by the British Royal Navy
Among the ships lost from Rodney's fleet were the frigates HMS Phoenix, which was wrecked on the Cuban coast, and HMS Blanche, which disappeared without a trace. The sixth rate frigates HMS Andromeda and HMS Laurel were wrecked on Martinique with heavy loss of life. By far the worst losses in the British fleet, however, were under the command of Vice Admiral Peter Parker and Rear-Admiral Joshua Rowley. At the time of the hurricane, Rowley was off the coast of New York with a portion of the fleet, including HMS Sandwich, while Parker was in Port Royal, Jamaica. Many of their ships, however, were in the hurricane's path. HMS Thunderer, HMS Stirling Castle, HMS Scarborough, HMS Barbados, HMS Deal Castle, HMS Victor, and HMS Endeavour were lost, among others, and almost all of their crews died. Seven other ships were dismasted.
### Losses by the French navy
A fleet of 40 French ships involved in the American Revolutionary War was struck off Martinique during the hurricane. Several hundred soldiers and about 9,000 civilians died; however, the French military's only loss was the frigate Junon.
## Name
The storm was named the San Calixto hurricane in Puerto Rico because the eye of the cyclone made landfall there on October 14, the Christian feast day of Pope Callixtus I, venerated by the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Callixtus ("San Calixto" in Spanish). Since European arrival in the Americas in 1492, all storms and hurricanes had been named after the name of the saint of the day the storm hit Puerto Rico; for example, the 1867 San Narciso hurricane, the 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane, the 1928 San Felipe hurricane, and the 1932 San Ciprian hurricane were named after the feast day on which they struck.
In 1953, the United States Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) started naming hurricanes by female human names until 1978, when both gender names began to be used after control over naming was relinquished to the World Meteorological Organization. However, it was only in 1960 that hurricanes stopped being officially named after saints in Puerto Rico; the only two cyclones to ever have both an official woman name and an informal saint name were Hurricane Betsy (Santa Clara, August 12, 1956) and Hurricane Donna (San Lorenzo, September 5, 1960).
## See also
- List of Bermuda hurricanes
- List of deadliest Atlantic hurricanes
- Lists of Atlantic hurricanes
- Hurricane Irma – A powerful Category 5 hurricane that affected similar areas in 2017
|
8,799,151 |
Memento Mori (The X-Files)
| 1,167,594,572 | null |
[
"1997 American television episodes",
"Television episodes set in Pennsylvania",
"Television episodes written by Chris Carter (screenwriter)",
"Television episodes written by Frank Spotnitz",
"Television episodes written by Vince Gilligan",
"The X-Files (season 4) episodes"
] |
"Memento Mori" is the fourteenth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on February 9, 1997. It was directed by Rob Bowman, and written by series creator Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz. "Memento Mori" featured guest appearances by Sheila Larken, David Lovgren and Morris Panych. The episode helped to explore the overarching mythology, or fictional history of The X-Files. "Memento Mori" earned a Nielsen household rating of 15.5, being watched by 19.1 million people in its initial broadcast. The title translates from Latin as "remember that you will die."
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. When Scully is diagnosed with an inoperable nasopharyngeal tumor, Mulder attempts to discover what happened to her during her abduction experience, believing the two events to be related.
"Memento Mori" was written in only two days, when previous series writer Darin Morgan did not contribute a script for the season. Discussion between the writing staff led to the "obligatory" decision to have Scully diagnosed with cancer, although the decision was not unanimous. Guest actor Lovgren portrayed multiple clones of his character using post-production techniques to merge several shots, while actor Pat Skipper had a scene cut from the final episode for time restraints, later appearing in the season finale.
## Plot
Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) learns that she has a cancerous tumor between her sinus and cerebrum. She initially tells only Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) of the diagnosis, and is determined to continue to work. The agents head to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to see Betsy Hagopian, a Mutual UFO Network member who was previously discovered to be suffering from similar symptoms. The agents learn that Betsy has died, yet find someone using her phone line. They trace the call to Kurt Crawford (David Lovgren), a fellow MUFON member. Crawford tells them that all but one of the MUFON members Scully previously met have died of cancer. Scully is skeptical of Mulder and Crawford's claims that a government conspiracy and her abduction are behind her illness.
Scully visits the last surviving MUFON member, Penny Northern, who is being treated for cancer at a medical centre. Meanwhile, Mulder discovers that all the abductees were childless but had been treated at a nearby fertility clinic. When Mulder is called away by Scully, an assassin, the Gray-Haired Man (Morris Panych) arrives and kills Crawford with a stiletto weapon, revealing him to be an alien-human hybrid. After meeting Penny's physician, Dr. Scanlon, Scully elects to begin chemotherapy. Mulder sneaks into the clinic and finds Crawford there, seemingly alive. Mulder and "Crawford" hack into the clinic's computer database and find information revealing Scully has a file there. Mulder sees Skinner and asks to deal with The Smoking Man to save Scully, but Skinner convinces him not to do so.
Mulder recruits The Lone Gunmen to help him break into a high security research facility where he thinks he may be able to find more information on how to save Scully. Meanwhile, Skinner tries to deal directly with The Smoking Man for Scully's life, who tells him he will get back to him. Inside the facility, Mulder discovers that Dr. Scanlon works alongside several clones of Kurt Crawford. The clones show him Scully's harvested ova and tell him they are trying to save the abducted women's lives, since they acted as their birth mothers. They also hope to subvert the colonization project as an inside job. Mulder takes Scully's ova and leaves, being pursued by the Gray-Haired Man as he escapes. He returns to the hospital to see Scully, who tells him that Penny has died but that she intends to fight the disease. Afterward, Mulder phones Skinner to let him know that Scully is doing okay and may return to work soon, as well as thanking him for his advice about not negotiating with the Smoking Man. Skinner and the Smoking Man later come to terms on their deal in seclusion.
## Production
The show's producers decided to give Gillian Anderson's character Dana Scully cancer early in the fourth season. Series creator Chris Carter initially discussed giving Scully's mother cancer but decided to have Scully suffer from it instead. Carter felt the move would give the show an interesting platform on which to discuss things such as faith, science, health care and a certain element of the paranormal. Some of the writing staff felt that the decision was a poor one to make, citing it as "a cheap TV thing". However, Frank Spotnitz felt that, given the appearances of cancer-stricken abductees in previous episodes, it was an "obligatory" move to have Scully follow suit.
The episode was written by Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz three days after another script idea fell through. Spotnitz noted that "Darin Morgan had left the show but was going to contribute an episode. And we realized at the eleventh hour that it wasn't going to happen, and we were stuck with nothing. John, Vince and I broke that story in maybe two days. We split up the acts, wrote it in probably another two days, and gave the crew something to prep before Christmas break. That was the worst ever." Carter ended up rewriting the script over the holiday. The initial cut ended up being too long, resulting in a scene introducing Scully's older brother Bill Scully, played by Pat Skipper, being removed. The character, still played by Skipper, would eventually make his first appearance in the fourth-season finale "Gethsemane". The scene which would have established the character was intended to echo a similar scene in the second season episode "One Breath", which featured Don S. Davis as Scully's father. Both scenes featured the actors standing over a supine Scully, wearing white United States Navy dress uniforms. Also deleted from the episode was a kiss between Mulder and Scully, which would have been the first in the series' run. This was an ad-lib on Anderson and Duchovny's part, and was removed from the episode as it was something Chris Carter felt he wanted to make use of in the series' film adaptation. Such a kiss was eventually deferred to season six's "Triangle".
The episode's opening scene, featuring a camera moving slowly towards Scully in a harsh white light, was achieved by constructing a long narrow set covered in aluminium foil, which amplified the light being used and downplayed any colors. This shot was drained of color entirely, and was combined with a series of blurring and framing effects in post-production to further enhance the intended image—to create the impression of waking from a dream.
A scene featuring multiple clones of the character Kurt Crawford was achieved with motion control photography, allowing actor David Lovgren to portray all of the clones—multiple takes were recorded with the actor in different positions within the scene, and by using a camera controlled by a computer to follow exactly the same motions for each take, these could be seamlessly composited together. Producer Paul Rabwin has noted that achieving these shots was difficult due to the mixture of green and blue light sources in the scene.
## Broadcast and reception
"Memento Mori" premiered on the Fox network on February 9, 1997, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on December 10, 1997. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.5 with a 17 share, meaning that roughly 11.5 percent of all television-equipped households, and 17 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. A total of 19.10 million viewers watched this episode during its original airing.
Writing for The A.V. Club, Emily VanDerWerff rated the episode an A, calling it "an occasionally beautiful, occasionally haunting, often overwritten story". She felt that the episode took the uncommon route of tying together several previously-mentioned aspects of the series' mythology, making it "easy to believe the pieces might come together at this point". However, VanDerWerff also noted that the episode's two main plot threads—Scully's cancer and Mulder's investigation—seemed "clumsily grafted" together, and did not explore the theme of living with the fear of death as well as the previous episode, "Never Again", had done. Frank Spotnitz praised the episode, saying, "I think that was the best mythology episode we ever did. It's my favorite one". Chris Carter has stated that he feels "Memento Mori" ranks "among the best mythology episodes of all nine seasons".
This episode was submitted to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to represent The X-Files in that year's Primetime Emmy Awards. Episode writers Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz were nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Art directors Graeme Murray and Gary Allen and set decorator Shirley Inget won the Creative Emmy Award for Best Art Direction in a Series, while actress Gillian Anderson also won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her work in this episode and the fourth season as a whole.
|
9,135,230 |
Mars, Bars
| 1,158,357,096 | null |
[
"2007 American television episodes",
"Veronica Mars (season 3) episodes"
] |
"Mars, Bars" is the fourteenth episode of the third season of the American mystery television series Veronica Mars, and the fifty-eighth episode overall. Directed by Harry Winer, with a story by Phil Klemmer, John Enbom, and Joe Voci and a teleplay by Klemmer and Enbom, the episode premiered on The CW on February 20, 2007. The series depicts the adventures of Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) as she deals with life as a college student while moonlighting as a private detective.
The episode is the second of two to deal directly with the death of Hearst's basketball coach, Tom Barry (Matt McKenzie). In this installment, Veronica and Keith (Enrico Colantoni) search for Tom's missing son Josh (Jonathan Chase) while investigating a variety of alternate suspects. In addition, they continue to question Mindy O'Dell (Jaime Ray Newman) and Hank Landry (Patrick Fabian) with regards to the death of Dean Cyrus O'Dell. Meanwhile, Logan (Jason Dohring), Parker (Julie Gonzalo), Mac (Tina Majorino), and Bronson (Michael Mitchell) attend a scavenger hunt for Valentine's Day.
"Mars, Bars" marks the final appearance of series Michael Muhney, the actor of Sheriff Lamb, after the death of his character. Muhney was not informed of his character's death until the filming of the episode; he was surprised and saddened at the decision. Spoilers about the scene were not leaked prior to the episode, something about which Muhney was happy. In addition, Mac was initially scheduled to be taken advantage of by a professor in this episode, but a romantic relationship with Bronson was chosen instead. The episode garnered 2.27 million viewers and positive reviews from television critics, with many praising Muhney's performance and viewing it as a return to form for the show, while some were more critical of Logan's subplot.
## Plot synopsis
At the end of the previous episode, Postgame Mortem, Veronica is arrested by Sheriff Lamb (Michael Muhney) on the suspicion that she helped the now-missing Josh Barry to escape from prison. This episode opens with Lamb questioning her and learning little, as she had nothing to do with his disappearance.
Keith, Veronica's father and owner of Mars Investigations, their detective firm, visits Veronica in jail. Cliff McCormack (Daran Norris), a local public defender, also arrives, and tells Veronica that she has been all but cleared, but Sheriff Lamb will keep her in custody for as long as he can because he still believes she was involved in Josh's disappearance. Keith returns to Mars Investigations, where Hank Landry arrives and says that he found a bugging device in his phone. Landry had been implicated in the ongoing investigation into the death of Cyrus O’Dell, dean of Hearst College where Veronica is a student. Keith denies that he or Veronica placed the device in his phone, but Hank becomes angry, telling him to stop investigating him.
Keith brings his findings on the death of Cyrus to Sheriff Lamb and provides an alternate explanation; that the Dean had discovered his wife was having an affair. Lamb agrees with him that it was a murder. Lamb calls Mindy O'Dell, the dean's wife and a main suspect, to his office. Logan, Veronica's on-again, off-again boyfriend, visits Veronica in her cell and they are civil to each other. After being released from jail, Veronica is stopped on the street by Josh, who has Mason (Robert Ri'chard) in the trunk of his car, frantically telling Veronica that Mason is the culprit. When Veronica disproves this claim, she tells Josh to call her using a disposable phone within 24 hours. Veronica releases Mason from the trunk.
Logan takes a wireless card to Mac as a favor, and she, Parker, and Bronson invite him on a night out. Logan, Mac, Bronson, and Parker take part in a Valentine's Day scavenger hunt. The quartet find their last clue at a beach. Mac and Bronson kiss, while Parker and Logan bond while swimming. The scavenger hunt ends, and they come in third place. Logan and Parker leave, and Mac and Bronson have sex for the first time.
While reviewing the O'Dell case, Veronica notices that the TV station the dean was watching the night he was murdered had moved its programming back an hour, meaning their estimated time of death was wrong. The forensic results about the prints in O'Dell’s room come back, and they are the fingerprints of Steve Botando (Richard Grieco). Steve Botando is investigated by Sheriff Lamb.
Keith investigates the Coach Barry case more, finding that the Coach had Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. His wife took out a life insurance policy several days before his death with a double indemnity clause. Keith talks to Coach Barry's wife, who pulls out a gun on him. It is a Colt .45, the gun that was used to kill Coach Barry. However, she claims that she was not intending to shoot Keith and that it is a relic of the Coach's army days. Sheriff Lamb receives a call about a robbery at the O'Dell house. It is Steve Botando, who bludgeons Lamb until he is mortally wounded.
Veronica gives Josh a new ID, and he successfully unlocks his safe-deposit box at a bank. Inside is a DVD of Coach Barry telling Josh about his condition and that he was planning to have a friend kill him to avoid futile medical expenses and give his family the insurance money. Josh flees the country until he is old enough to receive the money his father left aside. Veronica shows Keith the DVD. Keith calls the Sheriff's office and finds that Sheriff Lamb has just died from his wounds. Veronica sees Logan and Parker talking.
Keith, now acting Sheriff, questions Mindy with new evidence, claiming that Mindy is protecting Hank or Hank is protecting Mindy. The story continues in the next episode, Papa's Cabin.
## Production
### Writing and filming
"Mars, Bars" features a story by Phil Klemmer, John Enbom, and Joe Voci and a teleplay by Klemmer and Enbom, marking Klemmer's fourteenth installment of the series, Enbom's fifteenth episode for the show, and Voci's second and final writing credit (after "Postgame Mortem"). It was directed by Harry Winer, marking his fifth and final directing credit for Veronica Mars, after "Meet John Smith", "Blast from the Past", "Wichita Linebacker", and "Of Vice and Men". The scene on the beach was the work of Winer, whom Thomas referred to as a "visual stylist". He enjoyed the scene for showing Neptune as a California beach town while distinguishing itself due to the cold weather, a visual characteristic that he felt was not portrayed often enough.
"Mars, Bars" features the reappearance of the character of Bronson, who had previously appeared in "Show Me the Monkey". Mac loses her virginity to Bronson in the episode. The writers had initially planned a storyline in which Mac would be taken advantage of by a professor due to her fragile emotional state following her romance with Beaver (Kyle Gallner), however that storyline was removed, partially due to the fact that Thomas and the crew wanted Mac to have something positive happen to her. Prior to the filming of this episode, Thomas counseled Jason Dohring and Julie Gonzalo, who play Logan and Parker, respectively, on the two characters' interpersonal chemistry in the episode. Specifically, he did not want them to make their flirting obvious, but rather give "a whiff of connection".
### Acting
This episode marks the final appearance of series regular Michael Muhney, who plays Don Lamb on the show, after his character is bludgeoned to death by Steve Botando, played by Richard Grieco. Muhney did not know about his character's death until receiving the script for the episode. This was roughly six weeks before the episode's airing and during filming. Muhney did not know the rationale for killing the character, but when he found out, he stated that "I felt like a piece of me was dying as well." He also stated that he was also heartbroken because he had grown attached to the character over the course of three years playing him. Muhney also expressed surprise over the writing decision.
Because the crew shoots scenes out of order, the last scene that Muhney filmed was the one in which Keith offers to help Lamb in investigating the break-in at the O'Dell residence. He enjoyed acting with Grieco, calling him "very approachable." He was also pleased with the character's sendoff, stating that it was appropriate. He wished that he had more time to say farewells to each cast and crew member individually. Lamb's last words were "I smell bread"; Muhney explained that it was a reference to a minor character death on M\*A\*S\*H. He stated that it was an in-joke among the crew and that the words had "no significance within the borders of Neptune." However, Muhney thought of it as his character's last burst of sarcasm.
The reveal of Sheriff Lamb's death was not leaked anywhere online prior to the airing of "Mars, Bars", something about which Muhney was happy. He stated that "the surprise was the best part" and that he disliked it when spoilers from other series were released early. After the episode's initial airing, Muhney reported that his inbox was flooded with emails from press members seeking interviews, stating that new messages came after the airing in each United States time zone. Some fans were upset about his death, and debate occurred online. However, Muhney also received messages of support for the character, commenting "it's nice to know that he will be missed." With the announcement of the Veronica Mars film in 2013, Zap2it speculated that Muhney might return; however, this was later revealed not to be the case when the official casting was announced. Thomas praised Daran Norris's performance in the episode, particularly his voice in the scene in which he defends Steve Botando in front of Sheriff Lamb. Thomas noted that Norris was also a voice actor and that he was particularly well-liked on the set for his humorous performances.
## Reception
### Ratings
In its original broadcast, "Mars, Bars" received 2.27 million viewers, ranking 96th of 99 in the weekly rankings. This was a decrease of 100,000 viewers from the figures of the previous episode, "Postgame Mortem", which garnered 2.37 million viewers.
### Reviews
The episode received generally positive reviews from television critics. Eric Goldman, writing for IGN, gave the episode an 8.8 out of 10, indicating that it was "great". He referred to "Mars, Bars" as one of the finest episodes of season three, praising the Valentine's Day subplot, the development of the mystery of Dean O'Dell's death, and Muhney's performance. Regarding Logan, he opined that although he did not like him moping after his breakup with Veronica, this episode fixed that by including him in the Valentine's Day subplot and setting up a romantic relationship with Parker: "it's just a huge relief to see Logan in a different light and interacting with different people, finally." He also praised Lamb's death scene as being devoid of clichés by not giving him an act of heroism for his dying moments. Reviewer Alan Sepinwall, on his blog What's Alan Watching?, lauded the episode. He saw the episode and the previous episode as a return to form for Veronica Mars, writing, "it's episodes like these last two that remind me of what this show looks like when it's really cooking." He also enjoyed the lack of a redemptive moment for Lamb at the end of his life as well as the comedic value of some scenes in the episode.
BuddyTV wrote that "Mars, Bars" was an example of the best the series could get. The reviewer praised all of the interconnecting subplots, Jason Dohring's performance, and the episode's pacing, writing, "Anybody who was kvetching over the slow pace of the last few weeks of Veronica Mars got a huge payoff tonight." Rowan Kaiser, writing for The A.V. Club, gave a mixed review. While he was positive towards Lamb's death, he criticized the subplot involving Mac, Logan, Parker, and Bronson. Regarding Lamb, he opined that it made him realize how much he had enjoyed the role; however, he thought that "knowing that the show is almost finished limits its impact." He was positive towards Keith's role in the episode but referred to the Valentine's Day plot as out of character for the show for its happy feel. "It's cute. And cuteness in an episode with the shocking death of a recurring character seems out of place." Television Without Pity graded the episode a "B".
BuddyTV also ranked Sheriff Lamb's death 7th on its list of the seven saddest TV deaths of 2007. On a ranking of all 64 Veronica Mars episodes, Anais Bordages of BuzzFeed ranked the episode 13th. After the series was announced as being cancelled by The CW, fans collectively sent nearly 10,000 Mars bars to Dawn Ostroff, the president of the network as a reference to the show, but the attempt was futile.
|
74,126,973 |
Death and immortality in Middle-earth
| 1,173,390,997 |
Theme in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction
|
[
"Fiction about death",
"Middle-earth themes",
"Themes of The Lord of the Rings"
] |
J. R. R. Tolkien repeatedly dealt with the theme of death and immortality in Middle-earth. He stated that the "real theme" of The Lord of the Rings was "Death and Immortality". In Middle-earth, Men are mortal, while Elves are immortal. One of his stories, The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, explores the willing choice of death through the love of an immortal Elf for a mortal Man. He several times revisited the Old Norse theme of the mountain tomb, containing treasure along with the dead and visited by fighting. He brought multiple leading evil characters in The Lord of the Rings to a fiery end, including Gollum, the Nazgûl, the Dark Lord Sauron, and the evil Wizard Saruman, while in The Hobbit, the dragon Smaug is killed. Their destruction contrasts with the heroic deaths of two leaders of the free peoples, Théoden of Rohan and Boromir of Gondor, reflecting the early Medieval ideal of Northern courage. Despite these pagan themes, the work contains hints of Christianity, such as of the resurrection of Christ, as when the Lord of the Nazgûl, thinking himself victorious, calls himself Death, only to be answered by the crowing of a cockerel. There are, too, hints that the Elvish land of Lothlórien represents an Earthly Paradise. Scholars have commented that Tolkien clearly moved during his career from being oriented towards pagan themes to a more Christian theology.
## Context
J. R. R. Tolkien was a scholar of English literature, a philologist and medievalist interested in language and poetry from the Middle Ages, especially that of Anglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe. His professional knowledge of Beowulf, telling of a pagan world but with a Christian narrator, helped to shape his fictional world of Middle-earth. His intention to create what has been called "a mythology for England" led him to construct not only stories but a fully-formed world, Middle-earth, with languages, peoples, cultures, and history. Among his many influences were his own Roman Catholic faith, medieval languages and literature, including Norse mythology. He is best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both set in Middle-earth.
## A central theme
Tolkien set out his view of "Death and Immortality" as a theme in The Lord of the Rings in a 1956 letter:
> The real theme for me is .. Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race [Men] 'doomed' to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race [Elves] 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete. But if you have now read Vol. III and the story of Aragorn [and Arwen], you will have perceived that.
The scholar of fantasy literature Charles W. Nelson writes that this seems surprising at first sight, given the prominence of other themes like "loyalty, love, [and] the importance of compassion and selflessness". But, he comments, alongside the major battles, there are "intense scenes of particular deaths which impress the reader with their impact". He gives as instances Sam Gamgee's reaction to the death of a warrior in Ithilien, and Bilbo's "moving" final farewell to Thorin Oakenshield as the Dwarf-leader dies. He argues, too, that a central event in The Hobbit is the death of the dragon Smaug, while the novel sees the three trolls turned to stone, and the deaths of many goblins and their King. As for The Lord of the Rings, Nelson writes, the dead are well represented by "the Barrowwights, the Dead whom Aragorn leads out of the White Mountains, the dead elves and men [who] Frodo sees in the Dead Marshes with their mysterious candles, and the Black Riders who are among the living dead." The deaths of major characters, including Boromir, Denethor, Gollum, Saruman, Sauron, Théoden, and Wormtongue all form "significant scenes", while Gandalf both dies and returns from the dead.
Mortality is confronted in the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings, as Bilbo Baggins states that he feels he needs "a holiday, a very long holiday... Probably a permanent holiday: I don't expect I shall return." Giovanni Carmine Costabile comments that Bilbo means he will go to Rivendell to rest; but that it is also a metaphor for death.
Immortality, too, is represented in multiple ways in The Lord of the Rings. The Elves are immortal, while other races like the Dwarves and the Ents are long-lived. There is, as Nelson states, "a complex system of otherworlds and eternal dwellings" for when members of the various races leave Middle-earth. And the One Ring tempts and corrupts partly through its promise of immortality.
### Men and Elves
The medievalist Verlyn Flieger writes that nobody knows where Men go to when they die and leave Middle-earth, and that the nearest Tolkien came to dealing with the question was in his essay On Fairy-Stories. There, "after speculating that since 'fairy-stories are made by men not by fairies', they must deal with what he called the Great Escape, the escape from death. He went on to the singular assertion that 'the Human-stories of the elves are doubtless full of the Escape from Deathlessness'." Flieger suggests that two of the "human stories" of Tolkien's Elves really focus on this kind of escape, the Tale of Beren and Lúthien and the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, where in both cases a half-elf makes her escape from deathlessness. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey comments that "the themes of the Escape from Death, and the Escape from Deathlessness, are vital parts of Tolkien's entire mythology." In a 1968 broadcast on BBC2, Tolkien quoted French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and described the inevitability of death as the "key-spring of The Lord of the Rings".
In "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen", in the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien exemplifies this theme, as the Elf Arwen falls in love with a mortal Man, Aragorn, and despite her father's opposition, eventually marries him, giving up her immortality in the process. The creator Ilúvatar offers Aragorn the "gift" of choosing the time of his death; the scholar John D. Rateliff has contrasted this with the way the Elves cling to the past, and are inevitably swept away with it.
Tolkien's Elves remain unwearied with age. They can recover from wounds which would be fatal to a Man, but can be killed in battle. Spirits of dead Elves go to the Halls of Mandos in Valinor, a sort of Earthly Paradise, for an afterlife. After a period of rest that serves as "cleansing", their spirits are clothed in bodies identical to their old ones. If they do not die in battle or accident, Elves eventually grow weary of Middle-earth and desire to go to Valinor; they often sail from the Grey Havens, where Círdan the Shipwright dwells with his folk. Ultimately, their immortal spirits overwhelm and consume their bodies, rendering them "bodiless", whether they opt to go to Valinor or not. At the end of the world, all Elves will have become invisible to mortal eyes, except to those to whom they wish to manifest themselves.
### Lothlórien: an earthly paradise
When the tired Fellowship reaches the idyllic Elvish land of Lothlórien, the land with "no stain", it is obliged to cross two rivers. Shippey writes that they first wash off the stains of ordinary life by wading the River Nimrodel. He compares this perfect place to the Earthly Paradise that the dreamer speaks of in the Middle English poem Pearl. Then the Fellowship have to cross a rope-bridge over a second river, the Silverlode, which they must not drink from or touch, and which the evil Gollum cannot cross. What place can they have come to then, he wonders: could they be "as if dead"? Shippey comments that the Fellowship "undergoes a kind of death in getting there", noting that the fact they are not allowed to touch the water seems to carry meaning. The travellers notice, too, that time seems to pass differently in Lothlórien. He comments that
> A determined allegorist (or mythiciser) might go on to identify the Nimrodel with baptism, the Silverlode with death.
Shippey at once states that this suggestion is counteracted by Sam Gamgee's earthy practicality, making the rivers "tactical obstacles and not symbols for something else." All the same, he writes, the suggestion is there, making the passage, and the novel as a whole, work simultaneously on multiple levels of Northrop Frye's classification of literary modes.
## Themes from the Norse
### Mountain tombs
Tolkien repeatedly adapts the Norse motif of the mountain tomb. The medievalist Marjorie Burns writes that while Tolkien does not precisely follow the Norse model, "his mountains tend to encase the dead and include settings where treasure is found and battles occur."
### Destruction of the adversaries
Burns writes that multiple monstrous or evil characters in Middle-earth die deaths that would befit "the [undead] afterwalkers of Old Norse sagas", being destroyed by fire sufficient to eliminate them completely. Gollum is, she writes, "a thieving, kin-murdering, treasure-hoarding, sun-hating, underground dweller who ought to be dead," much like the Barrow-wight. As Gollum states: "We are lost, lost... No name, no business, no Precious, nothing. Only empty. Only hungry; yes, we are hungry". Flieger suggests that Gollum is Tolkien's central monster-figure, likening him to both Grendel and the Beowulf dragon, "the twisted, broken, outcast hobbit whose manlike shape and dragonlike greed combine both the Beowulf kinds of monster in one figure". Burns comments that Gollum has other attributes from the undead of Norse myth: supernatural strength, demanding that he be wrestled; he may appear to be black, but has "bone-white" skin; and he is brought to an end by fire, the final resort for "stopping the restless dead". In similar vein, the Nazgûl, already wraiths, are destroyed at the same time as the One Ring, blazing in their final flight, "shooting like flaming bolts" and ending in "fiery ruin" as they are burnt out. Burns states that Tolkien creates "quite a pattern" for characters "who would take more than their due and who have aligned themselves with death", naming Sauron, Saruman, and Denethor as instances of those who come to a "final and well-deserved destruction".
### Heroic deaths
Against the deserved obliteration of the adversaries, The Lord of the Rings sets the heroic deaths of two leading figures of the free peoples, King Théoden of Rohan and Boromir of Gondor. Like King Theodoric I of the Visigoths, Théoden dies leading his men into battle. He rallies his men shortly before he falls and is crushed by his horse. And like Theodoric, Théoden is carried from the battlefield with his knights weeping and singing for him while the battle still goes on. The scholar of religion Peter Kreeft writes that "it is hard not to feel your heart leap with joy at Théoden's transformation into a warrior", however difficult people find the old Roman view that it is sweet to die for your country, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Shippey writes that Rohan is directly calqued on Anglo-Saxon England, taking many features from Beowulf. He states that Tolkien's lament for Théoden, written in Anglo-Saxon-style alliterative verse, equally closely echoes the dirge that ends the Old English poem Beowulf, which celebrates the life and death of its eponymous hero.
Boromir, a member of the Fellowship of the Ring, falls to the temptation to try to seize the One Ring, intending to use it to defend Gondor. This at once splits the Fellowship, and leads to Boromir's death as Orcs attack. He redeems himself, however, by single-handedly but vainly defending Merry and Pippin from orcs, dying a hero's death. Scholars have stated that this illustrates the Catholic theme of the importance of good intention, especially at the point of death. As Gandalf states: "But he [Boromir] escaped in the end.... It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir's sake." Boromir is given a boat-funeral, echoing early Germanic ship burials, such as for the ancestral hero Scyld Scefing in Beowulf, and later medieval ritual for noble funerals.
## Towards a Christian theology
The Tolkien scholar Deidre A. Dawson writes that Elizabeth Whittingham's 2007 study The Evolution of Tolkien's Mythology reveals one especially strong pattern in the 12-volume The History of Middle-earth: Tolkien's "steady movement" from pagan archetypes towards a Bible-inspired mythology. In particular, Whittingham's chapter on "Death and immortality among Elves and Men" compares the attitude to death of Tolkien's writings with those of classical and Norse myth and with Judeo-Christian theology, and studies Tolkien's reflections on where the soul goes after death. Whittingham analyses the "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth" (published in Morgoth's Ring) as a sometimes hopeful, sometimes despairing look at whether death was given to mortals as a gift or as a punishment in consequence of a fall from grace, and whether Eru has abandoned both Men and Elves to their fate, or will bring about the healing of Arda."
### Elvish reincarnation
Early in his career, Tolkien adopted the idea that Elves would be reincarnated if killed in battle. He applied the concept to just one Elf, Glorfindel, who was killed in the Fall of Gondolin in the First Age. Glorfindel is seen again as an Elf-Lord in The Lord of the Rings, lending Frodo his horse to escape the Nazgûl and reach the safety of Rivendell. Dawson writes that since Christian theology does not endorse reincarnation, Tolkien may have chosen to retain the concept to enable Elves to be both immortal and able to die in battle.
Anna Milon writes that Tolkien introduces two concepts in one of his letters, "serial longevity" and "hoarding memory" as "escapes" from both death and immortality. In her view, this means that immortality, normally defined as "exemption from death", is not death's opposite, as both can be "escape[d]". She comments that the two concepts represent Tolkien's attempts to avoid speaking of reincarnation, again because it was seen as unorthodox within Catholicism. Milon describes several states "between the living and the dead" produced by Tolkien's thinking about the boundaries of life and death, mortality and immortality.
### Death and resurrection
Shippey notes that at the moment in The Lord of the Rings when the Wizard Gandalf confronts the Lord of the Nazgûl at the gates of the city of Minas Tirith, the Nazgûl calls himself "Death", supposing that his moment of victory had arrived. But instead there is a eucatastrophe, with the crowing of a cockerel, reminiscent of the one that "crowed to Simon Peter just as he denied Christ the third time", and the arrival of the army of Rohan. Shippey writes that that Biblical event surely meant "that there was a Resurrection, that from now on Simon's despair and fear of death would be overcome."
This is not the only hint of resurrection in the work. Several commentators have seen Gandalf's passage through the Mines of Moria, dying to save his companions and returning as "Gandalf the White", as a symbol of the resurrection of Christ.
In another example, Frodo carries a burden of evil on behalf of the whole world, just as Jesus carried his cross for the sins of mankind. Frodo walks his "Via Dolorosa" to Mount Doom, just like Jesus who made his way to Golgotha. As Frodo approaches the Cracks of Doom, the Ring becomes a crushing weight, just as the cross was for Jesus. Sam Gamgee, Frodo's servant, who carries Frodo up to Mount Doom, parallels Simon of Cyrene, who helps Jesus by carrying his cross. When Frodo accomplishes his mission, like Christ, he says "it is done". Just as Christ ascends to heaven, Frodo's life in Middle-earth comes to an end when he takes ship to the Undying Lands.
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670,407 |
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
| 1,163,193,294 |
2007 fantasy film directed by David Yates
|
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"2000s British films",
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"Children's fantasy films",
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"Films about secret societies",
"Films about spirit possession",
"Films about student societies",
"Films about totalitarianism",
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"Films produced by David Barron",
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"Films set in 1996",
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"Films shot in Highland (council area)",
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"Harry Potter (film series)",
"Heyday Films films",
"High fantasy films",
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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a 2007 fantasy film directed by David Yates from a screenplay by Michael Goldenberg, based on the 2003 novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. It is the sequel to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and the fifth instalment in the Harry Potter film series. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, alongside Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Harry's best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Its story follows Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as the Ministry of Magic is in denial of Lord Voldemort's return.
Filming took place in England and Scotland for exterior locations and Leavesden Film Studios in Watford for interior locations from February to November 2006, with a one-month break in June. Post-production on the film continued for several months afterwards to add in visual effects. The film's budget was reportedly between £75 and 100 million (\$150–200 million).
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released in 2D cinemas and IMAX formats in the United States on 11 July 2007 and in the United Kingdom on 12 July, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, particularly for Imelda Staunton's performance as Dolores Umbridge, and opened to a worldwide five-day opening of \$333 million and grossed \$942 million total, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 2007. It has been noted as a case of Hollywood accounting, as Warner Bros. claimed the film lost \$167 million, despite its total gross. The film was nominated for many awards, including the BAFTA Award for Best Production Design and Special Visual Effects.
It was followed by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in 2009.
## Plot
While staying at the Dursleys', Harry Potter and Dudley are attacked by Dementors. Harry repels them using a Patronus spell. The Ministry of Magic detects the underaged Harry using magic and expels him from Hogwarts, though he is later exonerated.
The Order of the Phoenix, a secret organisation, founded by Albus Dumbledore, informs Harry that the Ministry of Magic is oblivious to Lord Voldemort's return. At the Order's headquarters, Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, mentions that Voldemort seeks an object he previously lacked; Harry believes it to be a weapon.
Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge has appointed Dolores Umbridge as Hogwarts new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Umbridge's refusal to teach defensive spells causes her and Harry to clash. Harry is forced to write lines for "lying" about Voldemort. A magic quill etches the words into his hand as he writes. Ron and Hermione are outraged, but Harry refuses to tell Dumbledore, who has distanced himself from Harry. As Umbridge gains more control over the school, Ron and Hermione help Harry form "Dumbledore's Army", a secret group to teach students defensive spells. Umbridge recruits Slytherins for an Inquisitorial Squad to spy on the other students. Meanwhile, Harry and Cho Chang develop romantic feelings for each other.
One night, Harry envisions Arthur Weasley being attacked at the Ministry, seeing it from the attacker's perspective. Concerned that Voldemort will exploit this connection to Harry, Dumbledore has Severus Snape teach Harry Occlumency to defend his mind from Voldemort's influence. During a lesson, Harry sees Snape's memories of how his father, James, bullied and tormented Snape in school. The connection between Harry and Voldemort further isolates Harry from his friends. Meanwhile, Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius's deranged Death Eater cousin, escapes Azkaban prison along with nine other Death Eaters. At Hogwarts, Umbridge and her Inquisitorial Squad expose Dumbledore's Army. Dumbledore, falsely accused of forming it, escapes as Fudge orders his arrest. Harry believes Cho betrayed Dumbledore's Army to Umbridge, ending their budding relationship. Umbridge becomes the new Headmistress.
Harry experiences a vision that Voldemort is torturing Sirius. Harry, Ron, and Hermione rush to Umbridge's office to alert the Order via the Floo Network. Umbridge catches them and, as she is about to severely punish Harry, Hermione claims Dumbledore has hidden a "secret weapon" in the Forbidden Forest. She and Harry lead Umbridge to where Hagrid's giant half-brother, Grawp is kept. The centaurs confront them and kidnap Umbridge after she insults and attacks them. Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, Neville and Ginny fly to the Ministry of Magic on Thestrals to save Sirius.
The six enter the Department of Mysteries and recover the object that Voldemort is after, a bottled prophecy labelled with Harry's name. Death Eaters, including Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange, ambush them. Lucius reveals that Harry's vision of Sirius being tortured was a ruse to lure him there. Harry refuses to give Lucius the prophecy, and a fight between Dumbledore's Army and the Death Eaters ensues. The Death Eaters overpower the students and force Harry to surrender the prophecy. When Harry hands it to Lucius, Sirius and Remus Lupin arrive with Order members Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody. As they attack the Death Eaters, Lucius drops the prophecy, destroying it. Just as Sirius overpowers Lucius, Bellatrix kills Sirius.
Voldemort appears, but moments before he can kill Harry, Dumbledore arrives. A violent duel erupts, destroying much of the Atrium, while Bellatrix escapes. The two wizards are evenly matched, so Voldemort possesses Harry's body, wanting Dumbledore to sacrifice him. The love Harry feels for his friends and family quickly drives out Voldemort. Ministry officials arrive before Voldemort disapparates; Fudge admits that Voldemort has returned and resigns in disgrace. Umbridge is dismissed and Dumbledore returns as Hogwarts headmaster. Dumbledore explains he had distanced himself from Harry to prevent Voldemort exploiting their connection. He also reveals the prophecy. As he grieves Sirius's death, Harry tries coming to terms with the prophecy: "Neither can live while the other survives."
## Cast
- Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter: A 15-year-old British wizard famous for surviving his parents' murder at the hands of Voldemort as an infant, who now enters his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
- Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley: Harry's best friend at Hogwarts.
- Emma Watson as Hermione Granger: Harry's Muggle-born best friend and the brains of the trio.
- Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange: one of Voldemort's most loyal Death Eaters and the cousin of Sirius Black.
- Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid: the half-giant Gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts and a member of the Order of the Phoenix.
- Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort: leader of the Death Eaters, a dark wizard intent on conquering the Wizarding World.
- Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore: the legendary Hogwarts headmaster and leader of the Order of the Phoenix.
- Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody: Ex-Auror and a member of the Order of the Phoenix.
- Richard Griffiths as Vernon Dursley: Harry's Muggle uncle.
- Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy: a falsely pardoned senior Death Eater.
- Gary Oldman as Sirius Black: Harry's godfather and a member of the Order of the Phoenix.
- Alan Rickman as Severus Snape: the Potions teacher at Hogwarts and the Head of Slytherin
- Fiona Shaw as Petunia Dursley: Harry's Muggle aunt.
- Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall: the Transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts and a member of the Order of the Phoenix.
- Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge: the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and a plant from the corrupt Ministry of Magic.
- David Thewlis as Remus Lupin: Harry's ex-Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and a member of the Order of the Phoenix.
- Emma Thompson as Sybill Trelawney: the Divination teacher at Hogwarts.
- Julie Walters as Molly Weasley: the Weasley matriarch and a mother figure to Harry, also a member of the Order of the Phoenix.
Mark Williams appears as Molly Weasley's husband, Arthur, a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Warwick Davis plays Filius Flitwick, the school's charms teacher, maestro and Head of Ravenclaw House while David Bradley plays Hogwarts caretaker, Argus Filch. Tom Felton, Jamie Waylett and Joshua Herdman play Slytherin students Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. James and Oliver Phelps, Bonnie Wright and Chris Rankin play Ron's siblings, Fred, George, Ginny and Percy while Devon Murray, Alfred Enoch and Matthew Lewis play Gryffindor students, Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas and Neville Longbottom. Katie Leung plays Harry's love interest, Cho Chang. Robert Hardy plays the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge. Harry Melling plays Harry's cousin, Dudley Dursley.
Evanna Lynch joins the cast as Ravenclaw student Luna Lovegood. Timothy Bateson voices house-elf, Kreacher and Tony Maudsley plays Hagrid's half-brother, Grawp. Kathryn Hunter plays the Dursley's neighbour, Mrs. Figg. George Harris and Natalia Tena play members of the Order of the Phoenix, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks.
## Production
### Development
British television director David Yates was chosen to direct the film after Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire director Mike Newell, as well as Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Guillermo del Toro, Matthew Vaughn and Mira Nair, turned down offers. Yates believed he was approached because the studio saw him fit to handle an "edgy and emotional" film with a "political backstory", which some of his previous television projects including State of Play, Sex Traffic and The Girl in the Café demonstrated. Producer David Heyman supported Yates's comments about the film's political theme, stating that "[Order of the Phoenix] is a political film, not with a capital P, but it's about teen rebellion and the abuse of power. David has made films in the UK about politics without being heavy handed." On the film's political and social aspects, Emma Watson stated that "somehow it talks about life after 7 July, the way people behave when they're scared, the way truth is often denied and all the things our society has to face. Facing the fact that the authority is corrupted means having a non-conformist approach to reality and power."
Steve Kloves, the screenwriter of the first four Potter films, had other commitments. Michael Goldenberg, who was considered to pen the first film in the series, filled in and wrote the script. Kloves subsequently returned to write all remaining instalments of the series.
Mark Day was the film editor, Sławomir Idziak was the cinematographer, and Jany Temime was the costume designer. Choreographer Paul Harris, who had previously worked with David Yates several times, created a physical language for wand combat to choreograph the wand fighting scenes.
### Casting
Casting began as early as May 2005, when Radcliffe announced he would reprise his role as Harry. Across the media frenzy that took place during the release of Goblet of Fire, most of the main returning actors announced their return to the series, including Grint, Watson, Lewis, Wright, Leung, and Fiennes.
The announcements of the casting of the rest of the new characters to the series was spanned across 2006. Evanna Lynch won the role of Luna Lovegood over 15,000 other girls who attended the open casting call, waiting in a line of hopefuls that stretched a mile long. Saoirse Ronan auditioned for the role but was considered too young.
Persistent rumours linked Elizabeth Hurley to the role of Bellatrix Lestrange, although Warner Bros. asserted there was "no truth whatsoever" to reports that she had been cast. As early as August 2005, rumours began linking Helen McCrory to the role. On 2 February 2006, it was announced that McCrory had indeed been cast as Bellatrix. However, in April 2006 she revealed that she was three months pregnant and withdrew from the film because she would not have been able to perform the intense battle sequences in the Ministry of Magic in September and October 2006. The announcement that Bonham Carter had been recast in the role was made on 25 May 2006. McCrory was subsequently cast as Narcissa Malfoy from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince onwards.
The inclusion or cutting of some characters sparked speculation from fans as to the importance of the characters in the final book of the series, which was released just ten days after the film. In April 2006, representatives of Jim McManus said he would be playing Aberforth Dumbledore, Albus's brother and the barman of the Hog's Head, in which Harry and his friends found Dumbledore's Army. A week later WB announced that the role was "very minor", allaying some of the speculation to the significance of the role, which, before the final book, was not even a speaking part. MTV reported in October 2006 that Dobby the house elf, who appeared in the second film, Chamber of Secrets, and in the fifth book, would be cut, opening up "plot questions" as to how the role of the elf would be filled. MTV also reported about a month before the release of the final book that Kreacher, the Black family's house-elf, was cut from the film in one draft of the script. Rowling prodded the filmmakers to include him, saying, "You know, I wouldn't [cut him] if I were you. Or you can, but if you get to make a seventh film, you'll be tied in knots", he was added back into the script.
Other minor roles were cut with subsequent drafts of the script. At the US premiere of Goblet of Fire, series producer David Heyman said that former Hogwarts professor Gilderoy Lockhart, played by Kenneth Branagh in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was in the first draft of the script for Phoenix. Neither Branagh nor the character of Lockhart appears in the final version. Tiana Benjamin was scheduled to return for the film in the role of Angelina Johnson, the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, but she had to withdraw due to a commitment to playing Chelsea Fox in EastEnders. The character, as well as the entire Quidditch subplot, was ultimately cut from the film. Benjamin did record sound clips for the Order of the Phoenix video game.
The family of footballer Theo Walcott made a cameo appearance in the film. They were signed on by director David Yates, who is the partner of Yvonne Walcott, Theo's aunt. Theo himself was due to appear alongside his family, though his commitments to Arsenal Football Club forced him to pull out.
### Set design
Stuart Craig returned as set designer, having designed the first four films' sets. There were a number of notable new sets in this film. The atrium in the Ministry of Magic is over 200 feet in length, making it the largest and most expensive set built for the Potter film series to date. Craig's design was inspired by early London Underground stations, where, he said, architects "tried to imitate classical architecture but they used ceramic tile", as well as a Burger King on Tottenham Court Road in London, where "there's a fantastic Victorian façade which just embodies the age". The set of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place contains the Black family tapestry spread across three walls; when the producers told Rowling they wanted to visualise the details of each name and birth year, she faxed them a complete copy of the entire tree. The set of the Hall of Prophecies was entirely digitally built. During a fight scene which occurs there, prophecies crash to the ground and break; had it been an actual physical set, the reset time would have been weeks.
The set used for Igor Karkaroff's trial scene in Goblet of Fire was doubled in size for Harry's trial in this film, while still protecting its symmetry. New professor Dolores Umbridge, though she teaches in a classroom that has appeared in films two through four, inhabits an office vastly different from those of her predecessors. The set was redressed with "fluffy, pink filigree" and a number of plates upon which moving kittens were animated in post-production. A 24-hour photo shoot was held to photograph and film the kittens for use on these plates. The quill which Umbridge gives Harry to write lines is designed by the set designers.
### Filming
Rehearsals for Order of the Phoenix began on 27 January 2006, and principal photography began on 7 February 2006 and wrapped in November 2006. Filming was put on a two-month hiatus starting in May 2006 so Radcliffe could sit his A/S Levels and Watson could sit her GCSE exams. The film's budget was reportedly between £75 and 100 million (US\$150–200 million). The largest budget of the other films in the series has been the £75 million it cost to make Goblet of Fire. Though the producers explored options to film outside of the UK, Leavesden Film Studios in Watford was again the location on which many of the interior scenes, including the Great Hall, Privet Drive, and Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place were shot.
One of the locations in England is the River Thames, used for the flight of the Order of the Phoenix to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place and the flight of Dumbledore's Army to the Ministry of Magic. This sequence also includes such landmarks as the London Eye, Canary Wharf, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and HMS Belfast. Filming at platform nine and three-quarters took place at King's Cross station, as it has in the past. A red telephone booth near Scotland Yard was used as Harry and Arthur Weasley enter the Ministry, while the crew closed the Westminster tube station on 22 October 2006 to allow for filming of Arthur Weasley accompanying Harry to his trial at the Ministry of Magic. Other scenes were filmed in and around Oxford, specifically at nearby Blenheim Palace in Woodstock.
In Glenfinnan, the Hogwarts Express crosses a viaduct, as it has in the past films. Aerial scenes were shot in Glen Coe, Clachaig Gully, and Glen Etive, which, at the time of filming, was one of the few places in Scotland without snow, making it ideal for a backdrop.
Director David Yates stated in an interview that he had originally shot a three-hour cut of Order of the Phoenix. However, some material had to be cut out in the final edit, as the movie was 45 minutes too long. Therefore, several locations that were used for various scenes do not appear in the final cut of the film. In Virginia Water, scenes were shot where Professor McGonagall recovers from Stunning Spells, and Burnham Beeches was used for filming the scene where Hagrid introduces his fifth-year Care of Magical Creatures class to Thestrals. Harry skips stones in front of the Glenfinnan Monument in Glenfinnan in another cut scene.
### Visual effects
The film required over 1,400 visual effects shots, and the London-based company Double Negative created more than 950 of them. Working for six months on previsualisation starting in September 2005, Double Negative was largely responsible for sequences in the Room of Requirement, the Forbidden Forest, the Hall of Prophecies, and the Death Chamber.
A new character in the film, Grawp, Hagrid's giant half-brother, came to life by a new technology called Soul Capturing, developed by Image Metrics. Instead of building the character from scratch, the movements and facial expressions of actor Tony Maudsley were used to model Grawp's actions.
### Music and soundtrack
Nicholas Hooper was the composer for the soundtrack of the film, following John Williams, who scored the first three films, and Patrick Doyle, who did the fourth. In the new score, Hooper incorporated variations on "Hedwig's Theme", the series' theme originally written by Williams for the first film and heard in all subsequent instalments. In March and April 2007, Hooper and the Chamber Orchestra of London recorded nearly two hours of music at Abbey Road Studios in London. The score, like the film and book, is darker than previous instalments in the series. To emphasise this, the two new main themes reflect the sinister new character Dolores Umbridge, and Lord Voldemort's invasion of Harry's mind. A Japanese Taiko drum was used for a deeper sound in the percussion. The soundtrack was released by Warner Bros. Records on 10 July 2007, the eve of the film's release. For his work on the film, Hooper was nominated for a World Soundtrack Discovery Award. The trailer prominently features the cues "Divine Crusade" by X-Ray Dog and "DNA Reactor" by Pfeifer Broz. Music.
The film also featured the song "Boys Will Be Boys" by The Ordinary Boys which played during a scene in the Gryffindor common room (at min. 31:35). According to Rupert Grint, David Yates used the song to create a more "casual" feel to the Common Room.
## Differences from the book
At 766 pages in the British edition and 870 in the American edition, Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the Harry Potter series, however the film is the second shortest. Screenwriter Michael Goldenberg described his task to cut down the novel as searching for "the best equivalent way to tell the story. My job was to stay true to the spirit of the book, rather than to the letter". Goldenberg said that Rowling told him, the producers, and Yates that "she just wanted to see a great movie, and gave [them] permission to take whatever liberties [they] felt [they] needed to take to translate the book into a movie she would love". Cutting down the book to meet the time frame of the film, Goldenberg explained, became "clearer when [he] figured out that the organising principle of the screenplay was to narrate Harry's emotional journey". He and Yates "looked for every opportunity to get everything [they] could in there. And where [they] couldn't, to sort of pay homage to it, to have it somewhere in the background or to feel like it could be taking place off-screen".
One cut Goldenberg had to make, which he "hated" to do, was the absence of Quidditch, the Wizarding sport. "The truth is that any movie made of this book, whoever made it, that had included the Quidditch subplot would have been a lesser film", he said. In the book, Ron grows as a character by trying out for the Quidditch team. "Ron facing challenges and coming into his own in the same way that Harry is, we tried to get that into the film in other ways, as much as possible. So, you feel like, if not the details of that story, at least the spirit of it is present in the film". The change disappointed actor Rupert Grint who had been "quite looking forward to the Quidditch stuff".
In a significant scene in the book, Harry sees a memory of his own father humiliating Snape in their school days, and Snape insulting his mother after she stood up for him. In the film, it is abbreviated to an "idea", in Goldenberg's words. "It's an iconic moment when you realise your parents are normal, flawed human beings. ... Things get trimmed out, but I kept the meat of that in there – and that was what really gave me the coming-of-age story." Young Lily Potter did not appear at all, but promotional screenshots showed unknown teenager Susie Shinner in the role.
The scene at St Mungo's, the hospital where Harry and friends run into classmate Neville Longbottom and learn that his parents were tortured into insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange, was cut because it required the construction of a new set. The main purpose of the action of the scene was relocated to the Room of Requirement after one of Dumbledore's Army's lessons. Also, to speed up the film's climax, several events in the Ministry leading up to Harry's battle with Voldemort were removed, including the brain room. Mrs. Weasley's encounter with a boggart at Grimmauld Place, Ron, Hermione and Malfoy becoming prefects, the appearance of Mundungus Fletcher, and Firenze teaching Divination followed suit.
The character of Kreacher the house-elf, who was included in the script only at Rowling's request, has a larger part in the book than the film. In the novel, he is seen saving some of the Black family's artefacts which the Order of the Phoenix throw away, including a locket that ends up being extremely important in the seventh book. "It was kind of tricky to raise that in our story, because it's for so much later", Yates said. "We figured we can probably introduce it later, and that's the approach we took". Whilst Kreacher remained, all parts involving Dobby were cut, and his important actions were given to other characters.
Rita Skeeter, the journalist played by Miranda Richardson in Goblet of Fire, was also removed. In the book, Hermione blackmails her into writing an article that supports Harry as the rest of the Wizarding world denies his claims. Richardson noted that "it's never gonna be the book on film, exactly. ... They'll take certain aspects from the book and make it something that they hope is going to be commercial and that people want to see".
## Release
### Marketing
The first trailer was released on 17 November 2006, attached to another WB film, Happy Feet. It was made available online on 20 November 2006, on the Happy Feet website. The international trailer debuted online on 22 April 2007 at 14:00 UTC. On 4 May 2007, the US trailer was shown before Spider-Man 3.
Three posters released on the Internet that showed Harry accompanied by six classmates, including Hermione Granger, generated some controversy by the media. They were essentially the same picture, though one advertised the IMAX release. In one poster, the profile of Hermione, played by Emma Watson, was made curvier as the outline of her breasts was enhanced. Melissa Anelli, webmistress of noted fan site The Leaky Cauldron, wrote:
The video game version, designed by EA UK, was released 25 June 2007, as well as Harry Potter: Mastering Magic mobile game by EA Mobile. Lego produced just one set, a model of Hogwarts, the lowest number of sets for a film so far. NECA produced a series of action figures, while a larger array of smaller figures was also produced by PopCo Entertainment, a Corgi International company.
### Theatrical release
The film was the third Harry Potter film to be given a simultaneous release in conventional theatres and IMAX. The IMAX release featured the full movie in 2D and the final 20 minutes of the film in 3D. According to estimates in March 2007, by Warner Bros., the film would debut on over 10,000 theatre screens during the summer.
Previews of the film began in March 2007 in the Chicago area. Under tight security to prevent piracy, WB had security guards patrol the aisles, looking for cell phone cameras or small recording devices, at a preview in Japan. The world premiere took place in Tokyo, Japan on 28 June 2007. MySpace users could bring copies of their online profiles to gain free admission to sneak previews in eight different cities across the country on 28 June 2007. The UK premiere took place on 3 July 2007 in London's Odeon Leicester Square, during which author J. K. Rowling made a public appearance. The US premiere took place on 8 July in Los Angeles. After the premiere, the three young stars of the film series, Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson, were honoured with a ceremony where their handprints, footprints, and "wandprints" were placed in the cement in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
Originally, Warner Bros. set the Australian release date as 6 September 2007, nearly two months after the majority of other release dates. However, after complaints from the Australian community, including a petition garnering 2,000 signatures the date was pulled back to 11 July 2007. The release dates of the film in the UK and US were also moved back, both from 13 July, to 12 and 11 July, respectively.
Even though the book is the longest in the series (over 700 pages), the film is 138 minutes long (2 hours and 18 minutes), the second shortest in the entire film series.
### Home media
The DVDs included additional scenes, a feature showing a day in the life of Natalia Tena, who played Nymphadora Tonks, an A&E documentary about the films and books, and a featurette on film editing in Phoenix. The DVD-ROM features a timeline and a sneak peek of the next film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). The HD DVD and Blu-ray contain additional features, such as the "in-movie experience", a video commentary in which members of Dumbledore's Army share their favourite moments from the production of the film, and "focus points" featurettes on how certain scenes of the film were made. The HD DVD also includes an exclusive feature called "community screening", which enables owners of the HD DVD to watch the film together over the Internet. Order of the Phoenix was the seventh best-selling DVD of 2007, with 10.14 million units. The high-definition DVDs had combined sales of 179,500 copies, with more units coming from the Blu-ray version. The film overall made a revenue of \$200.2 million from home video sales in the US.
There was also a third DVD with extras featuring a behind-the-scenes look at the sets of the movie. This can only be found in those purchased at Target stores (Future Shop in Canada) since it is a Target exclusive. The package included a one-time-only code that activated a digital copy of the film, which may be played on a computer with Windows Media Player. The digital copy is not playable on Macintosh or Apple Inc. iPod devices. This issue was partially addressed, with the film being made available on the iTunes Store in the UK but not the US.
## Reception
### Box office
The film opened to a worldwide 5-day opening of \$333 million, the fourteenth-biggest opening of all time. In the United States, tickets for hundreds of midnight showings of the film, bought from online ticket-seller Fandango, were sold out, making up approximately 90% of the site's weekly ticket sales. In the US and Canada, midnight screenings (very early morning on 11 July) brought in \$12 million from 2,311 midnight exhibitions making the showings "the most successful batch of midnight exhibitions ever". In one-night earnings, Phoenix is behind only At World's End, which had debuted four hours earlier on its date. In studio documents leaked in July 2010, it was revealed the film "lost" Warner Bros. about \$167 million.
In North America, Phoenix earned an additional \$32.2 million on Wednesday, post-midnight showings, making it the biggest single-day Wednesday gross in box office history, with a total of \$44.2 million from 4,285 theatres. That amount topped Sony Pictures' Spider-Man 2, which held the record since 2004 with its \$40.4 million take on a Wednesday, until this record was broken in 2009 by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with \$62 million. It was also the fifth-biggest opening day for a movie in history, at the time, surpassing At World's End's \$42.9 million. It earned \$1.9 million from a record-breaking 91 IMAX screens, the highest opening day ever for any IMAX day of the week, beating Spider-Man 3's \$1.8 million. In the UK the result was similar. The film made £16.5 million during its opening 4-day run, breaking the UK box office record for the biggest 4-day opening weekend ever.
Phoenix's gross was at \$292.4 million in the US and Canada, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2007 in these regions, and at £49.2 million, or \$101.4 million in the UK. Internationally, it has grossed \$648 million, the seventh-highest grosser ever overseas, for a worldwide total of \$942 million making it the second-highest-grossing film of the year closely behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End's \$960 million gross. It became the sixth-highest-grossing film in history at the time, the second-highest-grossing Potter film worldwide, and the second Potter film to break the \$900 million mark, as well as the fourth-highest-grossing Potter film in the franchise behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2's \$1.341 billion, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone's \$974 million, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1's \$960 million and the highest-grossing 2007 film in Australia and the UK. IMAX Corporation and Warner Bros. Pictures announced that the film has made over \$35 million on IMAX screens, worldwide, with an impressive per-screen average of \$243,000 making it the highest-grossing live-action IMAX release in history. In South Africa the film opened at number 1 with a total of \$944,082.00, being screened at 87 theatres.
### Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "It's not easy to take the longest Harry Potter book and streamline it into the shortest HP movie, but director David Yates does a bang up job of it, creating an Order of the Phoenix that's entertaining and action-packed." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 71 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 of 4 stars saying "Harry no longer has as much joy." The review by Charles Frederick of The Telegraph was headlined "Potter film is the best and darkest yet". Colin Bertram of the New York Daily News gave the film four out of four stars, calling it the best Potter film yet and wrote that "die-hard Potter addicts will rejoice that Yates has distilled J. K. Rowling's broad universe with care and reverence". Mark Adams of The Sunday Mirror, while giving the film four out of five stars, called it "a dark and delicious delight [and] a must-see movie". Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that the film "is the first installment in the soon-to-be series-of-seven that doesn't seem like just another spinoff capitalizing on the money-minting Harry Potter brand name. Instead, Phoenix feels like a real 'movie'".
Imelda Staunton's performance as Dolores Umbridge and Helena Bonham Carter's as Bellatrix Lestrange were widely acclaimed; Staunton was described as "coming close to stealing the show" by The Guardian and the "perfect choice for the part" and "one of the film's greatest pleasures" by Variety. Bonham Carter was said to be a "shining but underused talent" by The Times. Variety further praised Alan Rickman's portrayal of Severus Snape, writing that he "may have outdone himself; seldom has an actor done more with less than he does here". Newcomer Evanna Lynch, playing Luna Lovegood, also received good word from a number of reviewers, including the New York Times, which declared her "spellbinding".
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also lauded the three principal actors' achievements, especially Radcliffe: "One of the joys of this film is watching Daniel Radcliffe grow so impressively into the role of Harry. He digs deep into the character and into Harry's nightmares. It's a sensational performance, touching all the bases from tender to fearful". Rolling Stone's review also classified the film as better than the previous four instalments in the series, by losing the "candy-ass aspect" of the first two and "raising the bar" from the "heat and resonance" of the third and fourth. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called the film "the best of the series so far, [with] the laughs, the jitters and the juice to make even nonbelievers wild about Harry".
Leo Lewis of The Times (London) expressed disappointment that the three main actors were not able to fully advance the emotional sides of their respective characters, weakening the film. The San Francisco Chronicle complained about a "lousy" storyline, alleging that the first twenty minutes of the film, when Harry is put on trial for performing magic outside of school and threatened with expulsion, but is cleared of all charges, did not advance the plot. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Phoenix is "quite possibly the least enjoyable of the [series] so far", and that despite "several eye-catching moments", "the magic – movie magic, that is – is mostly missing". The review also criticised the under use of the "cream of British acting", noting the brief appearances of Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Emma Thompson, David Thewlis, Richard Griffiths, and Julie Walters.
### Accolades
Before it was released, Order of the Phoenix was nominated in a new category at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards, Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet. On 26 August 2007, the film won the award for Choice Summer Movie – Drama/Action Adventure at the Teen Choice Awards.
The film was also nominated for several awards at the 2007 Scream Awards presented by Spike TV, in the categories of The Ultimate Scream, Best Fantasy Movie, and Best Sequel. Daniel Radcliffe was nominated in the Fantasy Hero categories, respectively. The film won for Best Sequel and Ralph Fiennes won for "Most Vile Villain". The film picked up three awards at the inaugural ITV National Movie Awards, taking Best Family Film, Best Actor for Radcliffe and Best Actress for Emma Watson. The film was one of ten nominees for a 2007 Hollywood Movie of the Year. It was also nominated for Best Live Action Family Film at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards and won the 2007 People's Choice Award for "Favorite Movie Drama". The production was also nominated for six awards at the 13th Empire Awards, organised by Empire, including Best Film, David Yates won Best Director. Yates later received the BAFTA Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing for his four Harry Potter films, which includes Order of the Phoenix.
Nicholas Hooper received a nomination for a World Soundtrack Discovery Award for his score to the film. Imelda Staunton was nominated in the "British Actress in a Supporting Role" category at the London Film Critics Circle Awards. At the 2008 BAFTA Awards, the film was nominated for "Best Production Design" and "Best Special Visual Effects". Order of the Phoenix was also nominated for the awards from the Art Directors Guild and Costume Designers Guild, and was awarded for "Outstanding Special Effects in a Motion Picture" by the Visual Effects Society out of six nominations. The British Academy Children's Awards (BAFTA) nominated Order of the Phoenix for Best Feature Film in 2007 and the Hugo Awards nominated the film for Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) in 2008.
|
2,759,509 |
A Voyage to Arcturus
| 1,166,419,891 |
1920 novel by David Lindsay
|
[
"1920 British novels",
"1920 debut novels",
"1920 science fiction novels",
"British fantasy novels",
"British novels adapted into films",
"British philosophical novels",
"British science fiction novels",
"Fiction set around Arcturus",
"Gnosticism",
"Methuen Publishing books",
"Novels about telepathy",
"Novels set on fictional planets",
"Religion in science fiction",
"Scottish novels"
] |
A Voyage to Arcturus is a novel by the Scottish writer David Lindsay, first published in 1920. An interstellar voyage is the framework for a narrative of a journey through fantastic landscapes. The story is set at Tormance, an imaginary planet orbiting Arcturus, which in the novel (but not in reality) is a binary star system, consisting of the stars Branchspell and Alppain. The lands through which the characters travel represent philosophical systems or states of mind as the main character, Maskull, searches for the meaning of life. The book combines fantasy, philosophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil and their relationship with existence. Described by critic, novelist, and philosopher Colin Wilson as the "greatest novel of the twentieth century", it was a central influence on C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, and through him on J. R. R. Tolkien, who said he read the book "with avidity". Clive Barker called it "a masterpiece" and "an extraordinary work ... quite magnificent".
The book sold poorly during Lindsay's lifetime, but was republished in 1946 and many times thereafter. It has been translated into at least six languages. Critics such as the novelist Michael Moorcock have noted that the book is unusual, but that it has been highly influential with its qualities of "commitment to the Absolute" and "God-questioning genius".
## Background
David Lindsay was born in 1876. His father was a Scottish Calvinist and his mother English. He was brought up partly in London and partly in Jedburgh in the Scottish borders. He enjoyed reading novels by Walter Scott, Jules Verne, Rider Haggard and Robert Louis Stevenson. He learnt German to read the philosophical work of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. He served in the army in the First World War, being called up at age 38. He married in 1916. After the war ended in 1918, he moved to Cornwall with his wife to write. Lindsay told his friend E. H. Visiak that his greatest influence was the work of George MacDonald.
## Synopsis
Tormance is a planet orbiting the double star Arcturus, consisting of Branchspell, a large yellow sunlike star, and Alppain, a smaller blue star 100 light years from Earth. The light of the second sun, Alppain, is to the north; southern countries are illuminated only by Branchspell. Maskull, longing for adventures, accepts an invitation from Krag, an acquaintance of his friend Nightspore, to travel to Tormance after a séance. The three travel to an abandoned observatory at Starkness in Scotland, where there is a tower with Tormance's heavy gravity; climbing it is difficult. Maskull learns he will not return from the voyage. They set off in a "torpedo of crystal", propelled by Arcturian "back rays".
Maskull awakens to find himself alone in a desert on Tormance; his body has grown a tentacle or magn from his heart, and an organ called a breve. A woman, Joiwind, exchanges blood with him; she tells him that Surtur created everything. She worships Surtur. Her husband Panawe suggests that Maskull may have stolen something from the Maker of the universe, to ennoble his fellow creatures. Maskull travels to the Lusion Plain, where he meets Surtur. Surtur asserts the beauty of his world, claims Maskull is there to serve him, and disappears. Maskull meets a woman, Oceaxe, from Ifdawn, who has a third arm in place of her magn. She is rude, but shows interest in having him as lover, and gives him a red stone to convert his magn into a third arm. Maskull wakes to find his magn transformed into a third arm, which causes lust for what is touched, and his breve changed to an eyelike sorb which allows dominance over the will of others. He travels through Ifdawn with Oceaxe; she wants him to kill one of her husbands, Crimtyphon, and take his place. Maskull is revolted at the idea, but kills Crimtyphon when he sees him using his will to force a man into becoming a tree. Tydomin, another wife of Crimtyphon's, uses her will to force Oceaxe to commit suicide by walking off a cliff; she persuades Maskull to come to her home in Disscourn, where she will take possession of his body. On the way they find Joiwind's brother Digrung who says he will tell her everything; to prevent this, and encouraged by Tydomin, Maskull absorbs Digrung, leaving his empty body behind. At Tydomin's cave, Maskull goes out of his body to become the apparition of the seance where he met Krag. He awakens free of her mental power.
Maskull takes Tydomin to Sant, to kill her. On the way they meet Spadevil, who proposes to reform Sant by amending Hator's teaching with the notion of duty. He turns Maskull and Tydomin into his disciples by modifying their sorbs into twin membranes called probes. Catice, the guardian of Hator's doctrine in Sant, and who has only one probe, damages one of Maskull's to test Spadevil's arguments. Maskull accepts Hator's ideas and kills Spadevil and Tydomin. Catice sends Maskull away to the Wombflash Forest, in search of Muspel, their home. Maskull awakes in the dense forest with a third eye as his only foreign organ, hears and follows a drumbeat, and meets Dreamsinter, who tells him that it was Nightspore whom Surtur brought to Tormance and that he, Maskull, is wanted to steal Muspel-light. Maskull travels to the shore of the Sinking Sea, from which Swaylone's Island can be seen. There he meets Polecrab, a fisherman, who is married to Gleameil. Maskull goes to Swaylone's Island, where Earthrid plays a musical instrument called Irontick by night; no one who hears it ever returns. Maskull is accompanied by Gleameil, who has left her family, attracted by the music; she dies. Maskull, after entering a trance, forcibly plays the instrument, whereupon Earthrid dies and Irontick is destroyed. Maskull crosses the sea by manoeuvring a many-eyed tree and reaches Matterplay, where many life-forms materialise alongside a magical creek and vanish before his eyes. He goes upstream and meets Leehallfae, an immensely old being of a third sex, who seeks the underground country of Threal where the god Faceny may dwell. They reach Threal through a cave. Leehallfae falls ill and dies. Corpang appears and says this is because Threal is not Faceny's world, but the creator of the world of feeling, Thire's. Corpang follows Maskull to Lichstorm, where they again hear drumbeats.
Maskull and Corpang meet Haunte, a hunter who travels in a boat that flies thanks to masculine stones which repel earth's femininity. Maskull destroys the masculine rocks which protected Haunte from Sullenbode's femininity, and all three journey to her cave. Sullenbode, a faceless woman, kills Haunte as they kiss. Maskull and Sullenbode desire each other. Maskull, Sullenbode and Corpang set off. Corpang goes eagerly ahead but Maskull pauses, causing Sullenbode to die. Maskull, upon waking, discovers Krag again, and then Gangnet. They travel together to the ocean and take to the sea on a raft. When the sun Alppain rises, Maskull sees in a vision Krag causing the drumbeat by beating his heart, and Gangnet, who is Surtur, dying in torment enveloped by Muspel-fire. Maskull learns that he is in fact Nightspore himself, and dies. Krag tells Nightspore he is Surtur, known on Earth as pain; and teaches him about the origin of the Universe.
## Publication history
Methuen agreed to publish A Voyage to Arcturus, but only if Lindsay agreed to cut 15,000 words, which he did. These passages are assumed lost forever. Methuen also insisted on a change of title, from Lindsay's original (Nightspore in Tormance), as it was considered too obscure. Of an original press run of 1430 copies, no more than 596 were sold in total. The novel was made widely available in paperback form when published as one of the precursor volumes to the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in 1968, featuring a cover by the illustrator Bob Pepper.
Editions of A Voyage to Arcturus have been published in 1920 (Methuen), 1946 (Gollancz), 1963 (Gollancz, Macmillan, Ballantine), 1968 (Gollancz, Ballantine),1971 (Gollancz), 1972, 1973, 1974 (Ballantine), 1978 (Gollancz), 1992 (Canongate), 2002 (University of Nebraska Press), and later by several other publishers. It has been translated into at least six languages.
## Analysis
Lindsay's choice of title (and therefore the setting in Arcturus) may have been influenced by the nonfictional A Voyage to the Arctic in the Whaler Aurora (1911), a book by his namesake, David Moore Lindsay about the ship SY Aurora. The scholar Kathryn Hume writes that with the name of the planet, Tormance, and its sun, Alppain, Lindsay "is cosmically punning on the yogic tenet that all existence, all consciousness, is pain". The historian Shimon de Valencia states that the names "Surtur" and "Muspel" are taken from Surtr, the lord of Múspellsheimr (the world of fire) in Norse mythology.
The novel is recognised for its strangeness. Tormance's features include its alien sea, with water so dense that it can be walked on. Gnawl water is sufficient food to sustain life on its own. The local spectrum includes two primary colours unknown on Earth, ulfire and jale, and a third colour, dolm, said to be compounded of ulfire and blue. The sexuality of the Tormance species is ambiguous; Lindsay coined a new gender-neutral pronoun series, ae, aer, and aerself for the phaen who are humanoid but formed of air.
Hume writes that the book evidently has a deeper meaning, which may be strictly allegorical or more broadly "visionary" like the work of William Blake; and that this has both attracted a cult following, and prevented the book from reaching a wider audience. Hume describes the planet of Arcturus, far from being a standard science fiction setting, as having a threefold function: the literal setting for a "quest romance"; the psychological frame, "a projection of the faculties of the mind"; and an allegorical paysage moralisé, like the moralised landscapes of Pilgrim's Progress or Piers Plowman.
Hume contrasts A Voyage to Arcturus with Christian allegory, which, she writes, makes its direction and plan clear to the reader. She gives as one example the seven circles of Dante's 14th century Inferno, which are organised by the seven deadly sins. She notes, too, that readers readily see in Maskull's steady journey through many challenges a reflection of John Bunyan's 1678 The Pilgrim's Progress; in that book, Pilgrim journeys continuously through the trials of the world towards salvation. Lindsay's "original allegory" has its own framework, which is the hierarchy of experiences on the road to enlightenment, from Pleasure to Pain, Love, Nothing, and finally Something. This structure is compounded by having the protagonist examine the world in terms of the dyad of I and not-I, and the triad of "material creation, relation, and religious feeling"; in the end, Maskull transcends personality for dualism on both the macrocosmic and the microcosmic scales.
## Reception
The critic and philosopher Colin Wilson described A Voyage to Arcturus as the "greatest novel of the twentieth century". The playwright and novelist Clive Barker stated that "A Voyage to Arcturus is a masterpiece", calling it "an extraordinary work ... quite magnificent." The fantasy author Philip Pullman named it for The Guardian as the book he thought was most underrated.
Reviewing the book in 2002, the novelist Michael Moorcock asserted that "Few English novels have been as eccentric or, ultimately, as influential". He noted that Alan Moore, introducing the 2002 edition, had compared the book to John Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress, 1678) and Arthur Machen (The Great God Pan, 1890), but that it nevertheless stood "as one of the great originals". In Moorcock's view, although the character Maskull seems to be commanded to do whatever is needed to save his soul, in a kind of "Nietzschean Pilgrim's Progress", Lindsay's writing does not fall into fascism. Like Hitler, Moorcock argued, Lindsay was traumatised by the trench fighting of the First World War, but the "astonishing and dramatic ambiguity of the novel's resolution" makes the novel the antithesis of Hitler's "visionary brutalism". Moorcock noted that while the book had influenced C. S. Lewis's science fiction trilogy, Lewis had "refused Lindsay's commitment to the Absolute and lacked his God-questioning genius, the very qualities which give this strange book its compelling, almost mesmerising influence."
Also in 2002, Steven H. Silver, criticising A Voyage to Arcturus on SF Site, observed that for a novel it has little plot or characterisation, and furthermore that it gives no motives for the actions taken by its characters. In his view, the book's strength lay in its "philosophical musings" on humanity after the First World War. Silver compared the book not with later science fiction but with the earlier authors H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, commenting however that Lindsay had "neither author's prose skills." He suggested that Lindsay was combining philosophy with an adventure tale in the manner of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
## Legacy
### Impact
The novel was a central influence on C. S. Lewis's 1938–1945 Space Trilogy; he called A Voyage to Arcturus "shattering, intolerable, and irresistible". Lewis also mentioned the "sorbing" (aggressive absorption of another's personality into one's own, fatal to the other person) as an influence on his 1942 book The Screwtape Letters. Lewis in turn recommended the book to J. R. R. Tolkien, who said he read it "with avidity", finding it more powerful, more mythical, but less of a story than Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet; he commented that "no one could read it merely as a thriller and without interest in philosophy[,] religion[,] and morals". Tolkien, who used frame stories in his novels, did not approve of the frame story machinery, the back-rays and the crystal torpedo ship, that Lindsay had used; in his unfinished novel The Notion Club Papers, Tolkien makes one of the protagonists, Guildford, criticise those kinds of "contraptions".
In 1984, the composer John Ogdon wrote an oratorio entitled A Voyage to Arcturus, based on Lindsay's novel and biblical quotations. Ogdon's biographer, Charles Beauclerk, notes that Lindsay was also a composer, and that the novel discusses the nature and meaning of music. In Beauclerk's view, Ogdon saw Linday's novel as a religious work, where for instance the wild three-eyed, three-armed woman Oceaxe becomes Oceania, described in the Bible's Book of Revelation chapter 12 as "a woman cloth'd with the sun, and the moon under her feet".
### Adaptations
The BBC Third Programme presented a radio dramatisation of the novel in 1956. Critic Harold Bloom, in his only attempt at fiction writing, wrote a sequel to this novel, entitled The Flight to Lucifer. Bloom has since critiqued the book as a poor continuation of the narrative. William J. Holloway, then a student at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, created a 71-minute film adaptation of the novel in 1970. The film, unavailable for many years, was independently restored, re-edited and colour-enhanced, to be redistributed on DVD-R in 2005. In 1985, a three-hour play by David Wolpe based on the novel was staged in Los Angeles. Paul Corfield Godfrey wrote an operatic setting based on the novel to a libretto by Richard Charles Rose; it was performed at the Sherman Theatre Cardiff in 1983. The jazz composer Ron Thomas recorded a concept album inspired by the novel in 2001 entitled Scenes from A Voyage to Arcturus. The Ukrainian house producer Vakula (Mikhaylo Vityk) released an imaginary soundtrack called A Voyage To Arcturus as a triple LP in 2015. A musical based on the novel was written by Phil Moore and performed in 2019 at the Peninsula Theatre, Woy Woy, Australia. This production was filmed and is available on some streaming platforms.
## See also
- 1920 in science fiction
|
4,755,529 |
The One Where Rachel Smokes
| 1,126,893,470 | null |
[
"1999 American television episodes",
"Friends (season 5) episodes"
] |
"The One Where Rachel Smokes" is the eighteenth episode of the fifth season of Friends and 115th overall. It first aired on NBC in the United States on April 8, 1999. In the episode, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) starts her new job at Ralph Lauren and soon feels left out because all the decision-making takes place on smoking breaks and she does not smoke. She tries to solve the problem by taking up the habit, which proves difficult. Meanwhile, Ben auditions for a soup commercial and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) decides to come along to try for a part as well. When each is paired with a different actor, the auditions become competitive. Elsewhere, Monica (Courteney Cox) and Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) plan a surprise party for Rachel.
The episode was directed by Todd Holland and written by Michael Curtis. Although Aniston's character Rachel was not a smoker, Aniston herself was at the time, and often said she planned to quit. In its original broadcast, "The One Where Rachel Smokes" acquired a Nielsen rating of 14.8, finishing the week ranked third.
## Plot
Ross (David Schwimmer) and Carol (Jane Sibbett) inform the others that their son Ben (Jack and Charlie Allen) has an audition for a soup commercial, which Joey (Matt LeBlanc) finds hard to accept. When he learns that the TV commercial also has a part for the father, he volunteers himself for the audition. Both Joey and Ben are chosen for the callback but a lack of similarity in looks among the remaining actors makes the director cast them with different individuals, therefore ensuring only one of them can be chosen for the commercial. Joey is paired up with a famous child actor. He talks to Ross about the callback in an attempt to make Ben back out of the audition which Ross finds unreasonable as it was Ben's audition in the first place, and Joey just invited himself along. Both end up fighting over it, which drags on until the callback is held. Joey messes up his two-word line: "mmm soup", ultimately losing him the part. Later, Ross consoles him, and then hypothesizes that subconsciously, Joey sabotaged his own audition because he cares about Ben, to which Joey agrees. Ross then informs him that Ben also did not get the part.
On her first day working at Ralph Lauren, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) tries to get along with her new colleague and boss, Nancy and Kim. The latter two are smokers, and go on a cigarette break, which Rachel cannot join as she does not smoke and she is angered to find that Nancy and Kim are busy making company decisions without her during the smoking break. Rachel fears for her position, as Kim and Nancy spend more time together during smoking breaks and have a better chance to bond, and thus Nancy is most probably going to get promotions. To make an effort and bond with her co-workers, Rachel goes with them and smokes a cigarette. She is not enthusiastic to fall into the bad habit and tries to talk Kim and Nancy into quitting which comes to no avail, later catching them smoking behind her back. Kim warns Rachel that she would fire her if she catches her with a cigarette as she does not want to "drag her down with them". She forces Rachel to leave, just as she invites Nancy to go on a business trip to Paris with her.
Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) and Monica (Courteney Cox) organize a surprise party for Rachel one month ahead of her birthday, but Monica's insistence to take responsibility over everything leaves Phoebe with only cup and ice duties. However, Phoebe vows to get back at Monica. At the party, the apartment is overflowing with decorations and made of cups, and everyone is enjoying the snow cones Phoebe has made with the ice, meaning all of Monica's food is ignored. Rachel arrives home and is very surprised to find the party, given that Chandler's (Matthew Perry) birthday is before hers.
In the tag scene, Chandler arrives up on the Ralph Lauren rooftop to take Rachel to lunch, only to be informed by Nancy and Kim that she is in her office. However, Chandler, distracted by all the smoke, quickly puffs at Kim's cigarette before leaving.
## Production
"The One Where Rachel Smokes" was written by Michael Curtis, making it his third writing credit of the season. It was the only episode directed by Todd Holland. Holland worked previously as a director on Tales from the Crypt, Felicity and most notably The Larry Sanders Show, where he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series at the 50th Primetime Emmy Awards. Despite her character's refusal to smoke, Jennifer Aniston at the time of filming was a frequent smoker. She publicly asserted her intention to quit in the past and even turned to hypnosis, with the help from co-star Lisa Kudrow. Joanna Gleason made her first appearance as Rachel's boss Kim Clozzi. She would later appear in the sixth season episode "The One With Ross's Teeth". "The One Where Rachel Smokes" marked the final appearance of Charlie and Jack Allen as Ben Geller-Willick-Bunch, who were replaced with Cole Sprouse.
## Cultural references
The songs "Never There" by Cake and "Jamming" by Bob Marley can be heard playing at Rachel's birthday party. At Ben's audition, a copy of Variety magazine is seen being read by a child, whom Carol recognises.
## Reception
In its original airing, "The One Where Rachel Smokes" finished third in ratings for the week of April 5 – 11, 1999, with a Nielsen rating of 14.8, equivalent to approximately 14.4 million viewing households. It was the third highest-rated show on NBC that week, after ER and Frasier. The episode premiered in the United Kingdom on Sky1 on May 6, 1999 and attained 1.76 million viewers, making it the most watched program on the network that week.
Entertainment Weekly rated the episode "C", in its review of the fifth season. It cited Chandler's line "You've got to push past this, okay? Because it's about to get sooo good" as the best of the episode. The review criticized the manner in which an employee can feel pressured into smoking, adding it is "not exactly the stuff that laughs are made of". Moreover, it argued the same over the competitive vibe between Joey and Ross. Colin Jacobson at DVD Movie Guide added in a review of the fifth season DVD: "Although I don't like the cutesy kid who plays Ben, the audition bits become funny due to Joey’s screw-ups. His inability to correctly read the line "mmm – soup!" becomes very amusing and offers the show's highlights."
The episode was released as part of Friends: The Complete Fifth Season in Regions 1, 2 and 4. There are two extra scenes included in the DVD: one with Carol at the audition and Chandler at the party attempting to sneak a cigarette.
|
35,096,776 |
Springsteen (song)
| 1,165,828,202 | null |
[
"2010s ballads",
"2012 singles",
"2012 songs",
"Bruce Springsteen",
"Country ballads",
"EMI Records singles",
"Eric Church songs",
"Music videos directed by Peter Zavadil",
"Song recordings produced by Jay Joyce",
"Songs about musicians",
"Songs about nostalgia",
"Songs written by Eric Church",
"Songs written by Jeff Hyde",
"Songs written by Ryan Tyndell"
] |
"Springsteen" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music artist Eric Church. It was released on February 21, 2012 as the third single from his third studio album Chief. Church wrote this song with Jeff Hyde and Ryan Tyndell. The song was inspired by a memory of a girl and another artist's song, but he chose to center it around an idol of his, Bruce Springsteen, and tells the story of a teenage romance.
"Springsteen" was received with critical acclaim for its melody and strong lyrics making it one of the top country songs of 2012. The single reached number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Church's first song to enter the Top 20 on that chart. The song also topped the US Billboard Hot Country Songs. Outside of the United States, the song peaked at 28 on the Canadian Hot 100. "Springsteen" was certified six-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The song was nominated for two Grammy Awards on December 12, 2012, but failed to win any of the awards at the ceremony in 2013.
The accompanying music video was directed by Peter Zavadil and premiered on April 13, 2012 on Maxim.com. The video features Eric Church playing instruments in a suburban neighborhood, while a couple is shown going through the ups and downs of a relationship.
## Composition
"Springsteen" features drums and a synthesizer, along with live instrumentation from the guitar and keyboard. The song notably lacks both the fiddle and steel guitar, which are staples of country music. Eric Church uses his voice throughout the piece to convey emotion, with his pitch and tone changing from verse to verse. The song is composed of two verses with a chorus that is repeated several times. The song is set in the key of D major with a main chord pattern of D-G-Bm-A and a vocal range of A3-E5.
Eric Church wrote the song with Jeff Hyde and Ryan Tyndell. The basis for the song came from a memory of a girl and involved another artist's song. Church chose to base the song around an idol of his, Bruce Springsteen, whose career he admires. During the course of the song, Church makes several allusions to Springsteen; he mentions the Springsteen songs "Born to Run", "Born in the USA", "Glory Days", and "I'm on Fire". While being named after Springsteen and making several references to him, the song however tells the story of a teenage romance. Bruce Springsteen later wrote Eric a letter saying how he and his family enjoyed the song and that he hoped that Eric and he would cross paths soon.
## Critical reception
"Springsteen" received critical acclaim from many music critics. Billy Dukes of Taste of Country gave the song five stars out of five, calling it "the best song from one of 2011's top country albums." Matt Bjorke of Roughstock also gave the song five stars of five, writing that "the strong, sing-a-long lyrics and driving, percussive melody brings Eric Church to an accessibility that he's previously never had." Noah Eaton of Country Universe gave it an A−, saying that it is "a gorgeous, bittersweet anthem-to-be that will likely leave even some more hardened hearts simultaneously smile and cry listening." Eaton went on further to say that this song would propel Church's career to the next level. American Songwriter chose the song for its Lyric of the Week feature, for the week of June 11, 2012. The song was nominated for two Grammy Awards – Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song – on December 12, 2012, but failed to win any of the awards at the ceremony in 2013.
Thom Jerek of AllMusic said the song had "a clever, if somewhat cloying, tune, but it gets the feeling across in spades." The A.V. Club reviewer Steven Hyden claims that Church "is just as effective on slower, more thoughtful songs like "Springsteen" and that the song "[reflects] reflecting on music’s power to revive forgotten emotions from the past." Bruce Springsteen himself took note of Church's music, specifically the song "Springsteen", and wrote Church a note on the back of a setlist. Church received the letter from Springsteen's after a show on August 19, 2012. In the note, Springsteen explained his and his family's love of the song and that he hoped to have their paths cross at some point. Church was surprised when receiving the note and said that "it’s a long note, takes up the entire back page of this setlist for a show that lasted three hours and 47 minutes."
Rolling Stone ranked "Springsteen" at \#58 on their list of the 100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time, the fifth ranking for a song released in the 21st century behind Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" (#57), Brad Paisley's "Alcohol" (#54), Kacey Musgraves' "Follow Your Arrow" (#39) and Taylor Swift's "Mean" (#24). The magazine later ranked the song \#391 on its 2021 list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
## Music video
The song's accompanying music video was directed by Peter Zavadil and premiered on April 13, 2012 on Maxim.com. The video was later made available for purchase through iTunes on April 20, 2012. The video is set in a suburban neighborhood located in Murfreesboro, TN and work on the video began in early March 2012. Church allowed all the neighborhood kids to make cameos in the film. The video was later nominated for Music Video of the Year for 2012 Country Music Awards; however, it lost out to Toby Keith's "Red Solo Cup" for the award.
The music video begins with a girl talking about what she wants in her next boyfriend while on some bleachers. After her monologue is over, the video cuts between shots of Eric Church and scenes of the girl and a boy during various high points and low points in their relationship. Church is seen throughout the video either playing with his band in a garage, in the middle of the street on a piano, or walking through the streets with an American flag around his shoulders while singing. The video ends without showing whether the girl and boy ended up together.
## Chart and sales performance
"Springsteen" debuted at number 52 on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of February 18, 2012. On June 23, 2012, it later became Eric Church's second number one single on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs after "Drink in My Hand" in January 2012. The record reached two million copies sold in January 2013 and has gone on to be certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The song has sold 2,783,000 copies in the US as of August 2016.
On the Canadian Hot 100, the single reached a peak of 28 on the charts before falling down the rankings. On September 5, 2012 sales for the song in Canada received gold and platinum certifications, and on July 11, 2013 it achieved double platinum status with over 80,000 records sold.
## Charts and certifications
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
### Certifications
|
49,275,952 |
Xin Fengxia
| 1,168,922,147 |
Chinese pingju opera performer
|
[
"1927 births",
"1998 deaths",
"20th-century Chinese actresses",
"20th-century Chinese artists",
"20th-century Chinese women artists",
"20th-century Chinese women singers",
"20th-century Chinese women writers",
"20th-century Chinese writers",
"Actresses from Suzhou",
"Actresses from Tianjin",
"Chinese women painters",
"Musicians from Suzhou",
"Ping opera actresses",
"Singers from Tianjin",
"Victims of the Anti-Rightist Campaign",
"Victims of the Cultural Revolution",
"Writers from Suzhou",
"Writers from Tianjin"
] |
Xin Fengxia (Chinese: 新凤霞; pinyin: Xīn Fèngxiá; Wade–Giles: Hsin Feng-hsia; 1927 – 12 April 1998) was a Chinese pingju opera performer, known as the "Queen of Pingju". She was also a film actress, writer, and painter. She starred in the highly popular films Liu Qiao'er (1956) and Flowers as Matchmakers (1964), both adapted from her operas.
Xin was married to Wu Zuguang, a prominent playwright and an outspoken critic of government policies. When Wu was denounced as a "rightist" in Mao Zedong's Anti-Rightist Campaign, Xin refused to divorce him and was herself denounced as a result. She was later severely persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, becoming disabled after a beating and was later paralyzed due to a stroke. No longer able to perform, she dedicated the remainder of her life to teaching, writing, and painting. She studied painting with her godfather Qi Baishi, a master of Chinese painting, and studied writing with her husband. She published a two-million-word memoir, which has been translated into English and Urdu.
Xin Fengxia pioneered her own style of pingju, now called the "Xin" (which also means "new") style. It has become one of the most important styles of the opera. In 2014, the China Pingju Institute created the new pingju opera Xin Fengxia to commemorate her life.
## Early life and career
Xin Fengxia was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu, China. When she was a toddler she was sold by human smugglers to Tianjin in northern China, and was given the name Yang Shumin (杨淑敏). She was trained as an opera performer from a young age. At that time, the theatrical world in China was controlled by gangsters. Actors, even renowned performers, had little personal freedom. She originally trained for Peking opera under her "older sister" Yang Jinxiang, but later changed to pingju. She toured extensively, and by the 1940s, her fame had rivalled well known female stars such as Liu Cuixia, Bai Yushuang, and Fu Ronghua.
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Xin moved to Beijing. Her first performance, in the modern pingju Little Erhei's Marriage, was well liked and attracted the attention of the original novelist Zhao Shuli and the well known writer Lao She. Her next performance, in Liu Qiao'er, was even more successful, making her a household name in China. In the opera Flowers as Matchmakers (Hua Wei Mei), she transformed the traditional melancholy tunes of pingju into joyous ones, and enriched the pingju repertoire by creating many new melodies. It is now considered a classic of the Xin style pingju. Liu Qiao'er was made into a film in 1956, which was followed by Flowers as Matchmakers in 1964. Both starred Xin and were extremely popular. Premier Zhou Enlai and his wife Deng Yingchao were both her fans. Zhou once said: "I can live without tea for three days, but not without watching Xin Fengxia."
## Marriage and persecution
In 1951, Lao She introduced Xin Fengxia to the famous playwright Wu Zuguang. Like many intellectuals at the time, Wu held high hopes for the new People's Republic and returned to China from British Hong Kong. Xin, who had acted in one of Wu's plays, admired his talent. They married that year, despite the fact that they were from differing socioeconomic backgrounds; she had no formal education and was nearly illiterate, while he was from a prominent family of scholars. Wu helped her to study reading, writing, and calligraphy. She also studied painting with Qi Baishi, one of the most celebrated masters of Chinese painting, who took her as his goddaughter.
Wu Zuguang, an outspoken critic of government cultural policies, was denounced in 1957 as a "rightist" in Mao Zedong's Anti-Rightist Campaign, and was sent to the Great Northern Wilderness in Heilongjiang to be "reformed through labour." Xin was pressured to divorce her husband, but refused. Citing a legendary love story from one of her operas, she said "Wang Baochuan waited 18 years for Xue Pinggui, and I will wait 28 years for Wu Zuguang." As a result, she was herself labeled a rightist and went through struggle sessions.
Wu returned to Beijing after three years of hard labour, but six years later, China fell into the even greater turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966. Xin Fengxia and Wu Zuguang were both denounced at the beginning of the period. She was severely beaten by a junior actor of the China Pingju Institute; her left knee was broken and she never fully recovered from the injury. The couple's friend Lao She drowned himself after being similarly tortured. After her beating Xin served seven years of forced labour. In December 1975, she became paralyzed after suffering a stroke. Wu took care of her for the rest of her life.
## Post-Cultural Revolution
After the Cultural Revolution, Xin Fengxia was politically rehabilitated in 1979, but was unable to return to the stage because of her disability. Her performance in Flowers as Matchmakers in 1964 proved to be her last. She devoted her energy to writing, painting, and training the younger generation of pingju performers. In 1997, she published her two-million-word memoir, which has been translated into English and Urdu. Ye Shengtao, the renowned writer and publisher, greatly encouraged her to write. He composed two poems praising her courage and talent. Her paintings, which were decorated with her husband's calligraphy, were also popular, and an exhibition of them was held at the China Military Museum in 1994. She was elected as a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
In April 1998, while visiting Changzhou, her husband's hometown, she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. She was sent to Changzhou No. 1 People's Hospital, where she died after a week, on 12 April 1998.
## Legacy
Xin Fengxia and Wu Zuguang had three children. Their son, Wu Huan, is also a writer, painter, and calligrapher. After the deaths of Xin in 1998 and of Wu Zuguang in 2003, he organized the exhibition "A Hundred Years of the Wu Family" at the Poly Art Museum in Beijing. It was also shown in France, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
The "Xin" style of pingju pioneered by Xin Fengxia has become one of the most important styles of the opera. In 2014, the China Pingju Institute created a new opera entitled Xin Fengxia to commemorate her life, with focuses on her reformation of the opera, and the love story of Xin and Wu. It is written by Huang Weiruo (黄维若), and directed by Guo Xiaonan (郭小男).
|
4,251,169 |
Bedford Castle
| 1,144,403,369 |
Medieval castle in Bedford, England
|
[
"Buildings and structures in Bedford",
"Castles in Bedfordshire",
"Motte-and-bailey castles",
"Ruins in Bedfordshire",
"Tourist attractions in Bedfordshire"
] |
Bedford Castle was a large medieval castle in Bedford, England. Built after 1100 by Henry I, the castle played a prominent part in both the civil war of the Anarchy and the First Barons' War. The castle was significantly extended in stone, although the final plan of the castle remains uncertain. Henry III of England besieged the castle in 1224 following a disagreement with Falkes de Breauté; the siege lasted eight weeks and involved an army of as many as 2,700 soldiers with equipment drawn from across England. After the surrender of the castle, the king ordered its destruction (slighting).
Although partially refortified in the 17th century during the English Civil War, the castle remained a ruin until the urban expansion in Bedford during the 19th century, when houses were built across much of the property. Today only part of the motte still stands, forming part of an archaeological park built on the site between 2007 and 2009.
## History
### Early history (1100–1153)
Bedford Castle was probably built after 1100 by Henry I in the town of Bedford, overlooking the River Great Ouse. The castle was constructed inside the town itself, and many of the older Anglo-Saxon streets had to be destroyed and diverted to make room for it, leaving a permanent mark in the formal grid system. The castle was built in a motte and bailey design and was probably much smaller than the later castle, just consisting of the motte and the inner bailey.
By the early 12th century the castle was controlled by the royal castellan, Simon de Beauchamp, the son of Hugh de Beauchamp who had helped conquer England in 1066. Contemporaries described the castle around this time as "completely ramparted around with an immense earthen bank and ditch, girt about with a wall strong and high, strengthened with a strong and unshakeable keep". Simon died in 1137, and King Stephen agreed that Simon's daughter should marry Hugh the Pauper and that the castle would be given to Hugh, in exchange for Stephen giving Miles compensatory honours and gifts. Miles and Payn de Beauchamp, the children of Simon's brother, Robert de Beauchamp, declared that the castle was rightfully Miles' and refused to hand it over to Hugh.
Meanwhile, civil war had broken out in England between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda, resulting in a period of chaos known as the Anarchy. Matilda's uncle, David I of Scotland, invaded England during 1137 in support of her claim. Although Miles de Beauchamp declared himself in support of Stephen, the king decided to retake Bedford Castle before marching north. Stephen formed an army to besiege Bedford Castle but Miles gained advance warning of the attack and took in considerable supplies, preparing for a long siege. Stephen was unable to storm the castle and left a force under the command of Hugh to starve it into submission whilst he marched north to tackle the Scots invasion.
Henry of Blois, the Bishop of Winchester, intervened in an attempt to produce a negotiated solution. Henry reached an agreement whereby after five weeks, the castle finally surrendered; the garrison were allowed to leave peacefully but the castle was handed over to the king. The deal struck by Miles and Henry appears to have left the surrounding estates in the hands of the Beauchamps, however, and in 1141 Miles returned and retook the castle itself, although no details are available as to how he achieved this.
Miles subsequently supported the Empress, and in 1146, Ranulf, the Earl of Chester and temporarily on the side of the king, attacked and took the town of Bedford, but was unable to take the castle, which continued to be controlled by Miles until his death several years later. Towards the end of the war, Bedford Castle may have been attacked again; Henry II, during the final year of the conflict in 1153, marched through Bedford and documentary evidence shows damage to the town at this time. Historians are divided as to whether the castle was besieged at the same time.
### Mid-medieval period (1153–1224)
Early in 1215 tensions grew between King John and a rebel faction of his barons, which would lead to the First Barons' War. The rebel barons attempted to besiege Northampton Castle; unsuccessful, they turned to Bedford Castle but the castle withstood the attack and they moved south to London. Bedford was held at the time by William de Beauchamp but his loyalty came into question and he rebelled against John. Falkes de Breauté, a key Anglo-Norman leader loyal to John, resisted and seized Bedford Castle back for John in 1216. In return John gave Falkes the Honour of Bedford, and in practical terms the castle as well, although it is unclear whether he gave Falkes the role of castellan or ownership of the castle itself. As the war continued, Falkes took control of Plympton, Christchurch and Carisbrooke castles, whilst continuing to hold onto Bedford. After the death of King John in 1216 the war turned against the rebel barons and the royalist faction, including Falkes, was able to restore his son, the young Henry III to power in England.
After the war, Falkes made Bedford Castle his headquarters and he expanded it considerably, resulting in what David Baker has described as a "major refortification". Falkes destroyed the neighbouring churches of St Paul's and St Cuthbert's to make space for a new bailey, reusing the stone for the castle. The exact form of the castle after this expansion remains uncertain. The castle appears to have been quadrangular, with the western edge running along the rear of the modern High Street and the northern edge running along the modern roads of Ram Yard and Castle Lane. The castle had a new barbican; an outer and an inner bailey, with the inner bailey in the south-east corner, protected by an internal ditch and a stone-lined palisade; further stone lined ditches lay around the castle; and a new keep was built on the motte. Brown suspects that the new keep was probably a shell keep with a tower, similar to those built at Launceston or Bungay. The stone-lined palisades and ditches built at Bedford were very unusual in England – their closest equivalent are those found at Skenfrith Castle in Wales. The castle had a postern watergate facing towards the river, and a great hall within the inner bailey in the middle, at least 13 m (43 feet) wide and 40 m (131 feet) long. There was possibly a large stone gatehouse positioned on the outer bailey wall. A mound in the north-east corner of the castle probably supported a large tower.
#### Siege of 1224
Henry III decided that Bedford Castle should be returned to its original owner, William de Beauchamp, and became increasingly frustrated with Falkes' refusal to do so; matters came to a head when Falkes' castellans imprisoned Henry of Braybrooke, a royal judge who was hearing law cases against Falkes. When Falkes refused to release the judge, Henry mobilised an army, supported by the Church in the form of Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and advanced to Bedford. Falkes had left the castle, along with around eighty men, in charge of his brother, William de Breauté, who refused to surrender it to the king. Falkes was probably hoping that if the castle held on long enough, his efforts to convince Pope Honorius III to intervene against Henry would succeed. The Archbishop excommunicated William and the siege began.
The siege of Bedford Castle required huge resources. Siege engines were brought from Lincoln, Northampton and Oxfordshire, while carpenters built others on site using timber from Northamptonshire; ropes from London, Cambridge and Southampton; hides from Northampton and tallow from London. Labourers from across Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire were gathered by the relevant sheriffs, and miners from Hereford and the Forest of Dean. Crossbow bolts were ordered from a depot at Corfe Castle and from the provinces; 43,300 crossbow bolts are known to have been ordered by the king. Local trees were cut down, and stone quarrying begun to provide ammunition for siege engines. Tents and pavilions for the King were sent from London along with supplies of luxury foods and wine, also for the King. In total, Henry's wage bill for the siege came to £1,311; it is uncertain exactly how large Henry's army was, but potentially there were between 1,600 and 2,700 men present at any one time. To support the siege, Langton instructed his bishops to mobilise one man from every 24 hectares (60 acres) of land they owned and levied a special tax on the churches' estates.
With these resources, Henry erected a number of siege engines around the castle; one probable trebuchet and two mangonels were set up to the east of the castle; two mangonels were placed on the west side, to attack the keep, and one mangonel on both the north and south sides. Two siege-castles were established to observe the occupants of the castle. William was confident, however, that either his brother would return and relieve the siege, or that the pope would intervene, and held on despite the artillery attacks. The losses in the royal army began to mount; chronicler Ralph of Coggeshall suggests that seven knights, and over 200 soldiers and labourers were killed as the siege dragged on.
Bedford Castle finally fell through a sequence of four attacks. Royal forces first captured the barbican and then stormed the outer bailey, seizing most of the castle's supplies but taking considerable losses. Miners, operating under the protection of a "cat", then gained access to the inner bailey by collapsing part of the wall. Finally, on 14 August, the miners attacked the keep itself, lighting a fire under the walls, cracking the stone and filling the building with smoke. The female members of the household, including Falkes' wife, and Henry de Braybrooke were released, the royal standard was raised over the tower, and the next day William and the garrison surrendered.
A discussion ensued about the fate of the garrison; near contemporary accounts suggest that the prisoners asked the Archbishop for assistance, but that this was declined. Henry then had all the male members of the garrison hanged, except for three knights who agreed to join the military order of the Knights Templar. Three days after the fall of Bedford Castle, the Pope wrote a letter demanding that Henry cease his campaign against Falkes, but this intervention had occurred far too late to be of use. Alexander de Stavenby, the Bishop of Coventry, convinced Falkes to surrender after the fall of the castle; he handed over his remaining castles at Plympton and Storgursey and was absolved by Langton, going into exile shortly afterwards. Historian R. Brown has noted that the 1224 siege of Bedford Castle was remarkable in that the castle's garrison was able to hold out against "the concentrated military resources of the whole kingdom" for an impressive eight weeks. David Carpenter argues that the fall of Bedford castle "concluded the triumph of central government" over the previously uncontrollable forces of the local barons.
### Later history (13–19th centuries)
After the siege Henry III ordered the castle to be dismantled, and labourers filled in the ditches and halved the height of the stone walls. William de Beauchamp was forbidden to rebuild the castle, and instead built an unfortified house in the inner bailey. St Paul's and St Cuthbert's churches were rebuilt in 1224 using stone from the castle. The sudden availability of cheap stone led to the repaving of many of the town streets in Bedford in 1224. Local tradition suggests that the first stone bridge at Bedford, the Great Bridge, was built using stone from the castle. By 1361 the castle site was described as "a void plot of old enclosed by walls" and seems to have been derelict for most of the medieval period. The antiquarian John Leland visited the site in the 16th century, and noted that the castle was "now clean down". The early 17th-century mapmaker John Speed produced a map of Bedford in 1611, showing the motte and a fragment of bailey wall still standing on an otherwise vacant site.
At the outbreak of the English Civil War, Bedford sided with Parliament; the town was temporarily captured by Prince Rupert of the Rhine in 1643 and the castle was refortified for the duration of the war. A probable wooden fort and prison were built on the remains of the motte and defended by a hundred-man garrison. After the war the motte became used as a bowling green until the 19th century. In 1804 the north-east tower of the castle was turned into a hexagonal building for the local militia unit. Bedford began to spread eastwards in the late 19th century and the castle baileys became desirable property for housing; in 1851 the last parts of the barbican were destroyed to make way for the construction of cottages.
### Modern period (20–21st centuries)
Today only the base of the motte survives at Bedford Castle, 7.5 m (25 feet) high and 49 m (161 feet) wide at the top, and is a scheduled monument. Archaeological work has been conducted to develop a better understanding of the history of the castle, although excavations are difficult because of the urban nature of the site. Excavations between 1969 and 1972 established the broad form of the castle; this was supplemented by further work in 1995–6 and another phase of excavations in 2007. Following the 2007 investigations, an archaeological park was built on part of the castle site between 2007 and 2009, forming the centre of a mixed-use development of restaurants and apartments. The park incorporated one of the castle's lime kilns, first rediscovered in 1973, and the foundations of a hall discovered at the castle.
In 2004 Bedford Borough Council commissioned artist Gary Drostle to create a mosaic map of Bedford depicting the castle and Bedford's medieval history in front of the castle mound.
## See also
- Castles in Great Britain and Ireland
- List of castles in England
|
21,008,804 |
Fifteen (song)
| 1,171,953,224 |
2009 single by Taylor Swift
|
[
"2000s ballads",
"2008 songs",
"2009 singles",
"Big Machine Records singles",
"Country ballads",
"Country pop songs",
"Music videos directed by Roman White",
"Pop ballads",
"Song recordings produced by Chris Rowe",
"Song recordings produced by Nathan Chapman (record producer)",
"Song recordings produced by Taylor Swift",
"Songs about friendship",
"Songs about teenagers",
"Songs based on actual events",
"Songs written by Taylor Swift",
"Taylor Swift songs"
] |
"Fifteen" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift for her second studio album, Fearless (2008). Produced by Swift and Nathan Chapman, it is a country pop song with narrative lyrics inspired by Swift's freshman year of high school. In the lyrics, Swift and her high school friend Abigail Anderson, both at 15, go through teenage love and heartbreak together. Swift included the track on Fearless after Anderson consented to the personal references. The lyrics mentioning Anderson's disappointment after she "gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind" received criticism for its allegedly sex-negative connotation.
The song was released to US country radio on August 31, 2009, by Big Machine Records. Swift partnered with electronics retailer Best Buy for "@15", a program that allowed teens to help decide how funds would be distributed among charities. "Fifteen" peaked at number 23 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In Canada, the single peaked at number 19 on the Canadian Hot 100 and was certified gold by Music Canada. Music critics lauded Swift's songwriting craftsmanship on "Fifteen" for portraying teenage experiences with vivid storytelling and catchy hooks, with many picking it as a highlight on Fearless.
The single won a Teen Choice Award for Choice Country Song. Roman White directed the music video for "Fifteen", which was filmed using a green screen and features Swift walking through a garden, where she relives many memories with Anderson. It received a nomination for Best Female Video at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift included "Fifteen" on the regular set lists of her first two headlining tours, Fearless (2009–10) and Speak Now (2011–12), and on select dates of her later tours, 1989 (2015), Reputation (2018), and the Eras (2023–2024). She released a re-recorded version, "Fifteen (Taylor's Version)", as part of her re-recorded album Fearless (Taylor's Version), on April 9, 2021.
## Background
Swift began writing "Fifteen" with the lyric "And Abigail gave everything she had to a boy/ Who changed his mind/ We both cried", which eventually became the song's bridge, and continued writing everything else in a backwards manner. The song was written about Swift's freshman year of high school at Hendersonville High School, where she met her then best friend Abigail Anderson. "I just decided I really wanted to tell that story about our first year of high school because I felt in my freshman year, I grew up more than any year in my life so far", Swift stated. The events it focused on were how both Swift and Anderson fell in love for the first time, but both suffered heartbreaks. Aside from reminiscing on the events she and Anderson experienced, Swift wrote cautionary lyrics, intended to target teenage girls entering or already in their freshman year of high school. She described it as incorporating things she wished someone would have told her in a song when she was younger. "The thing about high school, you don't know anything. You don't know anything, but you think you know everything", Swift said.
After the completion of composing "Fifteen", Swift became very nervous to show Anderson the song, for she did not know how her friend would respond. "It was a really personal song, especially from her angle of it." However, when Swift performed the song for Anderson and asked whether she was comfortable with the song, Anderson confirmed: "She said, 'Does it bother you that your name is in a song that's so personal?' And it really doesn't just because of the way Taylor and I feel about it. If one girl can kind of learn from it or connect to a song like that, it's totally worth it." With Anderson's consent, Swift recorded "Fifteen" with producer Nathan Chapman, who produced all but one track on Swift's 2006 eponymous debut album, Taylor Swift. Recording the highly personal track caused Swift to cry. Swift attributed the event to the fact that she is most likely to cry over when her loved ones undergo pain, as she witnesses it, rather than her own experiences. She went to say "Fifteen" usually gets her every time.
## Composition
"Fifteen" is a country pop song with a length of four minutes and 55 seconds. It is set in common time and has a moderate tempo of 96 beats per minute. The track is categorized as a ballad. It is written in the key of G major and Swift's vocals spans a little over one octave, from G<sub>3</sub> to C<sub>5</sub>. It follows the chord progression Gsus<sub>2</sub>–Csus<sub>2</sub>–Em–Csus<sub>2</sub>. It concludes with an outro that consists of Swift singing "la la la" and rephrasing the song's opening lines.
Grady Smith of Rolling Stone listed "Fifteen" as one of the "countriest" songs Swift has ever released, stating the song was a good counterpart to the more radio-friendly "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" during the Fearless-era.
The lyrics of "Fifteen" have Swift narrating about multiple events. In the first verse, Swift details first entering high school with intentions of merely staying out of her peers' way. The second verse bears Swift meeting Anderson and gossiping about the school's queen bees with her. Successively, Swift describes first dates and falling in love for the first time. However, Swift and Anderson become heartbroken, revealing that Anderson "gave everything she had" to someone who later changed his mind. The song's refrains have Swift cautioning young girls to not fall in love easily and acknowledging that she came to the realization of being able to accomplish more than dating a football team member.
## Critical reception
The song was met with widespread critical acclaim. Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone believed "Fifteen" was exemplary in that "Swift is a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". Rosen compared her songwriting in the track to that of producers Dr. Luke and Max Martin, whom he referred to as "Swedish pop gods". He continued, "Her music mixes an almost impersonal professionalism — it's so rigorously crafted it sounds like it has been scientifically engineered in a hit factory — with confessions that are squirmingly intimate and true." Jonathon Keefe of Slant Magazine considered the bridge one of the nicer moments of Fearless, but was unimpressed with Swift's singing, particularly in the outro. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic found "Fifteen", in which Swift portrayed the role of a big sister instead of a big star, to be one of the best and the most personal song on Fearless. Ken Tucker of Billboard magazine believed "Fifteen" could appeal with teenagers looking for hope and adult women reminiscing the past. Leah Greenbelt of Entertainment Weekly stated, "When she sings about sexuality, she sounds like a real teen, not some manufactured vixen-Lolita".
Jon Caramanica of The New York Times said "Fifteen" was one of Swift's best-written songs. James Reed of The Boston Globe believed "Fifteen" was one of Fearless's most interesting songs and stated he could visualize the lyrics of the song scribbled in a diary that chronicled Swift's freshman year in high school. Josh Love of The Village Voice called the song a "standout" on the album and found it a refreshing contradiction to typical, idealistic country songs. Prior to its single release, Kate Kiefer of Paste magazine suggested for the song be released as a single from Fearless, adding that she loved it. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called the track a fantastically good song that broadened "her potential market from teenage girls to anyone who used to be a teenage girl". Petridis continued, "You applaud her skill, while feeling slightly unsettled by the thought of a teenager pontificating away like Yoda." Aidan Vaziri of San Francisco Chronicle ranked it twelfth on his top 12 singles of 2009 list, commenting, "Damn it if this song isn't too sweet, too vulnerable and just too real to ignore." On a negative side, some critics took issue with the alleged themes of idealized femininity and virginity, interpreting the lyrics mentioning Anderson's disappointment after she "gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind" as sex-negative and encouraging the idea of submissive femininity.
## Release and commercial performance
Following the release of Fearless, on the week ending November 29, 2008, "Fifteen" debuted at number 79 on the Billboard Hot 100 Its appearance, along with six other songs, on the chart tied Swift with Hannah Montana (Miley Cyrus) for the female act to have the most songs charting on the Billboard Hot 100 in the same week, a record later surpassed by Swift herself when she charted 16 songs at once in 2020. It re-entered at number 94 on the week ending October 3, 2009, after its single release.
"Fifteen" was released to US country radio on August 31, 2009, by Big Machine Records. On the week ending December 19, 2009, "Fifteen" reached its peak at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100, and, on the week ending February 6, 2010, spent its last week at number 40, after 21 weeks on the chart. The song is one of 13 songs from Fearless charted within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, breaking the record for the most top 40 entries from a single album. The single was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. As of November 2017, "Fifteen" has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States.
"Fifteen" debuted at number 41 on Hot Country Songs. It jumped to number 31 in its second week and on the week ending November 7, 2009, it entered the top 10 at number 10. Six weeks later, it reached its peak at number seven on the week ending December 12, 2009. The single became her second single that did not reach the top three of Hot Country Songs since her debut single "Tim McGraw". "Fifteen" also peaked at number 10 on Pop Songs, number 12 on Adult Contemporary, and number 14 on Adult Pop Songs.
On the week ending January 23, 2010, the song peaked at number 19 in Canada. It was certified gold by Music Canada for sales of 40,000 digital downloads. "Fifteen" peaked at number 48 in Australia on the week ending December 13, 2009.
## Music video
The music video for "Fifteen" was directed by Roman White, who previously directed Swift's music video "You Belong with Me". White began with the intention of creating a video different than others Swift did in the past. To do so, he believed he needed to set the video outside of high school. White explained, "Well, I think I really wanted this video to kind of be an evolution for Taylor [...] I actually said to her, 'I don't think we should shoot in a high school.' And I don't think she wanted to either." White conceptualized the video's setting by taking into account the literal meaning of the song and transforming into something new. He conceptualized the setting to be a new world where Swift could revisit her memories, as they manifest around her. "Let's take the literal meaning of this song and watch it evolve in front of us ... almost as a memory in your head. And create this world, somewhere you walk in on this desolate desert and you start to sing about all these great memories you have... of everything you love blooming around you, and so we literally grew this garden around her", White said. The world moved from one situation to the next. White decided to annex surreal elements to create a cross between a garden and the heart of the memories. He intertwined Swift's emotions with the growth of the garden. The garden grew when Swift felt happy, but at the sight of pain and negative emotions, clouds appear and the garden dies, which also symbolized Swift's best friend Abigail Anderson's broken heart.
Swift's friend, Anderson, portrayed herself in the video. The love interests of both Swift and Anderson were cast by Swift after she received images of them via e-mail. The video was filmed in two days. The first day consisted of actors, including Swift and Anderson, filming before a green screen. On the set, White presented Swift with caricature drawings depicting the music video, in order to guide herself. Swift was impressed by Anderson's acting skills, considering her lack of experience, and called it "prolific". On the second day, scenes at a high school were filmed; artificial rain was made. Afterward, White and a team of visual effect artists created the setting. "If you watch just the offline edit of this video, it's just green. It's just Taylor walking around a giant green screen. And to think that every single thing in that video was created is amazing, 'cause a lot of people worked really hard on it", White said. The visual effects team were at work for the video for some time, sometimes staying overnight in the office to produce the video. The direction was to make the video seem "magical". Some of the props used when filming were recreated using digital animation, such as the door and the desks. Because extras were filmed separately, White was meticulous to find the right shots to make the scene more cohesive. White believed the finished product had a sense of innocence.
The video begins with Swift, barefoot and clad in a white sundress, approaching a tall, arched doorway which materializes in the middle of a barren landscape. Swift looks at a photograph of herself and her friend tucked into the arch and, then, passes through the doors. On the other side of the arch, animated flowers and vines grow across the scenes. People and objects from a high school fade in and out of view. Swift walks through the memories and begins to play an acoustic guitar beneath a tree. Afterward, Anderson appears, sitting at a desk before a chalkboard in the field of flowers. Swift sits down beside her and the two begin to whisper and laugh to each other. In the next scene, Swift plays a namesake Taylor brand guitar while Anderson goes on her first date; she kisses her date, but pushes him away when he tries to go further. Her love interest and all surroundings dissolve to show Anderson sitting alone on a stone bench. Swift approaches her and hugs her tightly as the field around them turns dark and stormy. The video then alternates between Swift singing in the rain and hugging her friend. After the landscape deteriorates, the video transitions to reality, where Swift, wearing a black trench coat, stands in the rain, across the street from a high school. Swift then sees a student at the entrance; the two make eye contact and the video concludes. To date, the video has over 150 million views on YouTube.
### Video reception
The music video premiered on October 9, 2009 on CMT. Peter Gicas of E! thought the video was "sweet" and said, "And while the visuals here—Taylor walking in and out of various animated scenes—are certainly nice to look at, they nevertheless take a back seat to the country star's cuteness." Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly graded the video a B. Greenblatt believed the video was reverential and painterly, but criticized it by saying "Fifteen"'s most powerful lyrics were outdone by the dreamy design. Jocelyn Vena of MTV wrote, "Taylor Swift is 'Fifteen' all over again in the new music video for her song of the same name." At the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for the MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video, but lost to Lady Gaga's video for "Bad Romance" (2009).
## Accolades
## Live performances
Swift first performed "Fifteen", as a duet with singer Miley Cyrus, at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards. The duo sat on wooden stools for the acoustic performance, with Swift wearing a baggy beige dress layered over a tight black outfit and playing an acoustic guitar. Swift has also performed the song at We're All for the Hall, a benefit concert organized by Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the 2009 CMA Music Festival, the 2009 V Festival, the Australian charity concert Sydney Sound Relief, and the Country Music Association Awards. In the United Kingdom, Swift performed "Fifteen" on Later... with Jools Holland and The Paul O'Grady Show.
Swift performed the song on all venues in 2009 and 2010 of her first headlining concert tour, the Fearless Tour. The performances of "Fifteen" set on a small platform located at the opposite end, parallel to the stage in the arena. Swift, dressed in a pastel sundress, sat on a wooden stool while performing with wooden 12-string acoustic guitar strapped to her shoulder. Nicole Frehsee of Rolling Stone favored Swift's performance of "Tim McGraw" at the August 27, 2009 concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Frehsee described the entire concert as an "elaborate spectacle that doesn't slow down, even when the singer hauls her acoustic guitar into the audience to play a sweet, stripped down set of tunes including 'Fifteen'." "Fifteen" served as a performance on the setlist of Swift's second concert tour, the Speak Now World Tour (2011); the performances featured Swift sitting and playing an acoustic guitar, wearing a blue cocktail dress.
Swift performed the song during her 1989 World Tour in place of "You Are In Love" on selected dates, such as the shows in Indianapolis and Atlanta. She also performed the acoustic version of the song on Formula 1 Grand Prix on October 22, 2016 at Austin, Texas. This song was most recently performed on her Reputation Stadium Tour during the second show in London, in place of "All Too Well", in honor of the concert being the fifteenth show of the tour, and at the second Nashville show of the Eras Tour, at which Abigail Anderson was in attendance.
## @15
Swift partnered with electronics retailer Best Buy for @15, a program that allowed teens to help decide how Best Buy's "@15 Fund" would be distributed among various charities. Swift taped a Public Service Announcement (PSA), called a "Teen Service Announcement" by Best Buy, for @15. Within the PSA, which was released on February 9, 2009, scenes of Swift reminiscing on high school and encouraging originality and uniqueness were inter-cut with scenes of her singing "Fifteen". In June 2009, @15 became a partner for Swift's Fearless Tour. The announcement was shown at each stop during the North American leg of the tour. In fifteen tour stops, @15 donated forty concert tickets and a guitar autographed by Swift to local teen-oriented charity groups, such as chapters of Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
## Personnel
Adapted from the liner notes of Fearless
- Taylor Swift – vocals, songwriter, producer
- Nathan Chapman – producer
- Drew Bollman – assistant mixer
- Chad Carlson – recording engineer
- Justin Niebank – mixer
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications
## "Fifteen (Taylor's Version)"
"Fifteen (Taylor's Version)" is the re-recorded version of "Fifteen" by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The track is written by Swift and produced by Swift and Christopher Rowe. It was released on April 9, 2021, through Republic Records, as the second track on Fearless (Taylor's Version), the re-recording of Fearless. An official lyric video of the re-recording was released to YouTube.
"Fifteen (Taylor's Version)" was well received by critics, who praised Swift's more mature vocals as adding depth to the song. Upon the release of the album, the song charted in Australia, Canada, and the United States, and also appeared in the top 20 of the Hot Country Songs chart.
### Background
On February 11, 2021, Swift announced a re-recording of "Fifteen", titled "Fifteen (Taylor's Version)", as part of Fearless (Taylor's Version), the re-recorded version of Fearless. The album was released on April 9, 2021.
### Critical reception
Critics generally praised "Fifteen (Taylor's Version)". NME's Hannah Mylrea called it one of Swift's most moving songs, while also remarking that lines such as "Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday / But I realised some bigger dreams of mine" cut deeper 10 years later. Alexandra Pollard of The Independent expressed similar sentiments, saying that there was "an added layer" to "Fifteen (Taylor's Version)" and songs like it on the album. Writing for Gigwise, Kelsey Barnes wrote that "the small vocal changes in 'Fifteen (Taylor's Version)' which means so much more when you think about her now, at 31, and all of the fans that have grown up alongside her since then", saying that Swift's age could be heard and felt "in the best way".
### Charts
|
71,474,970 |
2022 Hong Kong Masters
| 1,170,335,357 | null |
[
"2022 in Hong Kong sport",
"2022 in snooker",
"Hong Kong Masters",
"October 2022 sports events in Asia",
"Snooker in Asia"
] |
The 2022 Hong Kong Masters was an invitational professional snooker tournament that took place from 6 to 9 October 2022 at the Hong Kong Coliseum in Hong Kong. Organised by the Hong Kong Billiard Sports Control Council and the World Snooker Tour as part of the 2022–23 snooker season, the tournament was staged for the first time since the 2017 edition. It was the first professional snooker tournament held outside Europe, as well as the first major sporting event held in Hong Kong, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The winner received £100,000 from a total prize purse of £315,000.
Two native Hong Kong players and the top six players in the snooker world rankings as they stood after the 2022 World Snooker Championship were invited to take part. Overseas players were granted a limited exemption from Hong Kong's COVID-19 regulations, enabling them to travel between the venue and their hotel without quarantining. Zhao Xintong was forced to withdraw after he tested positive for COVID-19, and was replaced in the draw by Mark Williams.
Neil Robertson was the defending champion, having defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 6–3 in the final of the 2017 edition, but he lost 4–6 to O'Sullivan in the semi-finals. Hong Kong native Marco Fu had taken time away from the sport after undergoing eye surgery in 2017, and then did not compete professionally for over two years following the 2020 Welsh Open, due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. However, he defeated Mark Selby 5–2 in the quarter-finals and made the fifth maximum break of his career in the deciding frame of his semi-final against John Higgins. The highest of the 18 century breaks made during the event, Fu's 147 marked the seventh time in snooker history that a player won a deciding frame with a maximum. O'Sullivan defeated Fu 6–4 in the final to win the tournament for the first time. Around 9,000 spectators attended the final, setting a new record for the largest live audience at a snooker match.
## Format
The Hong Kong Masters is a professional snooker competition that was first held in 1983; the inaugural champion was Doug Mountjoy. Held from 6 to 9 October 2022 at the Hong Kong Coliseum in Hung Hom in Hong Kong, the 2022 event was the first staging of the Hong Kong Masters since 2017. It was also the first professional snooker tournament played outside Europe, as well as the first major sporting event held in Hong Kong, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was organised by the Hong Kong Billiard Sports Control Council and the World Snooker Tour as part of the 2022–23 snooker season. It set a new record for the largest live audience at a snooker match, with around 9,000 spectators attending the final. The previous record of 3,000 spectators had been set at the 2017 edition of the event.
Eight players were chosen to compete at the event, the six highest ranked players following the 2022 World Snooker Championship and two players from Hong Kong, Marco Fu and Ng On-yee. Overseas players were granted a limited exemption from Hong Kong's COVID-19 regulations, enabling them to travel between the venue and their hotel without quarantining. Zhao Xintong was forced to withdraw after he tested positive for COVID-19 and was replaced in the draw by Mark Williams, the next eligible player according to the invitation criteria.
Matches were played as the best of nine frames in the quarter-finals, and as the best of 11 frames for the semi-finals and final. The event was broadcast domestically on Now TV; on Eurosport in the United Kingdom and India; on Liaoning TV, Superstar online, Kuaishou, Migu, Youku and Huya.com in China; on Sportscast in Indonesia; on TAP in the Philippines; on True Sport in Thailand; on Sports Cast in Taiwan; on Astro SuperSport in Australia; on DAZN in Canada and by Matchroom Sport in all other territories.
### Prize fund
A breakdown of the prize money awarded is shown below:
- Winner: £100,000
- Runner-up: £50,000
- Semi-final: £32,000
- Quarter-final: £22,500
- Highest break: £10,000
- Total: £315,000
## Tournament summary
### Quarter-finals
The quarter-finals were played on 6 and 7 October as the best of nine frames. Marco Fu had taken time away from the sport after undergoing eye surgery in 2017, and then did not compete professionally for over two years after the 2020 Welsh Open due to COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions. However, he won three of the first four frames against Mark Selby and went on to win the match 5–2. Fu admitted that he had considered retirement during his prolonged absences from the professional tour, but said he was "delighted to be back playing to a decent standard".
John Higgins defeated Judd Trump for the first time in four years, following seven consecutive losses to Trump that included the finals of the 2019 World Championship and the 2021 Champion of Champions. Higgins won the first frame, but Trump tied the scores with a 136 break in the second. Higgins won the next two frames with breaks of 102 and 68 to lead 3–1 at the mid-session interval, but Trump then won three consecutive frames, making a 120 break in the fifth, to lead 4–3. However, Higgins took the match to a deciding frame with a 70 break and produced a break of 58 in the decider that helped him clinch a 5–4 win.
Following Zhao's withdrawal, his replacement Williams made a last-minute trip to Hong Kong to face defending champion Neil Robertson. After a 13-hour flight from London and multiple COVID tests, Williams arrived at his hotel an hour before he had to depart for the venue, stating that he had slept for two hours in the preceding two days. He made a 133 break in the opening frame, but Robertson responded with a 105 in the second. Williams won the third frame on the black, but Robertson again drew level, tying the scores at 2–2. After the mid-session interval, Robertson made a 140 break in the fifth frame and also won the sixth for a 4–2 lead. Williams won the seventh with an 80 break, and had a chance in the eighth to force a decider, but Robertson clinched a 5–3 win after Williams went . Williams stated afterwards that he knew he could not win the match under such conditions, but had travelled to the tournament because of the prize money on offer. He earned £22,500 as a losing quarter-finalist.
Playing before an audience of over 5,000 spectators, the reigning world champion and world number one Ronnie O'Sullivan made breaks of 72, 100, 59, 81, and 95 as he whitewashed three-time World Women's Snooker champion Ng On-yee 5–0 in a match that lasted 52 minutes. O'Sullivan praised the atmosphere at the tournament, saying "it was nice to play in front of an enthusiastic crowd".
### Semi-finals
The semi-finals were played on 8 October as the best of 11 frames. In the first semi-final, again played before an audience of more than 5,000 spectators, Fu faced Higgins, who won the opening frame with a 105 break. Fu tied the scores with a 75 break in the second after Higgins missed a red, but Higgins won the next two frames with breaks of 68 and 83 to lead 3–1 at the mid-session interval. Fu won the fifth frame with a 61 break, but Higgins moved into a 4–2 lead with a 91 break in the sixth. In the seventh frame, Higgins missed a red while on a break of 41 and Fu took the frame with a 70 break; he also won the eighth frame to tie the scores at 4–4. Higgins made his second 105 break of the match in the ninth frame to take a 5–4 lead, but Fu responded with a 72 break in the tenth to force a decider. Fu made the fifth maximum break of his career to defeat Higgins 6–5, marking the seventh time in snooker history that a maximum break had occurred in the deciding frame of a match. Fu called his 147 before his home crowd "my best moment so far as a professional".
In the second semi-final, played before an audience of around 7,500, O'Sullivan faced Robertson. O'Sullivan won the first frame, but Robertson took the second on the black to tie the scores at 1–1. Robertson then made three consecutive centuries of 105, 100, and 135 to take a 4–1 lead. Robertson scored a total of 443 points without reply before he missed a black off the spot in the sixth frame, which gave O'Sullivan the opportunity to win the frame with a 93 break. O'Sullivan won a tactical seventh frame on the pink to move within a frame of Robertson at 3–4, and then made back-to-back centuries of 105 and 104 to lead 5–4. Robertson took the lead in the tenth frame, but O'Sullivan potted a double and made a 52 clearance to win his fifth consecutive frame and clinch the match 6–4. "I was getting outplayed, but I hung in there", O'Sullivan said of his comeback from 1–4 behind. "I don’t beat myself up as much as I used to, so I always give myself a chance".
### Final
The final was played on 9 October as a best-of-11-frame match between O'Sullivan and Fu. Around 9,000 spectators attended the sold-out final, setting a new record for the largest live audience at a snooker match. O'Sullivan won the first frame, but Fu took the second with a 55 break. O'Sullivan then won the third and fourth with breaks of 71 and 59 to lead 3–1 at the mid-session interval. O'Sullivan also won the fifth frame for a 4–1 lead. Although Fu won the sixth with a 98 break, O'Sullivan responded with a 105 century in the seventh to move within one frame of victory. In the eighth frame, O'Sullivan seemed to be on the verge of winning, but missed a shot on the pink into the yellow pocket, allowing Fu to make a frame-winning clearance, helped by a cross-double on the final blue. Fu also won the ninth with a 56 break to trail by one frame at 4–5. However, O’Sullivan produced a 114 total clearance in the tenth frame, defeating Fu 6–4 to win the tournament. After his win, O'Sullivan commented that "to play in front of 9,000 fans is just incredible" and called the tournament "the best event I’ve ever played in my life”.
## Main draw
The results from the event are shown below. Players in bold denote match winners.
### Final
## Century breaks
There were 18 century breaks made during the event. The highest was a maximum break of 147 made by Fu in the deciding frame of his semi-final match with Higgins.
- 147 – Marco Fu
- 140, 135, 105, 105, 100 – Neil Robertson
- 136, 120 – Judd Trump
- 133 – Mark Williams
- 114, 105, 105, 104, 100 – Ronnie O'Sullivan
- 112 – Mark Selby
- 105, 105, 102 – John Higgins
|
48,585,351 |
Yalla (Inna song)
| 1,169,042,307 | null |
[
"2015 singles",
"2015 songs",
"Dance-pop songs",
"English-language Romanian songs",
"Inna songs",
"Song recordings produced by Play & Win",
"Songs written by Inna"
] |
"Yalla" is a song recorded by Romanian singer Inna for her eponymous fourth studio album (2015) and its Japanese counterpart, Body and the Sun (2015). It was released on 3 November 2015 through Empire and Roton. The recording was written by Marcel Botezan, Sebastian Barac, Nadir Tamuz Augustin and Inna, while production was handled by the first two under the name of Play & Win. A dance-pop and Eurodance track, "Yalla" is sung in both English and Arabic.
Music critics were positive towards the song, commending its production and commercial appeal. An accompanying music video for "Yalla" (which received notable airplay in Romania) was shot by Barna Nemethi in Marrakesh, Morocco and premiered on YouTube on 12 November 2015. Featuring Inna chased by a man at a bazaar, it attracted multiple comments written in Arabic. To promote the single, Inna also had various concert venues. Commercially, "Yalla" peaked at number 13 in Romania and at number 18 on the Polish dance chart.
## Composition and release
"Yalla" was written by Marcel Botezan, Sebastian Barac, Nadir Tamuz Augustin and Inna, while production was handled by the first two under the name of Play & Win. It is a dance-pop song performed in English and its refrain in Arabic. Italian publication RnB Junk's Daniele Traino wrote that the track combined Inna's "typical" Eurodance style with oriental sounds, comparing its vibe to Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" (1987). German portal Hitfire likened the recording to Major Lazer and DJ Snake featuring MØ's "Lean On" (2015), writing that the success of the latter possibly influenced the singer to release "Yalla" as a single. A digital remixes extended play of the song was released on 3 November 2015 by Empire and Roton. The single version features an additional second verse not included on the version featured on her eponymous and fourth studio album (2015) and its Japanese counterpart Body and the Sun.
## Reception
Music critics were positive towards the song. Traini from RnB Junk wrote that "Yalla" was one of the most captivating, refined and peculiar songs from Inna's eponymous studio album, noting its commercial appeal. An editor of Pro FM listed the recording in their list of "16 hits with which Inna made history". Jonathan Currinn, writing in his own website, said that the singer "appeal[ed] to people around the world" by including Arabic language in "Yalla", while portal Hitfire commended the "strong" strophes of the song, Inna's vocals and the beat. The recording debuted on native Airplay 100 at number 94 on 12 November 2015, climbing to number 80 the next week. It reached its peak position at number 13 on 1 May 2016. In Poland, "Yalla" reached position 18 on ZPAV's Dance Top 50 component chart.
## Music video and promotion
Inna performed a stripped-down version of "Yalla" on Radio ZU on 17 November 2015. "Yalla" was set on the track list of concert tours that promoted Inna and Body and the Sun in Europe and Japan. The singer also provided live performances of the recording at festival Alba Fest held in Alba Iulia, Romania, and at the World Trade Center Mexico,
An accompanying music video for "Yalla" was filmed by Barna Nemethi in Marrakesh, Morocco over three days, with Inna and John Perez acting as co-directors. While both Perez and Bogdan Daragiu were the directors of photography, Khaled Mokhtar handled the editing process. The outfits worn in the clip were inspired by and adapted to Arab culture; designers included Cristina Săvulescu, Mădălina Dorobanţu from Pas du Tout, Wanda's Dream New York, Artizana and Tria Alfa. The music video was uploaded onto Inna's official YouTube channel on 12 November 2015, with a teaser of it released few days prior. The clip features a dromedary, the second animal to appear in one of Inna's music videos after "Diggy Down" previously featured a snake.
The video commences with Inna coming out from a body of water, following which she gets chased by a man—played by Yassir Lamrani Selmane—at a bazaar and through the surroundings of a building. This is followed by the singer and her female background dancers performing choreography. Scenes interspersed through the main plot portray Inna singing in front of a door, and her in a desert with a dromedary and dancing around a fire with her backup dancers. Regarding the singer's appearance in the music video, Yohann Ruelle of Pure Charts wrote, "Inna knows how to turn on the temperature!" Valentina Malfroy from website Aficia commended the quality of the visual and saw Inna as charming. An editor of Vagalume thought Inna "plays a girl who abuses her sensuality in typical costumes and a lot of Arabic dance to enchant her love interest." Currinn, writing in his own website, praised Inna's choreography and the video overall, whilst Hitfire recommended the clip and said it matched the song. After its release on YouTube, the music video attracted many comments written in Arabic. It received notable airplay in Romania, peaking at number seven on Media Forest's TV Airplay chart.
## Track listing
Digital remixes EP
1. "Yalla" – 2:51
2. "Yalla" (Extended version) – 4:04
3. "Yalla" (A Turk Remix) – 1:28
4. "Yalla" (Deepierro Offir Malol Remix Edit) – 3:15
5. "Yalla (DJ Amine Radi Moroccan Remix)" – 3:58
6. "Yalla" (DJ Asher ScreeN Remix) – 3:56
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
|
249,254 |
Clique problem
| 1,173,839,275 |
Task of computing complete subgraphs
|
[
"Computational problems in graph theory",
"NP-complete problems"
] |
In computer science, the clique problem is the computational problem of finding cliques (subsets of vertices, all adjacent to each other, also called complete subgraphs) in a graph. It has several different formulations depending on which cliques, and what information about the cliques, should be found. Common formulations of the clique problem include finding a maximum clique (a clique with the largest possible number of vertices), finding a maximum weight clique in a weighted graph, listing all maximal cliques (cliques that cannot be enlarged), and solving the decision problem of testing whether a graph contains a clique larger than a given size.
The clique problem arises in the following real-world setting. Consider a social network, where the graph's vertices represent people, and the graph's edges represent mutual acquaintance. Then a clique represents a subset of people who all know each other, and algorithms for finding cliques can be used to discover these groups of mutual friends. Along with its applications in social networks, the clique problem also has many applications in bioinformatics, and computational chemistry.
Most versions of the clique problem are hard. The clique decision problem is NP-complete (one of Karp's 21 NP-complete problems). The problem of finding the maximum clique is both fixed-parameter intractable and hard to approximate. And, listing all maximal cliques may require exponential time as there exist graphs with exponentially many maximal cliques. Therefore, much of the theory about the clique problem is devoted to identifying special types of graph that admit more efficient algorithms, or to establishing the computational difficulty of the general problem in various models of computation.
To find a maximum clique, one can systematically inspect all subsets, but this sort of brute-force search is too time-consuming to be practical for networks comprising more than a few dozen vertices. Although no polynomial time algorithm is known for this problem, more efficient algorithms than the brute-force search are known. For instance, the Bron–Kerbosch algorithm can be used to list all maximal cliques in worst-case optimal time, and it is also possible to list them in polynomial time per clique.
## History and applications
The study of complete subgraphs in mathematics predates the "clique" terminology. For instance, complete subgraphs make an early appearance in the mathematical literature in the graph-theoretic reformulation of Ramsey theory by . But the term "clique" and the problem of algorithmically listing cliques both come from the social sciences, where complete subgraphs are used to model social cliques, groups of people who all know each other. used graphs to model social networks, and adapted the social science terminology to graph theory. They were the first to call complete subgraphs "cliques". The first algorithm for solving the clique problem is that of , who were motivated by the sociological application. Social science researchers have also defined various other types of cliques and maximal cliques in social network, "cohesive subgroups" of people or actors in the network all of whom share one of several different kinds of connectivity relation. Many of these generalized notions of cliques can also be found by constructing an undirected graph whose edges represent related pairs of actors from the social network, and then applying an algorithm for the clique problem to this graph.
Since the work of Harary and Ross, many others have devised algorithms for various versions of the clique problem. In the 1970s, researchers began studying these algorithms from the point of view of worst-case analysis. See, for instance, , an early work on the worst-case complexity of the maximum clique problem. Also in the 1970s, beginning with the work of and , researchers began using the theory of NP-completeness and related intractability results to provide a mathematical explanation for the perceived difficulty of the clique problem. In the 1990s, a breakthrough series of papers beginning with showed that (assuming P ≠ NP) it is not even possible to approximate the problem accurately and efficiently.
Clique-finding algorithms have been used in chemistry, to find chemicals that match a target structure and to model molecular docking and the binding sites of chemical reactions. They can also be used to find similar structures within different molecules. In these applications, one forms a graph in which each vertex represents a matched pair of atoms, one from each of two molecules. Two vertices are connected by an edge if the matches that they represent are compatible with each other. Being compatible may mean, for instance, that the distances between the atoms within the two molecules are approximately equal, to within some given tolerance. A clique in this graph represents a set of matched pairs of atoms in which all the matches are compatible with each other. A special case of this method is the use of the modular product of graphs to reduce the problem of finding the maximum common induced subgraph of two graphs to the problem of finding a maximum clique in their product.
In automatic test pattern generation, finding cliques can help to bound the size of a test set. In bioinformatics, clique-finding algorithms have been used to infer evolutionary trees, predict protein structures, and find closely interacting clusters of proteins. Listing the cliques in a dependency graph is an important step in the analysis of certain random processes. In mathematics, Keller's conjecture on face-to-face tiling of hypercubes was disproved by , who used a clique-finding algorithm on an associated graph to find a counterexample.
## Definitions
An undirected graph is formed by a finite set of vertices and a set of unordered pairs of vertices, which are called edges. By convention, in algorithm analysis, the number of vertices in the graph is denoted by n and the number of edges is denoted by m. A clique in a graph G is a complete subgraph of G. That is, it is a subset K of the vertices such that every two vertices in K are the two endpoints of an edge in G. A maximal clique is a clique to which no more vertices can be added. For each vertex v that is not part of a maximal clique, there must be another vertex w that is in the clique and non-adjacent to v, preventing v from being added to the clique. A maximum clique is a clique that includes the largest possible number of vertices. The clique number ω(G) is the number of vertices in a maximum clique of G.
Several closely related clique-finding problems have been studied.
- In the maximum clique problem, the input is an undirected graph, and the output is a maximum clique in the graph. If there are multiple maximum cliques, one of them may be chosen arbitrarily.
- In the weighted maximum clique problem, the input is an undirected graph with weights on its vertices (or, less frequently, edges) and the output is a clique with maximum total weight. The maximum clique problem is the special case in which all weights are equal. As well as the problem of optimizing the sum of weights, other more complicated bicriterion optimization problems have also been studied.
- In the maximal clique listing problem, the input is an undirected graph, and the output is a list of all its maximal cliques. The maximum clique problem may be solved using as a subroutine an algorithm for the maximal clique listing problem, because the maximum clique must be included among all the maximal cliques.
- In the k-clique problem, the input is an undirected graph and a number k. The output is a clique with k vertices, if one exists, or a special value indicating that there is no k-clique otherwise. In some variations of this problem, the output should list all cliques of size k.
- In the clique decision problem, the input is an undirected graph and a number k, and the output is a Boolean value: true if the graph contains a k-clique, and false otherwise.
The first four of these problems are all important in practical applications. The clique decision problem is not of practical importance; it is formulated in this way in order to apply the theory of NP-completeness to clique-finding problems.
The clique problem and the independent set problem are complementary: a clique in G is an independent set in the complement graph of G and vice versa. Therefore, many computational results may be applied equally well to either problem, and some research papers do not clearly distinguish between the two problems. However, the two problems have different properties when applied to restricted families of graphs. For instance, the clique problem may be solved in polynomial time for planar graphs while the independent set problem remains NP-hard on planar graphs.
## Algorithms
### Finding a single maximal clique
A maximal clique, sometimes called inclusion-maximal, is a clique that is not included in a larger clique. Therefore, every clique is contained in a maximal clique. Maximal cliques can be very small. A graph may contain a non-maximal clique with many vertices and a separate clique of size 2 which is maximal. While a maximum (i.e., largest) clique is necessarily maximal, the converse does not hold. There are some types of graphs in which every maximal clique is maximum; these are the complements of the well-covered graphs, in which every maximal independent set is maximum. However, other graphs have maximal cliques that are not maximum.
A single maximal clique can be found by a straightforward greedy algorithm. Starting with an arbitrary clique (for instance, any single vertex or even the empty set), grow the current clique one vertex at a time by looping through the graph's remaining vertices. For each vertex v that this loop examines, add v to the clique if it is adjacent to every vertex that is already in the clique, and discard v otherwise. This algorithm runs in linear time. Because of the ease of finding maximal cliques, and their potential small size, more attention has been given to the much harder algorithmic problem of finding a maximum or otherwise large clique. However, some research in parallel algorithms has studied the problem of finding a maximal clique. In particular, the problem of finding the lexicographically first maximal clique (the one found by the algorithm above) has been shown to be complete for the class of polynomial-time functions. This result implies that the problem is unlikely to be solvable within the parallel complexity class NC.
### Cliques of fixed size
One can test whether a graph G contains a k-vertex clique, and find any such clique that it contains, using a brute force algorithm. This algorithm examines each subgraph with k vertices and checks to see whether it forms a clique. It takes time (n<sup>k</sup> k<sup>2</sup>), as expressed using big O notation. This is because there are (n<sup>k</sup>) subgraphs to check, each of which has (k<sup>2</sup>) edges whose presence in G needs to be checked. Thus, the problem may be solved in polynomial time whenever k is a fixed constant. However, when k does not have a fixed value, but instead may vary as part of the input to the problem, the time is exponential.
The simplest nontrivial case of the clique-finding problem is finding a triangle in a graph, or equivalently determining whether the graph is triangle-free. In a graph G with m edges, there may be at most Θ(m<sup>3/2</sup>) triangles (using big theta notation to indicate that this bound is tight). The worst case for this formula occurs when G is itself a clique. Therefore, algorithms for listing all triangles must take at least Ω(m<sup>3/2</sup>) time in the worst case (using big omega notation), and algorithms are known that match this time bound. For instance, describe an algorithm that sorts the vertices in order from highest degree to lowest and then iterates through each vertex v in the sorted list, looking for triangles that include v and do not include any previous vertex in the list. To do so the algorithm marks all neighbors of v, searches through all edges incident to a neighbor of v outputting a triangle for every edge that has two marked endpoints, and then removes the marks and deletes v from the graph. As the authors show, the time for this algorithm is proportional to the arboricity of the graph (denoted a(G)) multiplied by the number of edges, which is (m a(G)). Since the arboricity is at most (m<sup>1/2</sup>), this algorithm runs in time (m<sup>3/2</sup>). More generally, all k-vertex cliques can be listed by a similar algorithm that takes time proportional to the number of edges multiplied by the arboricity to the power (k − 2). For graphs of constant arboricity, such as planar graphs (or in general graphs from any non-trivial minor-closed graph family), this algorithm takes (m) time, which is optimal since it is linear in the size of the input.
If one desires only a single triangle, or an assurance that the graph is triangle-free, faster algorithms are possible. As observe, the graph contains a triangle if and only if its adjacency matrix and the square of the adjacency matrix contain nonzero entries in the same cell. Therefore, fast matrix multiplication techniques can be applied to find triangles in time (n<sup>2.376</sup>). used fast matrix multiplication to improve the (m<sup>3/2</sup>) algorithm for finding triangles to (m<sup>1.41</sup>). These algorithms based on fast matrix multiplication have also been extended to problems of finding k-cliques for larger values of k.
### Listing all maximal cliques
By a result of , every n-vertex graph has at most 3<sup>n/3</sup> maximal cliques. They can be listed by the Bron–Kerbosch algorithm, a recursive backtracking procedure of . The main recursive subroutine of this procedure has three arguments: a partially constructed (non-maximal) clique, a set of candidate vertices that could be added to the clique, and another set of vertices that should not be added (because doing so would lead to a clique that has already been found). The algorithm tries adding the candidate vertices one by one to the partial clique, making a recursive call for each one. After trying each of these vertices, it moves it to the set of vertices that should not be added again. Variants of this algorithm can be shown to have worst-case running time (3<sup>n/3</sup>), matching the number of cliques that might need to be listed. Therefore, this provides a worst-case-optimal solution to the problem of listing all maximal cliques. Further, the Bron–Kerbosch algorithm has been widely reported as being faster in practice than its alternatives.
However, when the number of cliques is significantly smaller than its worst case, other algorithms might be preferable. As showed, it is also possible to list all maximal cliques in a graph in an amount of time that is polynomial per generated clique. An algorithm such as theirs in which the running time depends on the output size is known as an output-sensitive algorithm. Their algorithm is based on the following two observations, relating the maximal cliques of the given graph G to the maximal cliques of a graph G \\ v formed by removing an arbitrary vertex v from G:
- For every maximal clique K of G \\ v, either K continues to form a maximal clique in G, or K ⋃ {v} forms a maximal clique in G. Therefore, G has at least as many maximal cliques as G \\ v does.
- Each maximal clique in G that does not contain v is a maximal clique in G \\ v, and each maximal clique in G that does contain v can be formed from a maximal clique K in G \\ v by adding v and removing the non-neighbors of v from K.
Using these observations they can generate all maximal cliques in G by a recursive algorithm that chooses a vertex v arbitrarily and then, for each maximal clique K in G \\ v, outputs both K and the clique formed by adding v to K and removing the non-neighbors of v. However, some cliques of G may be generated in this way from more than one parent clique of G \\ v, so they eliminate duplicates by outputting a clique in G only when its parent in G \\ v is lexicographically maximum among all possible parent cliques. On the basis of this principle, they show that all maximal cliques in G may be generated in time (mn) per clique, where m is the number of edges in G and n is the number of vertices. improve this to O(ma) per clique, where a is the arboricity of the given graph. provide an alternative output-sensitive algorithm based on fast matrix multiplication. show that it is even possible to list all maximal cliques in lexicographic order with polynomial delay per clique. However, the choice of ordering is important for the efficiency of this algorithm: for the reverse of this order, there is no polynomial-delay algorithm unless P = NP.
On the basis of this result, it is possible to list all maximal cliques in polynomial time, for families of graphs in which the number of cliques is polynomially bounded. These families include chordal graphs, complete graphs, triangle-free graphs, interval graphs, graphs of bounded boxicity, and planar graphs. In particular, the planar graphs have (n) cliques, of at most constant size, that can be listed in linear time. The same is true for any family of graphs that is both sparse (having a number of edges at most a constant times the number of vertices) and closed under the operation of taking subgraphs.
### Finding maximum cliques in arbitrary graphs
It is possible to find the maximum clique, or the clique number, of an arbitrary n-vertex graph in time (3<sup>n/3</sup>) = (1.4422<sup>n</sup>) by using one of the algorithms described above to list all maximal cliques in the graph and returning the largest one. However, for this variant of the clique problem better worst-case time bounds are possible. The algorithm of solves this problem in time (2<sup>n/3</sup>) = (1.2599<sup>n</sup>). It is a recursive backtracking scheme similar to that of the Bron–Kerbosch algorithm, but is able to eliminate some recursive calls when it can be shown that the cliques found within the call will be suboptimal. improved the time to (2<sup>0.304n</sup>) = (1.2346<sup>n</sup>), and improved it to (2<sup>0.276n</sup>) = (1.2108<sup>n</sup>) time, at the expense of greater space usage. Robson's algorithm combines a similar backtracking scheme (with a more complicated case analysis) and a dynamic programming technique in which the optimal solution is precomputed for all small connected subgraphs of the complement graph. These partial solutions are used to shortcut the backtracking recursion. The fastest algorithm known today is a refined version of this method by which runs in time (2<sup>0.249n</sup>) = (1.1888<sup>n</sup>).
There has also been extensive research on heuristic algorithms for solving maximum clique problems without worst-case runtime guarantees, based on methods including branch and bound, local search, greedy algorithms, and constraint programming. Non-standard computing methodologies that have been suggested for finding cliques include DNA computing and adiabatic quantum computation. The maximum clique problem was the subject of an implementation challenge sponsored by DIMACS in 1992–1993, and a collection of graphs used as benchmarks for the challenge, which is publicly available.
### Special classes of graphs
Planar graphs, and other families of sparse graphs, have been discussed above: they have linearly many maximal cliques, of bounded size, that can be listed in linear time. In particular, for planar graphs, any clique can have at most four vertices, by Kuratowski's theorem.
Perfect graphs are defined by the properties that their clique number equals their chromatic number, and that this equality holds also in each of their induced subgraphs. For perfect graphs, it is possible to find a maximum clique in polynomial time, using an algorithm based on semidefinite programming. However, this method is complex and non-combinatorial, and specialized clique-finding algorithms have been developed for many subclasses of perfect graphs. In the complement graphs of bipartite graphs, Kőnig's theorem allows the maximum clique problem to be solved using techniques for matching. In another class of perfect graphs, the permutation graphs, a maximum clique is a longest decreasing subsequence of the permutation defining the graph and can be found using known algorithms for the longest decreasing subsequence problem. Conversely, every instance of the longest decreasing subsequence problem can be described equivalently as a problem of finding a maximum clique in a permutation graph. provide an alternative quadratic-time algorithm for maximum cliques in comparability graphs, a broader class of perfect graphs that includes the permutation graphs as a special case. In chordal graphs, the maximal cliques can be found by listing the vertices in an elimination ordering, and checking the clique neighborhoods of each vertex in this ordering.
In some cases, these algorithms can be extended to other, non-perfect, classes of graphs as well. For instance, in a circle graph, the neighborhood of each vertex is a permutation graph, so a maximum clique in a circle graph can be found by applying the permutation graph algorithm to each neighborhood. Similarly, in a unit disk graph (with a known geometric representation), there is a polynomial time algorithm for maximum cliques based on applying the algorithm for complements of bipartite graphs to shared neighborhoods of pairs of vertices.
The algorithmic problem of finding a maximum clique in a random graph drawn from the Erdős–Rényi model (in which each edge appears with probability 1/2, independently from the other edges) was suggested by . Because the maximum clique in a random graph has logarithmic size with high probability, it can be found by a brute force search in expected time 2<sup>(log<sup>2</sup>n)</sup>. This is a quasi-polynomial time bound. Although the clique number of such graphs is usually very close to 2 log<sub>2</sub>n, simple greedy algorithms as well as more sophisticated randomized approximation techniques only find cliques with size log<sub>2</sub>n, half as big. The number of maximal cliques in such graphs is with high probability exponential in log<sup>2</sup>n, which prevents methods that list all maximal cliques from running in polynomial time. Because of the difficulty of this problem, several authors have investigated the planted clique problem, the clique problem on random graphs that have been augmented by adding large cliques. While spectral methods and semidefinite programming can detect hidden cliques of size Ω(√n), no polynomial-time algorithms are currently known to detect those of size o(√n) (expressed using little-o notation).
### Approximation algorithms
Several authors have considered approximation algorithms that attempt to find a clique or independent set that, although not maximum, has size as close to the maximum as can be found in polynomial time. Although much of this work has focused on independent sets in sparse graphs, a case that does not make sense for the complementary clique problem, there has also been work on approximation algorithms that do not use such sparsity assumptions.
`describes a polynomial time algorithm that finds a clique of size Ω((log n/log log n)`<sup>`2`</sup>`) in any graph that has clique number Ω(n/log`<sup>`k`</sup>`n) for any constant k. By using this algorithm when the clique number of a given input graph is between n/log n and n/log`<sup>`3`</sup>`n, switching to a different algorithm of for graphs with higher clique numbers, and choosing a two-vertex clique if both algorithms fail to find anything, Feige provides an approximation algorithm that finds a clique with a number of vertices within a factor of O(n(log log n)`<sup>`2`</sup>`/log`<sup>`3`</sup>`n) of the maximum. Although the approximation ratio of this algorithm is weak, it is the best known to date. The results on hardness of approximation described below suggest that there can be no approximation algorithm with an approximation ratio significantly less than linear.`
## Lower bounds
### NP-completeness
The clique decision problem is NP-complete. It was one of Richard Karp's original 21 problems shown NP-complete in his 1972 paper "Reducibility Among Combinatorial Problems". This problem was also mentioned in Stephen Cook's paper introducing the theory of NP-complete problems. Because of the hardness of the decision problem, the problem of finding a maximum clique is also NP-hard. If one could solve it, one could also solve the decision problem, by comparing the size of the maximum clique to the size parameter given as input in the decision problem.
Karp's NP-completeness proof is a many-one reduction from the Boolean satisfiability problem. It describes how to translate Boolean formulas in conjunctive normal form (CNF) into equivalent instances of the maximum clique problem. Satisfiability, in turn, was proved NP-complete in the Cook–Levin theorem. From a given CNF formula, Karp forms a graph that has a vertex for every pair (v,c), where v is a variable or its negation and c is a clause in the formula that contains v. Two of these vertices are connected by an edge if they represent compatible variable assignments for different clauses. That is, there is an edge from (v,c) to (u,d) whenever c ≠ d and u and v are not each other's negations. If k denotes the number of clauses in the CNF formula, then the k-vertex cliques in this graph represent consistent ways of assigning truth values to some of its variables in order to satisfy the formula. Therefore, the formula is satisfiable if and only if a k-vertex clique exists.
Some NP-complete problems (such as the travelling salesman problem in planar graphs) may be solved in time that is exponential in a sublinear function of the input size parameter n, significantly faster than a brute-force search. However, it is unlikely that such a subexponential time bound is possible for the clique problem in arbitrary graphs, as it would imply similarly subexponential bounds for many other standard NP-complete problems.
### Circuit complexity
The computational difficulty of the clique problem has led it to be used to prove several lower bounds in circuit complexity. The existence of a clique of a given size is a monotone graph property, meaning that, if a clique exists in a given graph, it will exist in any supergraph. Because this property is monotone, there must exist a monotone circuit, using only and gates and or gates, to solve the clique decision problem for a given fixed clique size. However, the size of these circuits can be proven to be a super-polynomial function of the number of vertices and the clique size, exponential in the cube root of the number of vertices. Even if a small number of NOT gates are allowed, the complexity remains superpolynomial. Additionally, the depth of a monotone circuit for the clique problem using gates of bounded fan-in must be at least a polynomial in the clique size.
### Decision tree complexity
The (deterministic) decision tree complexity of determining a graph property is the number of questions of the form "Is there an edge between vertex u and vertex v?" that have to be answered in the worst case to determine whether a graph has a particular property. That is, it is the minimum height of a boolean decision tree for the problem. There are n(n − 1)/2 possible questions to be asked. Therefore, any graph property can be determined with at most n(n − 1)/2 questions. It is also possible to define random and quantum decision tree complexity of a property, the expected number of questions (for a worst case input) that a randomized or quantum algorithm needs to have answered in order to correctly determine whether the given graph has the property.
Because the property of containing a clique is monotone, it is covered by the Aanderaa–Karp–Rosenberg conjecture, which states that the deterministic decision tree complexity of determining any non-trivial monotone graph property is exactly n(n − 1)/2. For arbitrary monotone graph properties, this conjecture remains unproven. However, for deterministic decision trees, and for any k in the range 2 ≤ k ≤ n, the property of containing a k-clique was shown to have decision tree complexity exactly n(n − 1)/2 by . Deterministic decision trees also require exponential size to detect cliques, or large polynomial size to detect cliques of bounded size.
The Aanderaa–Karp–Rosenberg conjecture also states that the randomized decision tree complexity of non-trivial monotone functions is Θ(n<sup>2</sup>). The conjecture again remains unproven, but has been resolved for the property of containing a k clique for 2 ≤ k ≤ n. This property is known to have randomized decision tree complexity Θ(n<sup>2</sup>). For quantum decision trees, the best known lower bound is Ω(n), but no matching algorithm is known for the case of k ≥ 3.
### Fixed-parameter intractability
Parameterized complexity is the complexity-theoretic study of problems that are naturally equipped with a small integer parameter k and for which the problem becomes more difficult as k increases, such as finding k-cliques in graphs. A problem is said to be fixed-parameter tractable if there is an algorithm for solving it on inputs of size n, and a function f, such that the algorithm runs in time f(k) n<sup>(1)</sup>. That is, it is fixed-parameter tractable if it can be solved in polynomial time for any fixed value of k and moreover if the exponent of the polynomial does not depend on k.
For finding k-vertex cliques, the brute force search algorithm has running time O(n<sup>k</sup>k<sup>2</sup>). Because the exponent of n depends on k, this algorithm is not fixed-parameter tractable. Although it can be improved by fast matrix multiplication, the running time still has an exponent that is linear in k. Thus, although the running time of known algorithms for the clique problem is polynomial for any fixed k, these algorithms do not suffice for fixed-parameter tractability. defined a hierarchy of parametrized problems, the W hierarchy, that they conjectured did not have fixed-parameter tractable algorithms. They proved that independent set (or, equivalently, clique) is hard for the first level of this hierarchy, W[1]. Thus, according to their conjecture, clique has no fixed-parameter tractable algorithm. Moreover, this result provides the basis for proofs of W[1]-hardness of many other problems, and thus serves as an analogue of the Cook–Levin theorem for parameterized complexity.
`showed that finding k-vertex cliques cannot be done in time n`<sup>`o(k)`</sup>` unless the exponential time hypothesis fails. Again, this provides evidence that no fixed-parameter tractable algorithm is possible.`
Although the problems of listing maximal cliques or finding maximum cliques are unlikely to be fixed-parameter tractable with the parameter k, they may be fixed-parameter tractable for other parameters of instance complexity. For instance, both problems are known to be fixed-parameter tractable when parametrized by the degeneracy of the input graph.
### Hardness of approximation
Weak results hinting that the clique problem might be hard to approximate have been known for a long time. observed that, because the clique number takes on small integer values and is NP-hard to compute, it cannot have a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme. If too accurate an approximation were available, rounding its value to an integer would give the exact clique number. However, little more was known until the early 1990s, when several authors began to make connections between the approximation of maximum cliques and probabilistically checkable proofs. They used these connections to prove hardness of approximation results for the maximum clique problem. After many improvements to these results it is now known that, for every real number ε \> 0, there can be no polynomial time algorithm that approximates the maximum clique to within a factor better than (n<sup>1 − ε</sup>), unless P = NP.
The rough idea of these inapproximability results is to form a graph that represents a probabilistically checkable proof system for an NP-complete problem such as the Boolean satisfiability problem. In a probabilistically checkable proof system, a proof is represented as a sequence of bits. An instance of the satisfiability problem should have a valid proof if and only if it is satisfiable. The proof is checked by an algorithm that, after a polynomial-time computation on the input to the satisfiability problem, chooses to examine a small number of randomly chosen positions of the proof string. Depending on what values are found at that sample of bits, the checker will either accept or reject the proof, without looking at the rest of the bits. False negatives are not allowed: a valid proof must always be accepted. However, an invalid proof may sometimes mistakenly be accepted. For every invalid proof, the probability that the checker will accept it must be low.
To transform a probabilistically checkable proof system of this type into a clique problem, one forms a graph with a vertex for each possible accepting run of the proof checker. That is, a vertex is defined by one of the possible random choices of sets of positions to examine, and by bit values for those positions that would cause the checker to accept the proof. It can be represented by a partial word with a 0 or 1 at each examined position and a wildcard character at each remaining position. Two vertices are adjacent, in this graph, if the corresponding two accepting runs see the same bit values at every position they both examine. Each (valid or invalid) proof string corresponds to a clique, the set of accepting runs that see that proof string, and all maximal cliques arise in this way. One of these cliques is large if and only if it corresponds to a proof string that many proof checkers accept. If the original satisfiability instance is satisfiable, it will have a valid proof string, one that is accepted by all runs of the checker, and this string will correspond to a large clique in the graph. However, if the original instance is not satisfiable, then all proof strings are invalid, each proof string has only a small number of checker runs that mistakenly accept it, and all cliques are small. Therefore, if one could distinguish in polynomial time between graphs that have large cliques and graphs in which all cliques are small, or if one could accurately approximate the clique problem, then applying this approximation to the graphs generated from satisfiability instances would allow satisfiable instances to be distinguished from unsatisfiable instances. However, this is not possible unless P = NP.
|
1,610,321 |
White Zombie (film)
| 1,172,685,097 |
1932 film by Victor Hugo Halperin
|
[
"1930s American films",
"1930s English-language films",
"1930s independent films",
"1930s supernatural horror films",
"1932 films",
"1932 horror films",
"American black-and-white films",
"American independent films",
"American supernatural horror films",
"American zombie films",
"Articles containing video clips",
"Fiction about Haitian Vodou",
"Films about Voodoo",
"Films based on American novels",
"Films directed by Victor Halperin",
"Films set in Haiti",
"Films set in castles",
"Films shot in Los Angeles",
"United Artists films"
] |
White Zombie is a 1932 American pre-Code horror film independently produced by Edward Halperin and directed by Victor Halperin. The screenplay by Garnett Weston, based on The Magic Island by William Seabrook, is about a young woman's transformation into a zombie at the hands of an evil voodoo master. Bela Lugosi stars as the zombie master "Murder" Legendre, with Madge Bellamy appearing as his victim. Other cast members include Joseph Cawthorn, Robert W. Frazer, John Harron, Brandon Hurst, and George Burr MacAnnan.
Large portions of White Zombie were shot on the Universal Studios lot, borrowing many props and scenery from other horror films of the era. The film opened in New York to negative reception, with reviewers criticizing the film's over-the-top story and weak acting. While the film made a substantial financial profit as an independent feature, it proved less popular than other horror films of the time.
White Zombie is considered the first feature length zombie film; a loose sequel, Revolt of the Zombies, opened in 1936. Modern reception to White Zombie has been more positive. Some critics have praised the film's atmosphere and compared it to the 1940s horror films of Val Lewton, while others still have unfavorable opinions on the quality of the acting.
## Plot
On arrival in Haiti, Madeleine Short reunites with her fiancé Neil Parker, with imminent plans to be married. On the way to their lodging, the couple's coach passes Murder Legendre, an evil voodoo master, who observes them with interest. Neil and Madeleine arrive at the home of a wealthy plantation owner, Charles Beaumont. Charles' love of Madeleine prompts him to meet Murder secretly in Murder's sugar cane mill, operated entirely by zombies. Charles wants to convince Madeleine to marry him and solicits Murder's supernatural assistance. Murder states that the only way to help Charles is to transform Madeleine into a zombie with a potion. Beaumont agrees, takes the potion, and surreptitiously gives it to Madeleine. Shortly after Madeleine and Neil's wedding ceremony, the potion takes effect on Madeleine, who soon dies and is buried. Murder and Charles enter Madeleine's tomb at night and bring her back to life as a zombie. In a drunken state, a depressed Neil sees ghostly apparitions of Madeleine and goes to her tomb. On finding it empty, Neil seeks out the assistance of the local missionary, Dr. Bruner, who recounts how Murder turned many of his rivals into zombies, who now act as Murder's closest guardians. The two men journey to Murder's cliffside castle to rescue Madeleine.
At the castle, Charles has begun to regret Madeleine's transformation and begs Murder to return her to life, but Murder refuses. Charles discovers he has been tainted by Murder's voodoo and is also transforming into a zombie. As Neil enters the fortress, Murder senses his presence and silently orders Madeleine to kill Neil. She approaches Neil with a knife, but Bruner grabs her hand from behind a curtain, making her drop the knife and walk away. Neil follows Madeleine to an escarpment, where Murder commands his zombie guardians to kill Neil. Bruner approaches Murder and knocks him out, breaking Murder's mental control over his zombies. Undirected, the zombies topple off the cliff. Murder awakens and eludes Neil and Bruner, but Charles pushes Murder off the cliff. Charles loses his balance and also falls to his death. Murder's death releases Madeleine from her zombie trance, and she awakens to embrace Neil.
## Cast
- Bela Lugosi as "Murder" Legendre, a white Haitian voodoo master who commands a crew of zombies
- Madge Bellamy as Madeleine Short, Neil Parker's fiancée, who is turned into a zombie by Legendre
- Joseph Cawthorn as Dr. Bruner: a missionary preacher
- Robert W. Frazer as Charles Beaumont, a plantation owner who is in love with Madeleine
- John Harron as Neil Parker, a bank employee, the fiancé of Madeleine
- Brandon Hurst as Silver, Beaumont's butler
- George Burr Macannan as Von Gelder, a formerly rich man who has fallen under Legendre's spell to become a zombie
- Clarence Muse as a coach driver
- Frederick Peters as Chauvin, a zombie, the former high executioner
- Annette Stone as a maid
- John Printz as Ledot, a zombie, a former witch doctor who was once Legendre's master
- Dan Crimmins as Pierre, an old witch doctor
- Claude Morgan as Garcia, a zombie who used to be a thief
- John Fergusson as Marquee, a zombie who was the chief of the police
- Velma Gresham as the tall maid
## Production
The zombie theme of White Zombie was inspired by – but the screenplay not based on – the Broadway play by Kenneth Webb titled Zombie. Webb sued the Halperins for copyright infringement, but did not win his case. Hoping to cash in on the country's interest in voodoo, which began with William B. Seabrook's 1929 book on Haitian voodou, The Magic Island, the film, then titled Zombie, went into development in early 1932. The Halperins leased office space from Universal Studios. Garnett Weston's story focuses more on action than dialogue. To aid the Halperins, producer Phil Goldstone helped secure funds for White Zombie as he had for other independent films at the time. Much of the funding came from Amusement Securities Corp.
White Zombie was filmed in eleven days in March 1932 and was shot at the Universal Studios lot, at RKO-Pathé, and in Bronson Canyon on such a small budget – approximately \$50,000 – that it had to be filmed at night. Other than Béla Lugosi and Joseph Cawthorn, the majority of the cast in White Zombie were actors whose fame had diminished since the silent film era.
By the time Bela Lugosi appeared in White Zombie, he was already popular with contemporary audiences after his starring role in the hit 1931 film Dracula and 1932's Murders in the Rue Morgue, and film historians have found it surprising that he would sign on to a low-budget film by producers (the Halperin brothers) with no track record in Hollywood. Sources vary about Lugosi's salary for his week of work on White Zombie. Claims range between US\$500 to \$900. Richard Sheffield, who was his close friend in the 1950s, reported a payment of \$5,000 for White Zombie on Lugosi's tax returns.
The cast and crew's reaction to Lugosi on the set was mixed. Madge Bellamy recalled her collaboration with Lugosi positively, stating that he was very pleasant and that he used to kiss her hand in the morning when they would come on to the set. In contrast, assistant cameraman Enzo Martinelli remarked that "Lugosi wasn't really a friendly type" on set. Actor Clarence Muse, who played the coach driver, claimed that some scenes were partly re-written or re-staged by Lugosi, who also helped to direct some re-takes.
Lugosi's model for his portrayal of "Murder" Legendre in White Zombie may have been the character he played in 1919's Slaves of a Foreign Will (Sklaven fremden Willens), his first German film, in which he played a Svengali-like hypnotist with mesmerizing eyes.
Phil Goldstone had previously worked with Bellamy and offered her the role of Madeleine Short for a salary of \$5,000. For the role of Dr. Bruner, the Halperins looked for an actor with name value and decided to cast Joseph Cawthorn, who was then known to audiences only as comic relief in stage and film roles. Set designer Ralph Berger utilized the rented sets of previous films. These sets included the great halls from Dracula, pillars and a hanging balcony from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), the dark corridors from Frankenstein (1931) and chairs from The Cat and the Canary (1927). At RKO-Pathé sets from The King of Kings (1927) were used for the interior of Legendre's castle.
In addition to Berger, assistant director William Cody and sound director L.E. "Pete" Clark earned their first film credit by working on White Zombie. Jack Pierce, Lugosi's make-up artist on White Zombie, had been responsible for the make-up of several other famous horror films of the era including Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy (1932).
Clarence Muse took over the role of the coach driver after principal photography had already begun. Some footage of the unknown original was used in White Zombie.
The music of White Zombie was supervised by Abe Meyer. Instead of using pre-recorded music, Meyer had orchestras record new versions of compositions for each specific film he was involved in. The music in White Zombie draws from works including Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition", Gaston Borch's "Incidental Symphonies", and Hugo Riesenfeld's "Death of the Great Chief". Other pieces on the White Zombie soundtrack include music written by Richard Wagner, H. Maurice Jacquet, Leo Kempenski, and Franz Liszt. The film begins with "Chant", a composition of wordless vocals and drumming, created by Universal Studios employee Guy Bevier Williams, a specialist in ethnic music.
Footage shot for White Zombie was recycled for a follow-up film, Revolt of the Zombies – also made by Halperin Productions – which was released in 1936.
## Release
White Zombie experienced distribution problems from the beginning, and went through several film studios including Columbia Studios and Educational Pictures before its initial release. United Artists had been distributing several independent and foreign films that year and bought the rights to release White Zombie. A preview of White Zombie's first cut was shown on June 16, 1932, in New York City. This print of White Zombie had a running time of 74 minutes, whereas the regular distribution prints ran for only 69 minutes.
### Critical response
Most critical reviews focused on the poor silent era-style acting, stilted dialogue, and over-the-top storyline. William Boehnel of the New York World-Telegram stated: "The plot...is really ridiculous, but not so startlingly so as the acting." Thornton Delehaney of the New York Evening Post wrote, "[T]he story tries to out-Frankenstein Frankenstein, and so earnest is it in its attempt to be thrilling that it overreaches its mark all along the line and resolves into an unintentional and often hilarious comedy." Irene Thirer of the New York Daily News wrote, "Many fantastic and eerie scenes are evolved, but most of them border on ludicrous". Industry trade reviews were more positive. The Film Daily wrote: "It rates with the best of this type of film [...] Bela Lugosi is very impressive and makes the picture worthwhile". Harrison's Reports wrote, "[The film] is certainly not up to the standards of Dracula or Frankenstein, but the types of audience that go for horror pictures will enjoy it".
National media outlet reviewers were generally negative. Commonweal opined, "[The film is] interesting only in measure of its complete failure". Liberty wrote, "If you do not get a shock out of this thriller, you will get one out of the acting". In Vanity Fair's "Worst Movie of 1932" article, Pare Lorentz wrote about a "terrific deadlock with Blonde Venus holding a slight lead over White Zombie, Bring 'Em Back Alive, and Murders in the Rue Morgue". In the United Kingdom, press was mixed. The Kinematograph Weekly thought the film was "quite well acted, and has good atmosphere" but thought, too, it was "not for the squeamish or the highly intelligent". The Cinema News and Property Gazette thought the film was for the "less sophisticated" and that the "exaggerated treatment of the subject achieves reverse effect to thrill or conviction". Years after the film's release, Victor Halperin expressed a distaste for his horror films: "I don't believe in fear, violence, and horror, so why traffic in them?"
Modern critical reception has been mixed, with critics praising the film's atmosphere while deprecating the acting. Time Out London wrote, "Halperin shoots this poetic melodrama as trance... The unique result constitutes a virtual bridge between classic Universal horror and the later Val Lewton productions." TV Guide gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, comparing the film's atmosphere to Carl Dreyer's film Vampyr. However, the magazine described the acting as "woefully inadequate", with the exception of Lugosi. Edward G. Bansk, a Val Lewton biographer, identified several flaws in White Zombie, including poor acting, bad timing and other "haphazard and sloppy" film aspects. Bansk wrote, "Although White Zombie is a film with courage, a film difficult not to admire, its ambitions overstep competence of its principal players." Noting Legendre's statement that obedient zombies "work faithfully and are not worried with long hours," the film has also been seen as an allegory of class exploitation under capitalism and colonialism.
### Box office
White Zombie premiered on July 28, 1932, in New York City's Rivoli Theatre. The film received a mixed box office reception upon its initial release, but was a great financial success for an independent film at the time. In 1933 and 1934, the film experienced positive box-office numbers in small towns in the United States, as well as in Germany under the title Flucht von der Teufelsinsel. White Zombie was one of the few American horror films to be approved by the Nazis. The popularity of the film led Victor Halperin to a contract with Paramount Studios.
Opening on July 29, 1932, in Providence, Rhode Island, and Indianapolis, Indiana, the film grossed \$9,900 and \$5,000, respectively, following one-week engagements. Frankenstein and other contemporary horror films had grossed more in Providence, and the Indianapolis theater "wasn't too happy with White Zombie, but what audiences saw it were pleased enough." In Cleveland, Ohio, White Zombie sold a record 16,728 tickets its first weekend on its initial release in August. In Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the film opened August 3 at the Princess Theatre. The facade had been transformed into a "House of the Living Dead" and "zombies" walked atop the marquee. The film failed to gross its estimated \$8,000 and earned only \$6,500 following a one-week run at the Princess Theatre. In comparison, Dracula had grossed \$14,000 at Montreal's Palace Theatre during its first week in March 1931.
### Home media
White Zombie was transferred from poor quality prints to VHS and Betamax in the 1980s. The film has been released on DVD from several companies – including K-Tel and Alpha Video — with varying image quality. The book Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide described the Roan's later DVD release of the title as the best available. The online film database Allmovie features a positive review of the Roan Group's transfer, stating the film "has never looked better". The film was released on Blu-ray on January 29, 2013, from Kino Video.
## Aftermath and influence
White Zombie is considered to be the first feature length zombie film and has been described as the archetype and model of all zombie movies. Not many early horror films followed White Zombie'''s Haitian origins style. Other horror films from the 1930s borrowed themes from White Zombie, such as people returning from the dead and other elements of zombie mythology. These films include: The Ghost Breakers (1940), King of the Zombies (1941), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and The Plague of the Zombies (1966). These films all contain elements from White Zombie including the blank-eyed stares, the voodoo drums, and zombies performing manual labor.
Victor Halperin directed a White Zombie loose sequel, Revolt of the Zombies, which was released in 1936. Béla Lugosi was considered for the role of villain Armand Louque, but the part went to Dean Jagger. Cinematographer Arthur Martinelli and producer Edward Halperin returned. Modern critical response to Revolt of the Zombies is generally unfavorable. In a review from Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide, the review declares that "[T]here's no experimentation here, only dull composition shots and flatly lit shots of yakking characters in a by-the-numbers plot." AllMovie rated White Zombie three stars out of five, while it gave Revolt of the Zombies only one star and deemed it far inferior to the original.
Scenes from White Zombie have appeared in other films including Curtis Hanson's The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Michael Almereyda's Nadja, and Tim Burton's Ed Wood.
The heavy metal band White Zombie appropriated their name from the film. The group's vocalist Rob Zombie said of the film, "[It's] a great film that not a lot of people know about...It amazes me that a film that is so readily available can be so lost." In 1997, the Janus company released a model kit based on the Murder Legendre character.
In 2009, it was announced that Tobe Hooper would direct a remake of White Zombie. Jared Rivet wrote the screenplay for Hooper's remake but the project never came to fruition.
In 2023, Rob Zombie and Waxwork Records collaborated to release the original soundtrack of White Zombie'' on vinyl record, as the first release in a "Rob Zombie Presents" line of horror film soundtracks.
## See also
- Bela Lugosi filmography
- List of American films of 1932
- List of horror films of the 1930s
|
5,431,875 |
Nicholas Orsini
| 1,165,281,272 |
Despot of Epirus from 1318 to 1323
|
[
"1323 deaths",
"13th-century births",
"14th-century counts in Europe",
"14th-century despots of Epirus",
"14th-century murdered monarchs",
"Assassins of heads of state",
"Christians of the Crusades",
"Counts palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos",
"Orsini family",
"People of Byzantine descent",
"Year of birth unknown"
] |
Nicholas Orsini (Italian: Nicolò Orsini; Greek: Νικόλαος Ορσίνι, romanized: Nikolaos Orsini) was a Greek–Italian nobleman who was count palatine of Cephalonia from 1317 to 1323 and ruler of southern Epirus around Arta from 1318 to 1323. The son of Count John I Orsini and an Epirote princess, he succeeded his father upon the latter's death, and in the next year murdered his uncle, Thomas Komnenos Doukas, and usurped his rule of Epirus. While able to secure his control over southern Epirus, however, the north with the city of Ioannina were taken over by the Byzantine Empire. Nicholas' attempts to ally with the Republic of Venice and recover Ioannina failed, and he was in turn killed by his brother John II Orsini in 1323.
## Life
Nicholas was the son of Count John I Orsini of Cephalonia by Maria, a daughter of Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas of Epirus by Anna Palaiologina Kantakouzene. His father governed Cephalonia as a vassal of King Charles II of Naples, and had acquired Leukas as his wife's dowry. John had a close relationship with his father-in-law, and with his wife lived at the Epirote court at Arta until 1303, when John succeeded his father, Richard Orsini. John nevertheless joined in attacks on Epirus ordered by his Angevin suzerains, King Charles II of Naples and Philip of Taranto in 1304 and 1306. John appears to have played a part in instigating these attacks, apparently aiming to become the new ruler of Epirus.
Nicholas succeeded to the county on his father's death in 1317, and like his father also set his sights on Epirus. In 1318 he surprised and murdered his childless uncle, Thomas I Komnenos Doukas of Epirus, and easily subdued the entire southern portion of the principality around Arta. To solidify his position among the local population, Nicholas espoused Eastern Orthodoxy, used the Greek language, and married his uncle's widow, Anna Palaiologina, daughter of the Byzantine co-emperor Michael IX Palaiologos and granddaughter of Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos. Although Anna was his aunt, the Church appears to have acquiesced to their marriage. The historian Donald Nicol suggests that Anna may have been involved in Thomas' murder, as he had mistreated her.
The Angevins did not entirely welcome Nicholas' actions, as they clashed with their own claims over Epirus. While Nicholas had sworn allegiance to the new Prince of Achaea, John of Gravina in 1318 as the latter's feudal vassal, in the next year, when prompted to render homage as ruler of Epirus as well, he refused. At the same time, the Byzantines took advantage of Nicholas' lack of legitimacy to occupy the northern part of the Epirote realm, including Ioannina, which declared itself for the Byzantine emperor as soon as the murder of Thomas became known.
When Nicholas sent to Emperor Andronikos to seek recognition of his new status, the emperor agreed to award him the title of despot (in 1319/20) in exchange for Nicholas' pledge to recognize the loss of Ioannina. In the meantime, Nicholas tried to form an alliance with the Republic of Venice, which had wide-ranging commercial and political interests in the area. In May 1320 he sent ambassadors to Venice, offering to acknowledge Venetian overlordship and hand over either the lucrative fishing grounds of Lake Butrint, or the sugarcane plantations of Parga. Not wishing to alienate the Byzantines, the Venetians politely refused. Nevertheless, already in 1320, Nicholas began harassing the Byzantine domains in Epirus, and his ties to the Byzantine court ended when his wife Anna died in the same year.
Following the outbreak of a Byzantine civil war shortly after, Nicholas saw an excellent opportunity to recover the Epirote to his north. Within a short time, he was besieging Ioannina. He was aided by the Venetians, who under the command of Giovanni Michiel opportunistically attacked the port of Valona. Nevertheless, both attacks were repulsed by the Byzantine garrisons. In Ioannina in particular, the local citizens eagerly participated in the defence of both their city and the extensive privileges granted to them by Andronikos II. Shortly after, in 1323, he was killed—either by murder or as a result of a brief conflict—by his brother John II Orsini.
|
70,285,225 |
2022 South Lanarkshire Council election
| 1,172,786,961 |
South Lanarkshire Council election
|
[
"2022 Scottish local elections",
"21st century in South Lanarkshire",
"South Lanarkshire Council elections"
] |
Elections to South Lanarkshire Council took place on 5 May 2022 on the same day as the 31 other Scottish local government elections. As with other Scottish council elections, it was held using single transferable vote (STV) – a form of proportional representation – in which multiple candidates are elected in each ward and voters rank candidates in order of preference.
For the second consecutive election, the Scottish National Party were returned with the most seats at 27 but remained shy of an overall majority. Labour made small gains to again finish second with an increased number of members with 24 – up two from 2017 – while the Conservatives lost half their number to return seven members. The Liberal Democrats and independents both made two gains to return three and two members respectively while the Greens won their first ever seat in South Lanarkshire.
On 18 May, Labour and the Lib Dems announced that they would run the council as a coalition, alongside one independent councillor, with support from the Conservatives.
## Background
### Previous election
At the previous election in 2017, the Scottish National Party (SNP) won the most seats for the first time. Labour had won every previous election in South Lanarkshire following the local government reforms in the 1990s. The SNP gained one seat to hold 27, six shy of an overall majority, and they formed a minority administration. Labour lost 10 seats which left them with 22 while the Conservatives gained 10 seats to record their best result in a South Lanarkshire election with 14 and the Liberal Democrats held their only seat.
Source:
### Electoral system
The election used the 20 wards created under the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, with 64 councillors being elected. Each ward elected either 3 or 4 members, using the single transferable vote (STV) electoral system – a form of proportional representation – where candidates are ranked in order of preference.
### Composition
Several changes in the composition of the council occurred between the 2017 and 2022 elections. Most were changes to the political affiliation of councillors including SNP councillors Sheena Wardhaugh, Jim Wardhaugh and David Watson and Labour councillors Margaret Cooper, Joe Lowe and George Greenshields who resigned from their respective parties to become independents. Conservative councillor Mark McGeever and Labour councillor Fiona Dryburgh switched allegiances to the Liberal Democrats. Conservative councillor Colin McGavigan was initially suspended before resigning from the party and Labour councillor Jackie Burns was expelled from the party. Two by-elections resulted in a Labour hold and an SNP hold.
### Retiring councillors
Source:
### Candidates
The total number of candidates fell from 152 in 2017 to 143. As was the case five years previous, the SNP fielded the highest number of candidates at 37 across the 20 wards. Both Labour and the Conservatives also fielded at least one candidate in every ward but the 30 candidates fielded by Labour was two less than in 2017 whereas the Conservatives maintained a total of 21 candidates. Unlike the previous election, the Liberal Democrats did not contest every ward after only 16 candidates were selected. The Greens had contested 19 of the 20 wards in 2017 but only contested 14 this time.
The number of independent candidates increased from nine in 2017 to 11. The UK Independence Party (UKIP) (four) only fielded half as many candidates. For the first time, the Scottish Family Party, the Scottish Libertarian Party and the Alba Party fielded candidates in a South Lanarkshire election. For only the second time since 1999, the Scottish Socialist Party did not field any candidates and for the first time since 2003 neither Solidarity nor the Scottish Unionist Party fielded any candidates either.
### Controversies
Larkhall councillor Jackie Burns was criticised after announcing he would be standing for re-election. In June 2021, Cllr Burns was cleared of sexual assault but was called a "nuisance drunk" by a Sheriff before being banned from public transport for pestering a woman on a bus. In 2016, Cllr Burns was convicted of a similar offence involving a 17-year-old girl and was previously fined for public urination. Prior to the 2017 election, Cllr Burns was expelled from the Labour party after he had been nominated as a candidate by the party following a conviction for breach of the peace.
Scottish Family Party candidates in Lanarkshire were accused of "extremist right wing views" by advocacy group Hope not Hate for their policies on transgender rights and hate speech legislation. The party is considered anti-LGBT but claims to be pro-free speech.
## Results
Source:
Note: Votes are the sum of first preference votes across all council wards. The net gain/loss and percentage changes relate to the result of the previous Scottish local elections on 4 May 2017. This is because STV has an element of proportionality which is not present unless multiple seats are being elected. This may differ from other published sources showing gain/loss relative to seats held at the dissolution of Scotland's councils.
### Ward summary
\|- class="unsortable" align="centre" !rowspan="2" align="left"\|Ward ! % !Cllrs ! % !Cllrs ! % !Cllrs ! % !Cllrs ! % !Cllrs ! % !Cllrs !rowspan="2"\|Total
Cllrs \|- class="unsortable" align="center" !colspan="2"\|SNP !colspan="2"\|Lab !colspan="2"\|Con !colspan="2"\|Lib Dem !colspan="2"\|Green !colspan="2"\|Others \|- \|align="left"\|Clydesdale West \|32.7 \|1 \|bgcolor="#eea2ad"\|38.2 \|bgcolor="#eea2ad"\|2 \|23.6 \|1 \|2.4 \|0 \|3.1 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|4 \|- \|align="left"\|Clydesdale North \|33.4 \|1 \|bgcolor="#eea2ad"\|33.8 \|bgcolor="#eea2ad"\|1 \|26.9 \|1 \|colspan="2" \|colspan="2" \|6.0 \|0 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Clydesdale East \|33.5 \|1 \|16.4 \|1 \|bgcolor="#add8e6"\|40.8 \|bgcolor="#add8e6"\|1 \|3.1 \|0 \|5.3 \|0 \|0.9 \|0 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Clydesdale South \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|33.5 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|1 \|25.9 \|1 \|18.7 \|1 \|colspan="2" \|3.1 \|0 \|18.8 \|0 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Avondale and Stonehouse \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|28.4 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|1 \|19.8 \|1 \|20.6 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|6.4 \|0 \|24.8 \|1 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|East Kilbride South \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|48.7 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|2 \|23.0 \|1 \|8.7 \|0 \|13.7 \|0 \|2.9 \|0 \|3.0 \|0 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|East Kilbride Central South \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|43.9 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|2 \|38.6 \|1 \|9.1 \|0 \|2.7 \|0 \|3.9 \|0 \|1.9 \|0 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|East Kilbride Central North \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|43.8 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|2 \|37.3 \|1 \|12.2 \|0 \|3.3 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|3.4 \|0 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|East Kilbride West \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|30.9 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|1 \|26.5 \|1 \|20.0 \|0 \|2.1 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|20.5 \|1 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|East Kilbride East \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|37.4 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|1 \|27.0 \|1 \|13.5 \|0 \|2.6 \|0 \|12.7 \|1 \|6.8 \|0 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Rutherglen South \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|31.9 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|1 \|23.2 \|1 \|8.5 \|0 \|29.4 \|1 \|4.6 \|0 \|2.4 \|0 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Rutherglen Central and North \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|37.7 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|2 \|35.0 \|1 \|12.0 \|0 \|10.2 \|0 \|5.1 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Cambuslang West \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|39.0 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|1 \|30.1 \|1 \|12.9 \|0 \|12.7 \|1 \|5.2 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Cambuslang East \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|42.3 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|2 \|39.4 \|1 \|9.6 \|0 \|2.9 \|0 \|4.0 \|0 \|1.8 \|0 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Blantyre \|42.1 \|1 \|bgcolor="#eea2ad"\|44.8 \|bgcolor="#eea2ad"\|2 \|7.7 \|0 \|2.1 \|0 \|3.2 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Bothwell and Uddingston \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|32.2 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|1 \|30.3 \|1 \|27.6 \|1 \|5.3 \|0 \|4.5 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Hamilton North and East \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|40.8 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|1 \|32.4 \|1 \|19.0 \|1 \|5.2 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|2.6 \|0 \|3 \|- \|align="left"\|Hamilton West and Earnock \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|41.4 \|bgcolor="#efe146"\|2 \|30.7 \|1 \|12.9 \|0 \|11.9 \|1 \|3.1 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|4 \|- \|align="left"\|Hamilton South \|41.4 \|2 \|bgcolor="#eea2ad"\|45.4 \|bgcolor="#eea2ad"\|2 \|13.1 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|colspan="2" \|colspan="2" \|4 \|- \|align="left"\|Larkhall \|28.9 \|1 \|bgcolor="#eea2ad"\|33.0 \|bgcolor="#eea2ad"\|2 \|24.5 \|1 \|2.4 \|0 \|colspan="2" \|11.2 \|0 \|4 \|- class="unsortable" class="sortbottom" !align="left"\| Total !36.9 !27 !31.7 !24 !17.3 !7 !5.4 !3 !3.2 !1 !5.6 !2 !64
Source:
### Seats changing hands
Below is a list of seats which elected a different party or parties from 2017 in order to highlight the change in political composition of the council from the previous election. The list does not include defeated incumbents who resigned or defected from their party and subsequently failed re-election while the party held the seat.
Notes
## Ward results
### Clydesdale West
Labour (2), the SNP (1) and the Conservatives (1) held the seats they won at the last election.
### Clydesdale North
Labour, the SNP and the Conservatives held the seats they won at the previous election.
### Clydesdale East
The Conservatives held one of their two seats while the SNP held their only seat and Labour gained one seat from the Conservatives.
### Clydesdale South
The SNP, Labour and the Conservatives held the seats they won at the previous election. Independent candidates George Greenshields and Colin McGavigan were elected as Labour and Conservative candidates respectively in 2017 but later resigned from their respective parties.
### Avondale and Stonehouse
The SNP and Labour held the seats they won at the previous election while the Conservatives lost their only seat to an independent candidate. In 2017, Cllr Margaret Cooper was elected as a Labour candidate but later resigned from the party. She was re-elected as an independent candidate.
### East Kilbride South
The SNP (2) and Labour (1) held the seats they won in the previous election.
### East Kilbride Central South
The SNP (2) and Labour (1) held the seats they won at the previous election.
### East Kilbride Central North
The SNP (2) and Labour (1) held the seats they won at the previous election.
### East Kilbride West
The SNP and Labour held the seats they won at the previous election while the Conservatives lost their only seat to an independent candidate. In 2017, Cllr David Watson was elected as an SNP candidate but later resigned from the party. He was re-elected as an independent candidate.
### East Kilbride East
The SNP held one of the two seats they won at the previous election while Labour held their only seat and the Greens gained one. Independent candidate Jim Wardhaugh was elected as an SNP candidate in 2017 but later resigned from the party.
### Rutherglen South
The SNP, the Liberal Democrats and Labour held the seats they won at the previous election.
### Rutherglen Central and North
The SNP and Labour held the seats they won at the previous election and the SNP gained one seat from the Conservatives.
### Cambuslang West
The SNP and Labour held the seats they won at the previous election and the Liberal Democrats gained one seat from the Conservatives.
### Cambuslang East
The SNP (2) and Labour (1) held the seats they won at the previous election.
### Blantyre
Labour (2) and the SNP (1) held the seats they won at the previous election.
### Bothwell and Uddingston
The SNP, Labour and the Conservatives held the seats they won at the previous election.
### Hamilton North and East
The SNP, Labour and the Conservatives held the seats they won at the previous election.
### Hamilton West and Earnock
The SNP (2) and Labour (1) held the seats they had won at the previous election while the Liberal Democrats gained one seat from the Conservatives. In 2017, Cllr Mark McGeever was elected as a Conservative candidate but he subsequently defected to the Liberal Democrats. He was re-elected as a Liberal Democrat candidate.
### Hamilton South
The SNP held both their seats while Labour held one and gained one from the Conservatives.
### Larkhall
Labour (2), the SNP (1) and the Conservatives (1) held the seats they won at the previous election. Independent candidate Jackie Burns was elected as a Labour candidate in 2017 but was later expelled from the party.
## Aftermath
Despite having again been returned as the largest party, the outgoing SNP administration was replaced by a coalition of Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent councillors, with Conservative support. Labour group leader Joe Fagan and depute group leader Gerry Convery were elected as leader of the council and depute leader of the council respectively. SNP group leader John Ross, who was leader of the council from 2017 until the 2022 election, said the council had been "hijacked by a unionist pact". Outgoing Provost Ian McAllan was replaced by independent councillor Margaret Cooper and Cllr Bert Thomson was elected Depute Provost to fill the vacancy created when former Depute Provost Collette Stevenson stood down following her election as MSP for East Kilbride.
The Labour group were accused of "teaming up with the Tories" by Rutherglen MSP Clare Haughey, whilst Clydesdale MSP Màiri McAllan said the coalition was a "sad day for democracy". The Conservative group admitted they had voted in a unionist manner but denied there was any formal agreement between them and the other unionist parties.
In June 2023, council leader Joe Fagan was suspended for two months for a breach of the councillors' code of conduct after he disclosed confidential information about the potential closure of leisure facilities in 2021 to the local press. He was replaced as council leader on an interim basis by Cllr Convery.
### East Kilbride West by-election
In May 2023, East Kilbride West councillor Ali Salamati resigned his seat for work reasons triggering a by-election. The result saw the SNP slip to third place behind the Conservatives as the Labour-led administration gained the seat.
|
14,054,738 |
Tropical Storm Erin (2007)
| 1,171,830,084 |
Atlantic tropical storm
|
[
"2007 Atlantic hurricane season",
"2007 natural disasters in the United States",
"Atlantic tropical storms",
"Houston hurricanes",
"Hurricanes in Oklahoma",
"Hurricanes in Texas",
"Tropical cyclones in 2007"
] |
Tropical Storm Erin was a minimal tropical storm that made landfall in Texas in August 2007. The storm's remnants also unexpectedly restrengthened over Oklahoma, causing damage there as well. The second tropical cyclone to make landfall in the United States in the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season and the fifth named storm of the year, Erin formed in the Gulf of Mexico on August 14 from a persistent area of convection. It attained tropical storm status the next day, and on August 16, 2007, Erin made landfall near Lamar, Texas, and persisted over land across Texas before moving northward into Oklahoma. Due to the brown ocean effect, Erin intensified after landfall. The storm resulted in sixteen fatalities and worsened an already-severe flooding issue in Texas.
## Meteorological history
On August 1, 2007, an area of convection developed just south of Jamaica in association with a trough of low pressure. The system tracked west-northwestward, and by August 10 consisted of a broad surface trough with minimal shower activity. Convection increased on August 11, and by August 12 the interaction between a tropical wave and an upper-level low in the area resulted in a large area of disorganized thunderstorms extending from the western Caribbean Sea into the central Bahamas. Upper-level winds gradually became more beneficial for development, and on August 13 a broad low pressure area formed about 90 miles (140 km) north-northeast of Cancún, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Late on August 14, a Hurricane Hunters flight into the system reported a small circulation center, but at the time was not well-defined enough to result in the initiation of tropical cyclone advisories. However, deep convection was maintained near the increasingly organizing center, and at 0300 UTC on August 15 the National Hurricane Center classified it as Tropical Depression Five about 425 miles (684 km) southeast of Brownsville, Texas.
In the overnight hours after formation, the storm was disorganized with a ragged and ill-defined center of circulation. Located to the south of a mid to upper-level ridge over the southern United States, the system tracked to the west-northwest through an environment conducive for further strengthening; an upper-level anticyclone developed over the central Gulf of Mexico, and sea surface temperatures along its track were warm. The cloud pattern became better organized, maintaining a large area of convection with curved rainbands and well-established outflow. Based on reports from Hurricane Hunters, the National Hurricane Center upgraded the depression to Tropical Storm Erin at 1530 UTC on August 15 about 250 miles (400 km) east of Brownsville, Texas. As it continued northwestward, Erin remained disorganized and failed to strengthen beyond minimal tropical storm status. At 1200 UTC on August 16 the cyclone made landfall near Lamar, Texas as it weakened to tropical depression status. Three hours later, the National Hurricane Center ceased issuing advisories on Erin as warning responsibility was transferred to the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center.
Drifting northwestward through Texas, Tropical Depression Erin maintained an area of convection near the center, with its widespread but scattered rainbands dropping moderate to heavy precipitation. By August 17, the winds decreased to 20 mph (32 km/h), with higher gusts. The system turned to the north-northeast on August 18, while heavy bands of thunderstorms continued to rotate around the center of Erin. Early on August 19 after entering Oklahoma, the remnants of Erin suddenly re-intensified to maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (97 km/h) a short distance west of Oklahoma City. The Norman, Oklahoma National Weather Service remarked the intensification "[resulted] in what amounts to an inland tropical storm;" at 0930 UTC the system presented an eye-like feature and a spiral rainband, and produced wind gusts of over 80 mph (130 km/h). However, a few hours later, the depression began weakening again, and late on August 19 Erin weakened significantly as the circulation dissipated over northeastern Oklahoma. Despite displaying tropical characteristics, the National Hurricane Center determined the system was not a tropical cyclone over Oklahoma, and classified it as a "low". The low continued into southeastern Kansas before dissipating, feeding moisture northward toward a frontal system extending from the Midwestern United States through the Mid-Atlantic States. Its remnant mid-level circulation then moved eastward across Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia before losing identity as it moved out into the Atlantic Ocean.
## Preparations
Immediately upon becoming a tropical cyclone, the National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm watch from Freeport, Texas to the United States/Mexico border; at the same time, the government of Mexico issued a tropical storm watch southward to Rio San Fernando. Shortly before attaining tropical storm status, the watch in Texas was upgraded to a tropical storm warning. Late on August 15, the warning was extended to San Luis Pass, while the watch in Mexico was discontinued. As Erin made landfall, the warning was canceled, and several flood watches and warnings were issued for counties across southeastern Texas. Upon moving into Oklahoma, flood and flash flood warnings were issued for several counties.
Governor Rick Perry activated the National Guard and mobilized emergency personnel to the region expected to be affected by the storm. Erin was expected to bring flooding to the region, which had already been declared a disaster area on August 7, 2007, due to widespread flooding on the Nueces River basin; this area remained flooded as of August 15, 2007. On August 15, oil futures rose to \$74.01 (USD), due to fears of Erin disrupting oil supplies produced on Texan coasts, combined with low oil inventories. As a result of the threat from the storm, Shell Oil Company evacuated 188 workers on oil platforms in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico.
## Impact
### Texas
By midday on August 15, rainbands with gusty winds began affecting the Texas coastline. As it moved ashore, the storm produced heavy rainfall near and to the or northeast of its path, reaching 11.02 inches (280 mm) at a station in Lockwood. The storm caused several bayous in the Houston area to reach or exceed flood levels. Across southeastern Texas, the cyclone spawned several funnel clouds, and near IAH an EF0 tornado was reported. Wind gusts from Erin were minor across the state, peaking at 35 mph (56 km/h) at Palacios with an unofficial report of 39 mph (63 km/h) at Jamaica Beach. Upon moving ashore, the storm produced a minor storm surge peaking at 3.22 feet (0.98 m) at Pleasure Pier, which caused minor beach erosion.
In Clear Lake City, heavy rainfall collapsed a portion of a grocery store roof, killing one worker and one Coca-Cola merchandiser. The precipitation caused moderate flooding across eastern portions of Harris County; over 400 homes and 40 businesses were flooded. Flooding across the Greater Houston area briefly halted the METRORail and closed several state roads. One person drowned after driving into a retention pond. Several people required rescue assistance, and in Comal County a car accident caused three fatalities. The passage of the storm temporarily left about 20,000 electrical customers without power, though most outages were quickly restored. In San Antonio, one body was recovered from a creek and another died after driving into a flooded road and was swept into a drainage ditch in which four others survived. In Sisterdale, two people were killed when they were swept away stalled over Sister Creek. In Taylor County, near Abilene, flooding killed one person and forced the evacuation of about 2,000 people. Damage in Texas totaled over \$45 million (2007 USD).
### Oklahoma
After its unexpected redevelopment over Oklahoma, widespread damage was also reported there. Several communities in central Oklahoma were flooded due to the heavy rainfall. Watonga, Kingfisher and Geary were the hardest-hit communities, where many houses and buildings were inundated. The weather forced the cancellation of the Hydro Fair as the carnival rides were not safe in heavy rain and high wind. Winds in Watonga gusted as high as 82 mph (132 km/h), which damaged numerous trees and power lines and heavily damaged mobile homes. The entire community lost power, as did about 15,000 customers in total in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. A section of Interstate 40 was also closed for a while.
One person drowned in a cellar in Fort Cobb, and another drowned in Kingfisher. Another storm-related death took place in Seminole. Three others were found dead after a weather-related automobile accident also near Carnegie. Another automobile accident fatality took place in Okmulgee County but it is unclear if the event was storm-related. Damage amounted to over \$2 million (2007 USD).
### Missouri
Although its surface circulation had dissipated, its circulation aloft remained intact and led to a burst of rainfall early on August 20. The 11.94 inches/303.3 mm that fell at Miller became the wettest Missouri rainfall total associated with a tropical cyclone, or its remains, since at least 1972. One person died in Sleeper when he drove into flood waters which had swept away a bridge he was attempting to navigate onto. Nine water rescues occurred along the I-44 corridor, mostly caused by Erin's rainfall. Damage totaled about \$19.8 million (2007 USD) in the state, primarily in Polk County.
## See also
- 2007 Midwest flooding
- Derecho
- Other storms of the same name
- Timeline of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season
- Tropical Storm Bill (2015) - another storm that took the same general path, and was affected by the Brown ocean effect.
- Tropical Storm Imelda - yet another storm in 2019 that took the same general path and devastated Texas with severe flooding.
|
7,308,811 |
John Nutter
| 1,166,259,846 |
English association football player (born 1982)
|
[
"1982 births",
"Aldershot Town F.C. players",
"Ebbsfleet United F.C. players",
"England men's semi-pro international footballers",
"English Football League players",
"English men's footballers",
"Footballers from Buckinghamshire",
"Gillingham F.C. players",
"Grays Athletic F.C. players",
"Lincoln City F.C. players",
"Living people",
"Men's association football defenders",
"National League (English football) players",
"People from Taplow",
"St Albans City F.C. players",
"Stevenage F.C. players",
"Woking F.C. players",
"Wycombe Wanderers F.C. players"
] |
John Robert William Nutter (born 13 June 1982) is an English former professional footballer who played as a left-back.
Nutter began his career at Blackburn Rovers' youth academy in 1998, spending two years at the club before being released. In early 2001, he joined Wycombe Wanderers where he made one senior appearance, his Football League debut. He signed for Aldershot Town in May 2001, making 79 appearances over three seasons and helping the club earn promotion into the Conference National during the 2002–03 season after winning the Isthmian League Premier Division title. During his time at Aldershot, Nutter spent time out on loan at St Albans City and Gravesend & Northfleet respectively. Nutter signed for Conference South club Grays Athletic, managed by Mark Stimson, in July 2004, and was part of the team that won the Conference South title, as well as two FA Trophy triumphs in 2005 and 2006.
Nutter became Stimson's first signing at Conference National club Stevenage Borough in May 2006, and again enjoyed FA Trophy success during the 2006–07 season. He moved back into the Football League in November 2007 when Stimson joined League One club Gillingham and made Nutter one of his first signings. He spent three-and-a-half seasons at Gillingham, making 157 appearances in all competitions, with the club moving between League One and League Two during his time there. He was released when his contract expired at the end of the 2010–11 season, subsequently signing for Lincoln City of the Conference Premier in July 2011. He was loaned out to Woking in November 2012, a move that was made permanent in January 2013. He spent two years at Woking, retiring from playing at the end of the 2014–15 season to enable him to focus further on his career as a teacher.
## Club career
### Early career
Nutter began his career at Blackburn Rovers' youth academy, joining the club's YTS programme in 1998 at the age of 16, before later signing a scholarship with the club. During his time at Blackburn, he was part of the team that won the under-17 Academy Cup as they defeated Manchester City in the final. He was released by Blackburn in 2000, and was subsequently signed by Wycombe Wanderers in the early part of 2001. Nutter made one first-team appearance for the club, making his Football League debut in the club's 3–2 away defeat to Peterborough United on 24 February 2001. He was also part of the squad that travelled to the FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool at Villa Park, although he did not play in the match. His time at Wycombe was hampered by an ankle injury, which resulted in "limited opportunities". He left Wycombe at the end of the 2000–01 season.
In May 2001, Nutter joined Aldershot Town, then of the Isthmian League Premier Division. He made his debut in Aldershot's 3–1 home victory against Enfield on 18 August 2001, and scored his first goal for the club in a 2–1 away win against Heybridge Swifts. Nutter made 19 appearances for Aldershot during the 2001–02 season, scoring twice. He also made eight appearances for divisional rivals St Albans City during a two-month loan spell. He spent a month on loan at Conference National club Gravesend & Northfleet in November 2002, making four appearances. During the season, he scored three times in 21 appearances for Aldershot, in a season that saw the club earn promotion to the Conference National after winning the Isthmian League Premier Division. Nutter played regularly during Aldershot's return to the highest tier of non-League football, making 28 appearances in all competitions and scoring once in a 4–2 away victory over Bishop's Stortford in the FA Trophy in January 2004. Aldershot missed out on back-to-back promotions, losing on penalties in the play-off final to Shrewsbury Town. During his three years at Aldershot, Nutter made 68 appearances in league, FA Cup and FA Trophy fixtures, scoring six times.
### Grays Athletic
Ahead of the 2004–05 season, in July 2004, Nutter signed for Conference South club Grays Athletic, managed by Mark Stimson. He made his Grays debut on the opening day of the season, playing the first 57 minutes in a 1–1 away draw against Hayes on 14 August 2004. Three days later, he scored his only goal of the season as Grays beat Redbridge 4–1 at the New Recreation Ground. In Nutter's first season with Grays, the club achieved promotion by winning the Conference South title by 23 points. During the same season, Grays also won the FA Trophy, beating Hucknall Town on penalties in the final at Villa Park, with Nutter playing the whole match. As a result of Grays' promotion, the 2005–06 season gave Nutter another opportunity to play in the Conference National. He played regularly during the season as Grays finished third in the league. His only goal of the season came in the Conference play-off semi-final second leg, as Grays lost to Halifax Town 5–4 on aggregate. Shortly after the play-off defeat, Nutter was part of the team that earned back-to-back FA Trophy titles following a 2–0 victory against Woking at Upton Park in the 2006 FA Trophy final. It was Nutter's last game for the club. On securing successive FA Trophy victories with Grays, Nutter stated – "The FA Trophy wins for Grays Athletic were great, a fantastic achievement for the club, we had some terrific players at the time".
### Stevenage Borough
With his Grays contract expiring, Nutter opted to sign for Conference National club Stevenage Borough on 31 May 2006. He joined on a free transfer and on a two-year contract. The move reunited him with Stimson, who made Nutter his first signing following his switch from Grays to Stevenage. Nutter revealed that he had rejected the offer of a contract extension at Grays, as well as an offer from Peterborough United. He made his Stevenage debut against Altrincham on 12 August 2006, playing the whole match in a 2–1 away defeat. Nutter scored his first goal for Stevenage in a 3–2 victory against Woking on 3 October 2006, a late penalty to restore parity in the match, before Stevenage went on to score a winner in injury-time. He played in all 46 leagues matches during his first season with the club, as well as making a further 10 appearances in cup competitions, scoring six times. Nutter was part of the squad that reached the 2007 FA Trophy final in May 2007, the first competitive match at the new Wembley Stadium. He played the whole match in Stevenage's 3–2 victory against Kidderminster Harriers, a game in which Stevenage trailed by two goals, meaning he had won the FA Trophy for three successive years.
Nutter scored his first goal of the 2007–08 season in Stevenage's 3–0 home victory over Weymouth in August 2007, scoring a free kick that found the top corner of the goal. He was part of the defence that broke a club record and equalled a Conference Premier record when Stevenage went eight games without conceding a goal, from August to October 2007. Following the departure of Stimson to Gillingham in November 2007, Stevenage rejected several offers for Nutter from Gillingham. He remained at Stevenage for a further three weeks; his last game for the club a 3–2 home defeat to Halifax Town. He scored eight times in 73 appearances for the club in all competitions.
### Gillingham
Later that month, Nutter joined Gillingham, along with Stevenage midfielder Adam Miller, for a combined fee of £65,000. The move was initially on loan until January 2008, when the deal was made permanent. He debuted for Gillingham in a 1–1 home draw with Southend United on 26 December 2007, playing the whole match. Nutter made 25 appearances for the club during the second half of the 2007–08 season, a season in which Gillingham suffered relegation to League Two. He scored one goal during the season, in a 1–1 draw against Bristol Rovers at the Memorial Stadium in April 2008. The 2008–09 season was Nutter's first full season at Gillingham. He had been joined by former Stevenage players Barry Fuller, Alan Julian, and Stuart Lewis, as well as Dennis Oli, who he played alongside at Grays. Nutter made 54 appearances during the season, a season in which Gillingham earned promotion back to League One following a 1–0 victory against Shrewsbury Town in the play-off final at Wembley Stadium in May 2009. He provided 11 assists from left-back during the season. The promotion meant that it was the third of Nutter's career, having also enjoyed league success at Aldershot and Grays.
Nutter started in the club's first game of the 2009–10 season; as Gillingham marked their return to the third tier of English football with a 5–0 victory against Swindon Town at Priestfield. He scored his only goal of the season, the second of his Gillingham career, in a 3–1 win over bottom-placed Stockport County in December 2009, marking his 100th appearance for the club with an "angled volley" that beat Owain Fôn Williams in the Stockport goal. Gillingham were relegated at the end of the season, finishing in 21st place. Nutter made 41 appearances during the season. Stimson left the club by mutual consent days after relegation was confirmed, and was replaced by Andy Hessenthaler. This meant that Nutter would be playing under a manager other than Stimson for the first time in six years (aside from a three-week spell under Peter Taylor at Stevenage). Nutter's contract was extended for a further year in June 2010 after he had "played sufficient games last season to trigger a new deal". During the season, Nutter received the first red card of his career in a 2–0 home defeat to Dover Athletic in the FA Cup, earning the dismissal for a "professional foul". He made 37 appearances during the 2010–11 season, scoring once, as Gillingham narrowly missed out on a place in the play-offs. In May 2011, Nutter left Gillingham when his contract expired at the end of the month. During his three-and-a-half year spell with the Kent club, he made 157 appearances and scored three goals.
### Lincoln City
Nutter joined Conference Premier club Lincoln City on a free transfer in July 2011. Signing a two-year deal with Lincoln, Nutter stated – "I think it will benefit me to have a fresh start, play in front of new people and show what I can do. I feel I'm better than this level but I've got to show that and we have to show that as a team". His Lincoln debut came on the opening day of the 2011–12 season, playing the whole match as Lincoln drew 2–2 with Southport at Haig Avenue. He scored his first goal for the club on 26 November 2011, scoring Lincoln's third with a shot from outside the area in a 3–0 home victory over Ebbsfleet United. Nutter scored a 20-yard free-kick in a 2–0 win against relegation rivals Newport County on 24 March 2012. Nutter played in all 51 of Lincoln's matches during the season, with the club struggling to adapt during their first season back in non-League, finishing just above the relegation places.
He was made club captain ahead of the 2012–13 season, and continued to play regularly during the early months of the new season. He scored his first goal of the season from a free-kick in a 3–3 home draw against Stockport County on 27 October 2012. Nutter stated that his family struggled relocating to Lincolnshire, and a move down south was a much more suitable location given his personal circumstances. He scored three times in 66 appearances for Lincoln. On his time at Lincoln, Nutter stated – "Lincoln is a really nice, friendly club with very patient and loyal supporters. But with my personal circumstances, it was time to move on – I wish them well".
### Woking
He joined fellow Conference Premier club Woking on a two-month loan deal on 15 November 2012. He made his first appearance for Woking two days after signing, playing the whole match in a 2–1 defeat to Alfreton Town at Kingfield, and made a further four appearances during the loan agreement. He briefly returned to Lincoln, before it was agreed that he would leave the club by mutual consent at the end of 2012. Nutter subsequently signed for Woking on a permanent basis on 6 January 2013. He was ever-present at left-back for the remainder of the season, adding 17 further appearances to his five loan appearances as Woking finished their first season back in the Conference in mid-table. Nutter remained at Woking for the 2013–14 season, making his first appearance of the season against his former employers, Lincoln City, in a 0–0 draw at Kingfield on 10 August 2013. He scored his first and only goal for Woking in the club's 2–0 away win at Gateshead on 15 February 2014, converting Kevin Betsy's cross after just two minutes to give Woking the lead and help the club on their way to their first away win of the year. He was once again a mainstay in the team throughout the whole of the season, making 50 appearances in all competitions and scoring once.
Nutter was out of contract heading into the 2014–15 season, but after discussions with manager Garry Hill and coach Steven Thompson, he signed a contract extension with Woking, on non-contract terms, in August 2014. The contract was non-contract terms because Nutter was combining playing football alongside his new job as a teacher and therefore had to take on a part-time playing role. He also thanked the club for their understanding in his new role, especially given the recent death of his mother. Nutter started in the club's first game of the season, a 3–1 away victory at Alfreton Town on 9 August 2014. He played a largely peripheral role during the season, making seven appearances in all competitions as his new job commitments meant first-team opportunities were sparse. Nutter retired at the end of the season to focus fully on his teaching job.
## International career
Nutter played for the England C team, who represent England at non-League level, three times in 2007. He has also made several appearances for the England futsal team.
## Style of play
Nutter predominantly played as a left-sided full-back, although he did play on the left wing in the early stages of his career. He is left-footed. Gillingham manager Mark Stimson described him as "an attacking full-back with plenty of technical ability", and stated that Nutter would "offer plenty of width down the left hand side", in-turn being "a constant attacking threat". He expressed a passion to pass the ball along the floor, and always prefers to pass the ball out as opposed to playing long ball. Talking about his time at Stevenage, Nutter stated he would like to be remembered as a player "who tried to play football the right way, passing the ball, technically good to watch and an honest player".
He also provided an attacking outlet from set-pieces. Throughout his career, Nutter scored from several long-range free-kicks, and also regularly took corner kicks. During his time at Stevenage, he was the club's penalty taker, and scored six out of seven penalties.
## Personal life
Nutter is married to Hayley and as of 2011 had two sons, Walter and Benedict. Walter plays for the Chelsea F.C. Academy. Nutter has a brother and a sister; his brother, Tom, played semi-professional football for Burnham and Beaconsfield SYCOB, as well as playing for four years in the United States for West Texas A&M University.
Nutter has stated that his closest friend in football is Adam Miller, whom he played alongside at Stevenage and Gillingham. Nutter studied Sports Psychology and Coaching at the University of Buckingham. He took up a position teaching physical education, science and history at the Papplewick School in Ascot in the summer of 2014.
## Career statistics
## Honours
Aldershot Town
- Isthmian League Premier Division: 2002–03
Grays Athletic
- Conference South: 2004–05
- FA Trophy: 2004–05, 2005–06
Stevenage Borough
- FA Trophy: 2006–07
Gillingham
- League Two play-offs: 2008–09
|
417,899 |
Flag of Bhutan
| 1,164,153,988 |
National flag
|
[
"Dragons in art",
"Flags displaying animals",
"Flags introduced in 1969",
"Flags of Asia",
"Flags of indigenous peoples",
"National flags",
"National symbols of Bhutan"
] |
The national flag of Bhutan (Dzongkha: འབྲུག་ཡུལ་རྒྱལ་དར) is one of the national symbols of Bhutan. The flag features a Chinese dragon (druk in Dzongkha, the Bhutanese language) from Bhutanese mythology. This alludes to the Dzongkha name of Bhutan – Druk Yul (འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, 'brug yul, lit. "Dragon Country" or "Dragon Kingdom") – as well as the Drukpa Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, which is the dominant religion of Bhutan.
The basic design of the flag by Mayum Choying Wangmo Dorji dates to 1947. A version was displayed in 1949 at the signing of the Indo-Bhutan Treaty. A second version was introduced in 1956 for the visit of Druk Gyalpo Jigme Dorji Wangchuck to eastern Bhutan; it was based upon photos of its 1949 predecessor and featured a white Druk in place of the green original. The Bhutanese subsequently redesigned their flag to match the measurements of the flag of India, which they believed fluttered better than their own. Other modifications such as changing the red background color to orange led to the current design, in use since 1969. The National Assembly of Bhutan codified a code of conduct in 1972 to formalize the flag's design and establish protocol regarding acceptable flag sizes and conditions for flying the flag.
## Current national flag
### Design
The current flag is divided diagonally from the lower hoist-side corner, with the upper triangle yellow and the lower triangle orange. Centred along the dividing line is a large black and white dragon facing away from the hoist side. The dragon is holding a norbu, or jewel, in each of its claws. The background colours of the flag, yellow and orange, are identified as Pantone 116 and 165 respectively. Equivalents of these shades and the white of the Druk are specified by various other codes according to particular matching systems as indicated below.
The dimensions of the flag must maintain a 3:2 ratio. The following sizes have been declared standard by the Government of Bhutan:
- 21 ft × 14 ft (6.4 m × 4.3 m)
- 12 ft × 8 ft (3.7 m × 2.4 m)
- 6 ft × 4 ft (1.8 m × 1.2 m)
- 3 ft × 2 ft (0.9 m × 0.6 m)
- 9 in × 6 in (23 cm × 15 cm), for car flags.
### Symbolism
According to The Legal Provisions of the National Flag of the Kingdom of Palden Drukpa as Endorsed in Resolution 28 of the 36th Session of the National Assembly held on 8 June 1972, and as restated in the Constitution of 2008, the yellow signifies civil tradition and temporal authority as embodied in the Druk Gyalpo, the Dragon King of Bhutan, whose royal garb traditionally includes a yellow kabney (scarf). The orange half signifies Buddhist spiritual tradition, particularly the Drukpa Kagyu and Nyingma schools. The dragon spreads equally over the line between the colors. Its placement in the center of the flag over the dividing line between the flag's two colors signifies the equal importance of both civic and monastic traditions in the Kingdom of Druk (Bhutan) and evokes the strength of the sacred bond between sovereign and people. The dragon's white color signifies the purity of inner thoughts and deeds that unite all the ethnically and linguistically diverse peoples of Bhutan. The jewels held in Druk's claws represent Bhutan's wealth and the security and protection of its people, while the dragon's snarling mouth symbolizes Bhutanese deities' commitment to the defense of Bhutan.
## Historic evolution
The Centre for Bhutan Studies and GNH Research, an independent Bhutanese research centre, in 2002 issued a paper (henceforth the "CBS document") that is the only readily available account from Bhutan of the historical development of the national flag. The document draws heavily on first-hand accounts obtained through interviews with individuals personally involved in the creation and modification of the flag in Bhutan, from the late 1940s until the adoption of the current flag around 1970. This report is therefore a significant primary source for information about the history of the Bhutanese flag. But in the description of the flag from 1949, the document is not in complete accord with photos of the flag (as discussed below), making it difficult to interpret some of the document's assertions. As a record, however, of the few primary sources remaining – namely, the people involved in the flag's history and the handful of existing government records – it represents a valuable source of information about the otherwise poorly documented evolution of the Bhutanese flag.
### First national flag (1949)
The CBS document states that the first national flag was designed upon the request of Jigme Wangchuck, the second Druk Gyalpo of the 20th-century Kingdom of Bhutan, and was introduced in 1949 during the signing of the Indo-Bhutan Treaty. While the document does not provide an illustration of the original design, black-and-white photographs taken at this historic event provide images of the first Bhutanese flag at the ceremony.
The design of the flag is credited to Mayum Choying Wangmo Dorji in 1947. Lharip Taw Taw, one of the few painters available to the royal court at the time, is said to have embroidered the flag. Druk was colored green in accordance with traditional and religious references to yu druk ngon ma (Dzongkha: གཡུ་འབྲུག་སྔོནམ), or "turquoise druk". Today, a modern reproduction of this historic original (with several significant changes influenced by the modern flag) is displayed behind the throne in the National Assembly Hall in Thimphu.
According to the CBS document, the original Bhutanese flag was a bicolour square flag divided diagonally from the lower hoist to the upper fly. The field of yellow extended from the hoist to the upper fly, and the red field extended from the fly end to the lower hoist. In the centre of the flag, at the convergence of the yellow and red fields, is a green Druk, located parallel to the bottom edge and facing the fly.
However, the CBS document does not illustrate the early versions of the flag and its description of the 1949 flag is not entirely consistent with the photos surviving from 1949. It describes the flag as "square", while the proportions of the flag in the photographs appear closer to 4:5. The document describes the dragon as "facing the fly end", while the dragon visible in the photos faces the hoist. The dragon is described as "parallel to the fly" (meaning, according to a diagram in the document, parallel to the length along the bottom edge of the flag), while the dragon in the photos appears to have a slightly rising vertical slant. The dragon is described as "green", but the shade in the photos, if indeed green, must be very pale.
Western flag books until after 1970 generally show the Bhutanese flag closely resembling the 1949 photos.
### Changes in 1956
The second version of the national flag was developed in 1956 for the visit of the third Druk Gyalpo Jigme Dorji Wangchuk to eastern Bhutan. During the trip the Druk Gyalpo's Secretariat began to use flags of a new design based upon a photograph of the first national flag of 1949, with the colour of the dragon changed from green to white. The retinue of the Druk Gyalpo included a convoy consisting of over one hundred ponies; a small version of the flag was placed on the saddle of every tenth pony, and a large flag approximately 6 square feet (0.56 m<sup>2</sup>) in size was flown in the camp every evening, hoisted to the sound of a bugle.
### Changes after 1956
Beginning in the late 1950s, Dasho Shingkhar Lam, former Secretary to His Majesty King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck and Sixth Speaker of the National Assembly (1971–74), was requested by the king to make several modifications to the flag; he is responsible for its current design, which has remained unchanged since 1969. The king was reportedly dissatisfied that the early square Bhutanese flags did not flutter like the rectangular Indian flag displayed on the visit of an Indian official to the country. The standard measurements of the flag of Bhutan were thereafter altered to resemble the flag of India, which was 9 feet by 6 feet.
In another change, the dragon, which had formerly been placed in a roughly horizontal position in the center of the flag, was repositioned to spread out over the diagonal dividing line between the background colours. This change sought to avoid having the dragon "face the earth" when the flag was hanging limp. Bhutanese artist Kilkhor Lopen Jada painted a new design for the druk in which the curves of the dragon's body are relaxed to create a somewhat longer and more gently undulating shape.
The CBS document states that the king ordered the colour of the lower half changed from red to orange "sometime in 1968 or 69."
The Bhutanese flag was flown abroad beside another nation's flag for the first time in 1961 during a state visit to India by Jigme Dorji Wangchuck. This visit inaugurated a new level of relations between the two countries.
## Code of conduct
On 8 June 1972 the National Assembly of Bhutan approved Resolution 28, bringing into effect National Flag Rules drafted by the Cabinet. The rules have eight provisions covering the description and symbolism of the flag's colouring, fields and design elements. Other rules relate to the size of the flag as well as flag protocol including the appropriate places and occasions for flying the flag and who may display the flag on cars. In general, the flag is given as much respect as the Bhutanese state and the head of state. As in the United States Flag Code, no other flags must be placed higher than the Bhutanese flag, the flag cannot be used as a cover or drape (with some exceptions) and the flag must not touch the ground. Other provisions include prohibitions on including the design in other objects or in a logo. Exceptionally, the flag may be used to drape coffins, but only those of high-ranking state officials such as ministers or military personnel.
The 1972 rules also provide that "every dzongkhag [district headquarters] will hoist the national flag. Where there are no dzongkhag, the national flag will be hoisted in front of the office of the main government officer".
Officials above the rank of minister are allowed to fly the flag at their residence provided they do not live near the capital. The tradition of flying the national flag in front of government offices had not existed in Bhutan prior to 1968 but was decreed standard practice by the Druk Gyalpo after his Secretariat was moved from the city of Taba to Tashichho Dzong in that year. The only flag day prescribed in the 1972 rules is National Day, which is held annually on 17 December. National Day commemorates the crowning of Ugyen Wangchuck as the first king of Bhutan on 17 December 1907.
## See also
- Emblem of Bhutan
- Flag of the Qing dynasty
- National anthem of Bhutan
- National symbols of Bhutan
|
36,754 |
International Finance Corporation
| 1,170,386,954 |
World Bank Group member financial institution
|
[
"Intergovernmental organizations established by treaty",
"International banking institutions",
"International development agencies",
"International finance institutions",
"Non-profit organizations based in Washington, D.C.",
"Organizations established in 1956",
"United Nations Development Group",
"World Bank Group"
] |
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private-sector development in less developed countries. The IFC is a member of the World Bank Group and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States.
It was established in 1956, as the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group, to advance economic development by investing in for-profit and commercial projects for poverty reduction and promoting development. The IFC's stated aim is to create opportunities for people to escape poverty and achieve better living standards by mobilizing financial resources for private enterprise, promoting accessible and competitive markets, supporting businesses and other private-sector entities, and creating jobs and delivering necessary services to those who are poverty stricken or otherwise vulnerable.
Since 2009, the IFC has focused on a set of development goals that its projects are expected to target. Its goals are to increase sustainable agriculture opportunities, improve healthcare and education, increase access to financing for microfinance and business clients, advance infrastructure, help small businesses grow revenues, and invest in climate health.
The IFC is owned and governed by its member countries but has its own executive leadership and staff that conduct its normal business operations. It is a corporation whose shareholders are member governments that provide paid-in capital and have the right to vote on its matters. Originally, it was more financially integrated with the World Bank Group, but later, the IFC was established separately and eventually became authorized to operate as a financially autonomous entity and make independent investment decisions.
It offers an array of debt and equity financing services and helps companies face their risk exposures while refraining from participating in a management capacity. The corporation also offers advice to companies on making decisions, evaluating their impact on the environment and society, and being responsible. It advises governments on building infrastructure and partnerships to further support private sector development.
The corporation is assessed by an independent evaluator each year. In 2011, its evaluation report recognized that its investments performed well and reduced poverty, but recommended that the corporation define poverty and expected outcomes more explicitly to better-understand its effectiveness and approach poverty reduction more strategically. The corporation's total investments in 2011 amounted to \$18.66 billion. It committed \$820 million to advisory services for 642 projects in 2011, and held \$24.5 billion worth of liquid assets. The IFC is in good financial standing and received the highest ratings from two independent credit rating agencies in 2018.
IFC comes under frequent criticism from NGOs that it is not able to track its money because of its use of financial intermediaries. For example, a report by Oxfam International and other NGOs in 2015, "The Suffering of Others," found the IFC was not performing enough due diligence and managing risk in many of its investments in third-party lenders.
Other criticism focuses on IFC working excessively with large companies or wealthy individuals already able to finance their investments without help from public institutions such as IFC, and such investments do not have an adequate positive development impact. An example often cited by NGOs and critical journalists is IFC granting financing to a Saudi prince for a five-star hotel in Ghana.
## History
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund were designed by delegates at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. The World Bank, then consisting of only the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, became operational in 1946. Robert L. Garner joined the World Bank in 1947 as a senior executive and expressed his view that private business could play an important role in international development. In 1950, Garner and his colleagues proposed establishing a new institution for the purpose of making private investments in the less developed countries served by the World Bank. The U.S. government encouraged the idea of an international corporation working in tandem with the World Bank to invest in private enterprises without accepting guarantees from governments, without managing those enterprises, and by collaborating with third party investors. When describing the IFC in 1955, World Bank President Eugene R. Black said that the IFC would only invest in private firms, rather than make loans to governments, and it would not manage the projects in which it invests.
The concept was nonetheless controversial in the US, where some business interests were uncomfortable with the public ownership of private firms. Nonetheless, in 1956, the International Finance Corporation became operational under the leadership of Garner. It initially had 12 staff members and \$100 million (equivalent to \$ million in ) in capital. The corporation made its inaugural investment in 1957 by making a \$2 million (equivalent to \$ million in ) loan to a Brazil-based affiliate of Siemens & Halske (now Siemens AG).
In 2007, IFC bought 18% stake in the Indian Financial firm, Angel Broking. In December 2015, IFC supported Greek banks with 150 million euros by buying shares in four of them: Alpha Bank (60 million), Eurobank (50 million), Piraeus Bank (20 million) and National Bank of Greece (20 million).
## Governance
The IFC is governed by its Board of Governors which meets annually and consists of one governor per member country (most often the country's finance minister or treasury secretary). Each member typically appoints one governor and also one alternate. Although corporate authority rests with the Board of Governors, the governors delegate most of their corporate powers and their authority over daily matters such as lending and business operations to the board of directors. The IFC's Board of Directors consists of 25 executive directors who meet regularly and work at the IFC's headquarters, and is chaired by the President of the World Bank Group. The executive directors collectively represent all 186 member countries. When the IFC's Board of Directors votes on matters brought before it, each executive director's vote is weighted according to the total share capital of the member countries represented by that director.
IFC is currently led by Makhtar Diop who was appointed as the institution's Managing Director and Executive Vice President in February 2021. Prior to this appointment, he was the World Bank's Vice President for Infrastructure, where he led the Bank's global efforts to build sustainable infrastructure in developing and emerging economies.
Although the IFC coordinates its activities in many areas with the other World Bank Group institutions, it generally operates independently as it is a separate entity with legal and financial autonomy, established by its own Articles of Agreement. The corporation operates with a staff of over 3,400 employees, of which half are stationed in field offices across its member nations.
## Functions
### Investment services
The IFC's investment services consist of loans, equity, trade finance, syndicated loans, structured and securitized finance, client risk management services, treasury services, and liquidity management. In its fiscal year 2010, the IFC invested \$12.7 billion in 528 projects across 103 countries. Of that total investment commitment, approximately 39% (\$4.9 billion) was invested into 255 projects across 58 member nations of the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA).
The IFC makes loans to businesses and private projects generally with maturities of seven to twelve years. It determines a suitable repayment schedule and grace period for each loan individually to meet borrowers' currency and cash flow requirements. The IFC may provide longer-term loans or extend grace periods if a project is deemed to warrant it. Leasing companies and financial intermediaries may also receive loans from the IFC.
Though loans have traditionally been denominated in hard currencies, the IFC has endeavored to structure loan products in local currencies. Its disbursement portfolio included loans denominated in 25 local currencies in 2010, and 45 local currencies in 2011, funded largely through swap markets. Local financial markets development is one of IFC's strategic focus areas. In line with its AAA rating, it has strict concentration, liquidity, asset-liability and other policies. The IFC committed to approximately \$5.7 billion in new loans in 2010, and \$5 billion in 2011.
Although the IFC's shareholders initially only allowed it to make loans, the IFC was authorized in 1961 to make equity investments, the first of which was made in 1962 by taking a stake in FEMSA, a former manufacturer of auto parts in Spain that is now part of Bosch Spain. The IFC invests in businesses' equity either directly or via private-equity funds, generally from five up to twenty percent of a company's total equity. IFC's private-equity portfolio currently stands at roughly \$3.0 billion committed to about 180 funds. The portfolio is widely distributed across all regions including Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, and recently has invested in Small Enterprise Assistance Funds' (SEAF) Caucasus Growth Fund, Aureos Capital's Kula Fund II (Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Pacific Islands) and Leopard Capital’s Haiti Fund. Other equity investments made by the IFC include preferred equity, convertible loans, and participation loans. The IFC prefers to invest for the long-term, usually for a period of eight to fifteen years, before exiting through the sale of shares on a domestic stock exchange, usually as part of an initial public offering. When the IFC invests in a company, it does not assume an active role in management of the company.
Through its Global Trade Finance Program, the IFC guarantees trade payment obligations of more than 200 approved banks in over 80 countries to mitigate risk for international transactions. The Global Trade Finance Program provides guarantees to cover payment risks for emerging market banks regarding promissory notes, bills of exchange, letters of credit, bid and performance bonds, supplier credit for capital goods imports, and advance payments. The IFC issued \$3.46 billion in more than 2,800 guarantees in 2010, of which over 51% targeted IDA member nations. In its fiscal year 2011, the IFC issued \$4.6 billion in more than 3,100 guarantees. In 2009, the IFC launched a separate program for crisis response, known as its Global Trade Liquidity Program, which provides liquidity for international trade among less developed countries. Since its establishment in 2009, the Global Trade Liquidity Program assisted with over \$15 billion in trade in 2011.
The IFC operates a Syndicated Loan Program in an effort to mobilize capital for development goals. The program was created in 1957 and as of 2011 has channeled approximately \$38 billion from over 550 financial institutions toward development projects in over 100 different emerging markets. The IFC syndicated a total of \$4.7 billion in loans in 2011, twice that of its \$2 billion worth of syndications in 2010. Due to banks retrenching from lending across borders in emerging markets, in 2009 the IFC started to syndicate parallel loans to the international financial institutions and other participants.
To service clients without ready access to low-cost financing, the IFC relies on structured or securitized financial products such as partial credit guarantees, portfolio risk transfers, and Islamic finance. The IFC committed \$797 million in the form of structured and securitized financing in 2010. For companies that face difficulty in obtaining financing due to a perception of high credit risk, the IFC securitizes assets with predictable cash flows, such as mortgages, credit cards, loans, corporate debt instruments, and revenue streams, in an effort to enhance those companies' credit.
Financial derivative products are made available to the IFC's clients strictly for hedging interest rate risk, exchange rate risk, and commodity risk exposure. It serves as an intermediary between emerging market businesses and international derivatives market makers to increase access to risk management instruments.
The IFC fulfills a treasury role by borrowing international capital to fund lending activities. It is usually one of the first institutions to issue bonds or to do swaps in emerging markets denominated in those markets' local currencies. The IFC's new international borrowings amounted to \$8.8 billion in 2010 and \$9.8 billion in 2011. The IFC Treasury actively engages in liquidity management in an effort to maximize returns and assure that funding for its investments is readily available while managing risks to the IFC.
### Advisory services
In addition to its investment activities the IFC provides a range of advisory services to support corporate decision-making regarding business, environment, social impact, and sustainability. The IFC's corporate advice targets governance, managerial capacity, scalability, and corporate responsibility. It prioritizes the encouragement of reforms that improve the trade friendliness and ease of doing business in an effort to advise countries on fostering a suitable investment climate. It also offers advice to governments on infrastructure development and public-private partnerships. The IFC attempts to guide businesses toward more sustainable practices particularly with regards to having good governance, supporting women in business, and proactively combating climate change. The International Finance Corporation has stated that cities in emerging markets can attract more than \$29 trillion in climate-related sectors by 2030.
### Asset management company
The IFC established IFC Asset Management Company LLC (IFC AMC) in 2009 as a wholly owned subsidiary to manage all capital funds to be invested in emerging markets. The AMC manages capital mobilized by the IFC as well as by third parties such as sovereign or pension funds, and other development financing organizations. Despite being owned by the IFC, the AMC has investment decision autonomy and is charged with a fiduciary responsibility to the four individual funds under its management. It also aims to mobilize additional capital for IFC investments as it can make certain types of investments which the IFC cannot. As of 2011, the AMC managed the IFC Capitalization Fund (Equity) Fund, L.P., the IFC Capitalization (Subordinated Debt) Fund, L.P., the IFC African, Latin American, and Caribbean Fund, L.P., and the Africa Capitalization Fund, Ltd. The IFC Capitalization (Equity) Fund holds \$1.3 billion in equity, while the IFC Capitalization (Subordinated Debt) Fund is valued at \$1.7 billion. The IFC African, Latin American, and Caribbean Fund (referred to as the IFC ALAC Fund) was created in 2010 and is worth \$1 billion. As of March 2012, the ALAC Fund has invested a total of \$349.1 million into twelve businesses. The Africa Capitalization Fund was set up in 2011 to invest in commercial banks in both Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa and its commitments totaled \$181.8 million in March 2012. As of 2018, Marcos Brujis serves as CEO of the AMC.
## Financial performance
The IFC prepares consolidated financial statements in accordance with United States GAAP which are audited by KPMG. It reported income before grants to IDA members of \$2.18 billion in fiscal year 2011, up from \$1.95 billion in fiscal 2010 and \$299 million in fiscal 2009. The increase in income before grants is ascribed to higher earnings from the IFC's investments and also from higher service fees. The IFC reported a partial offset from lower liquid asset trading income, higher administrative costs, and higher advisory service expenses. The IFC made \$600 million in grants to IDA countries in fiscal 2011, up from \$200 million in fiscal 2010 and \$450 million in fiscal 2009. The IFC reported a net income of \$1.58 billion in fiscal year 2011. In previous years, the IFC had reported a net loss of \$151 million in fiscal 2009 and \$1.75 billion in fiscal 2010. The IFC's total capital amounted to \$20.3 billion in 2011, of which \$2.4 billion was paid-in capital from member countries, \$16.4 billion was retained earnings, and \$1.5 billion was accumulated other comprehensive income. The IFC held \$68.49 billion in total assets in 2011.
The IFC's return on average assets (GAAP basis) decreased from 3.1% in 2010 to 2.4% in 2011. Its return on average capital (GAAP basis) decreased from 10.1% in 2010 to 8.2% in 2011. The IFC's cash and liquid investments accounted for 83% of its estimated net cash requirements for fiscal years 2012 through 2014. Its external funding liquidity level grew from 190% in 2010 to 266% in 2011. It has a 2.6:1 debt-to-equity ratio and holds 6.6% in reserves against losses on loans to its disbursement portfolio. The IFC's deployable strategic capital decreased from 14% in 2010 to 10% in 2011 as a share of its total resources available, which grew from \$16.8 billion in 2010 to \$17.9 billion in 2011.
In 2011, the IFC reported total funding commitments (consisting of loans, equity, guarantees, and client risk management) of \$12.18 billion, slightly lower than its \$12.66 billion in commitments in 2010. Its core mobilization, which consists of participation and parallel loans, structured finance, its Asset Management Company funds, and other initiatives, grew from \$5.38 billion in 2010 to \$6.47 billion in 2011. The IFC's total investment program was reported at a value of \$18.66 billion for fiscal year 2011. Its advisory services portfolio included 642 projects valued at \$820 million in 2011, compared to 736 projects at \$859 million in 2010. The IFC held \$24.5 billion in liquid assets in 2011, up from \$21 billion in 2010.
The IFC received credit ratings of AAA from Standard & Poor's in December 2012 and AAA from Moody's Investors Service in November 2012. S&P rated the IFC as having a strong financial standing with adequate capital and liquidity, cautious management policies, a high level of geographic diversification, and anticipated treatment as a preferred creditor given its membership in the World Bank Group. It noted that the IFC faces a weakness relative to other multilateral institutions of having higher risks due to its mandated emphasis on private sector investing and its income heavily affected by equity markets.
## Sustainability
IFC Sustainability Framework articulates IFC's commitment to sustainable development and is part of its approach to risk management. IFC's Environmental and social policies, guidelines, and tools are widely adopted as market standards and embedded in operational policies by corporations, investors, financial intermediaries, stock exchanges, regulators, and countries. In particular, the EHS Guidelines contain the performance levels and measures that are normally acceptable to the World Bank Group, and that are generally considered to be achievable in new facilities at reasonable costs by existing technology.
## Green buildings in less developed countries
The IFC has created a mass-market certification system for fast growing emerging markets called EDGE ("Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies"). IFC and the World Green Building Council have partnered to accelerate green building growth in less developed counties. The target is to scale up green buildings over a seven-year period until 20% of the property market is saturated. Certification occurs when the EDGE standard is met, which requires 20% less energy, water, and materials than conventional homes.
## See also
- Environment, Health and Safety
- Global Environment Facility
- Grassroots Business Fund
- Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
- Jam v. International Finance Corp. (2019) - a United States Supreme Court case in which Indians in Gujarat sued the IFC for damages caused by an IFC-funded coal plant
- Architecture of Washington, D.C.
|
49,045,826 |
Engineer Cantonment
| 1,168,965,986 | null |
[
"1819 in the United States",
"1820 in the United States",
"Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Nebraska",
"Exploration of North America",
"Fur trade",
"Geography of Washington County, Nebraska",
"National Register of Historic Places in Washington County, Nebraska"
] |
Engineer Cantonment is an archaeological site in Washington County, in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. Located in the floodplain of the Missouri River near present-day Omaha, Nebraska, it was the temporary winter camp of the scientific party of the Yellowstone Expedition. From October 1819 to June 1820, the party studied the geology and biology of the vicinity, and met with the local indigenous peoples. Their eight-month study of the biota has been described as "the first biodiversity inventory undertaken in the United States".
The site was not used again after the departure of the expedition, and its location was forgotten. In 2003, it was rediscovered, and investigated during the 2003–05 archaeological seasons. In 2015, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
## History
The 1803 purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France gave the United States a claim to the watershed of the Missouri River. The Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804–06 discovered abundant fur-trapping resources in the region. President Thomas Jefferson was eager to see these resources exploited, believing that fur trappers and traders with the local indigenous peoples would serve as the vanguard of American expansion into the new territory.
The 1812–15 War of 1812 between the U.S. and the British Empire impeded the former's exploitation of the upper Missouri basin's fur-trapping potential. After the war ended, the U.S. remained concerned about British incursions onto American-claimed territory and British influence over the native peoples of the region. In 1818, to counteract this British influence, and to protect American territory and fur-trapping activity in the upper Missouri watershed, President James Monroe and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun proposed, and Congress authorized, the Yellowstone Expedition. Over 1000 soldiers, led by Colonel Henry Atkinson, were ordered to travel up the Missouri and establish a chain of forts in its upper reaches.
### Long expedition
Atkinson's military expedition was joined by a scientific one, under the direction of Major Stephen H. Long. A member of the U.S. Army's topographical engineers, Long had explored and mapped portions of the Mississippi River basin in 1817, ranging from Fort Smith on the Arkansas River to Fort St. Anthony at the confluence of the Minnesota and the Mississippi Rivers. In early 1817, he had suggested to President-elect Monroe that an expedition be mounted to explore and map the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi watershed by steamboat. He had repeated this proposal to Calhoun in 1818, with the addition of a party of scientists, and won approval. In the spring of 1819, Calhoun modified the plan, directing Long's party to accompany the Atkinson expedition up the Missouri.
Long assembled a company of distinguished scientists for his expedition. The party included William Baldwin, doctor and botanist; Augustus Edward Jessup, geologist; Thomas Say, zoologist; Titian Peale, assistant naturalist; and Samuel Seymour, artist. The quintet has been described as "the largest and best-trained group of civilian scientists and investigators to accompany any government-sponsored expedition up to that time".
Calhoun authorized Long to design and build a special steamboat for the expedition. The vessel, the Western Engineer, was constructed in Pittsburgh in 1818–19. One of the first stern-wheelers ever built, it was 75 feet (23 m) long, with a beam of 13 feet (4.0 m), and a draft of only 19 inches (48 cm). To impress the indigenous peoples who beheld it, it bore "an elegant flag representing a white man and an Indian shaking hands, the calumet of peace and the sword", and the bow was formed in the shape of "a huge serpent, black and scaly ... his mouth open, vomiting smoke".
### Up the Missouri
The Western Engineer, bearing the Long party, left Pittsburgh in the spring of 1819. It descended the Ohio River and steamed up the Mississippi to St. Louis, near the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi. In June 1819, the Long party started up the Missouri.
Progress upstream was slow. The river's strong current limited the vessel's average speed to less than three miles per hour (five kilometers per hour), and silt from the muddy waters clogged the steamboat's boiler. The party also made a number of stops, including one of a week at Franklin in the present-day state of Missouri.
The expedition lost one of its members in Franklin. Baldwin, the surgeon and botanist, had long suffered from tuberculosis. Failing health forced him to leave the expedition, and he died several weeks later in Franklin.
The military expedition under Atkinson made no better progress. Of the five steamboats hired to carry the force upstream, two apparently never reached the Missouri; another gave out and had to be left behind 30 miles (50 km) below Franklin; and the remaining two had to be abandoned a short distance above the mouth of the Kansas River. The expedition was forced to carry out the last leg of the journey on keelboats, which the soldiers towed from the banks using long ropes.
### Engineer Cantonment
On September 17, 1819, the Long party reached Fort Lisa, a fur-trading post located a few miles north of present-day Omaha, Nebraska. On September 19, the group established its winter quarters about half a mile (about three-quarters of a kilometer) above Ft. Lisa. This temporary post was dubbed Engineer Cantonment, after the Western Engineer.
The military contingent under Atkinson was slower arriving. They reached the vicinity of present-day Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, a few miles upstream from Engineer Cantonment, in late September or early October; there, they established Cantonment Missouri. Intended to be a permanent post, Cantonment Missouri was destroyed by floods the following spring, and abandoned in favor of a new site, Fort Atkinson, atop the bluffs and out of the floodplain.
Long remained at Engineer Cantonment until October, when he returned eastward. He was accompanied by geologist Jessup, who had resigned from the expedition. Major Thomas Biddle, the keeper of the scientific expedition's official journal, had quarrelled with Long and was transferred to the military expedition late in 1819. Say, Peale, and Seymour spent the winter at Engineer Cantonment, as did Long's assistant James Duncan Graham, mapmaker and engineer William Henry Swift, six civilian members of the Western Engineer's crew, and a nine-man military guard.
The party at Engineer Cantonment spent the next half-year exploring the vicinity of the camp. They held councils with the Pawnees and with the Otoes, visited Pawnee and Omaha villages, and were visited by members of other indigenous groups. They determined the camp's latitude and longitude, and investigated the geology and the of the area.
### 1820 and thereafter
Long returned to Engineer Cantonment on May 27, 1820, accompanied by two new members of the party. Dr. Edwin James was to act as the expedition's surgeon, geologist, and botanist, thus replacing both Baldwin and Jessup. Captain John R. Bell was to keep the official journal, replacing Biddle.
Long also brought a new set of orders from Washington. While there, he had attempted to secure additional funding from Calhoun, with limited success. Budgetary constraints arising from the Panic of 1819 led to a reduction in the size and scope of the expedition. Rather than continuing to ascend the Missouri, the Long party was to follow the Platte River upstream to its source, then work southward along the front of the Rocky Mountains to the headwaters of the Arkansas and the Red Rivers, then follow those rivers downstream to the Mississippi.
The Long expedition left Engineer Cantonment on June 6, 1820. It did not return to the camp, and history does not record use of the site by anyone else after their departure.
## Biology
The scientific party's eight-month stay at Engineer Cantonment produced what has been called "the first biodiversity inventory undertaken in the United States". Expeditions such as Lewis and Clark's, while investigating the biota of the regions through which they passed, had only spent a short time in any one location. This was the case with Long's expedition in the second half of 1820: the need to cover distance quickly precluded the thorough investigation of any one locale. By contrast, the long stay at Engineer Cantonment allowed the party to study the local biota in detail, and to try to produce a complete inventory of the plants and animals of the area.
The party's study of the local flora was limited. The loss of Baldwin en route to Engineer Cantonment had left them without a botanist; James, his replacement, did not arrive until a short time before the departure of the summer 1820 expedition. A total of 51 plants in 34 families were described, four of which were thought to be new to science.
Say, who has been called "the father of American entomology", described the new animals found at the site. These included 46 insects in 30 families, 38 of them thought to be new to science. Other animals described include 143 birds, 4 of them thought to be new; 33 mammals, 6 of them new; 14 reptiles and 2 amphibians, all previously known; and 14 snails, 1 of them thought to be new.
### Since 1820
The habitat and the biota of the area have changed significantly since 1820. At the time of the Long expedition, the Missouri was a meandering stream subject to spring flooding, moving through a wide floodplain with oxbow lakes and palustrine wetlands. Frequent prairie fires prevented the growth of extensive woodlands: the river valley was characterized by scattered groves, the bluffs that bounded it were not densely wooded, and the prairie west of the bluffs was entirely treeless. Since then, the river has been straightened and confined to a single channel. Dams built upstream control flooding. The wetlands of the floodplain have been drained and converted to farmland. Fire suppression has allowed the growth of riparian forests dominated by cottonwood, and the bluffs are now heavily wooded.
Several species recorded at Engineer Cantonment are no longer present in the area. Two birds, the passenger pigeon and the Carolina parakeet, are entirely extinct. The local subspecies of gray wolf, Canis lupus nubilus, is likewise extinct. Several more of the larger carnivores, including black bear, eastern spotted skunk, and river otter, are no longer found in the vicinity; the mountain lion vanished from the area for many years, but in the early 21st century was once again found in eastern Nebraska. Hunting and destruction of habitat have led to the disappearance of three major herbivores: American bison, pronghorn, and elk.
Two bat species, the eastern pipistrelle and the evening bat, have established themselves in the vicinity. The preferred habitat of both species is forest and forest edge, and in Nebraska their range has expanded from the extreme southeast corner of the state to cover the entire eastern third. This phenomenon has been observed with other birds, mammals, and insects of the eastern woodlands: their ranges have expanded with the spread of riparian forest upstream along prairie rivers.
Two forest-dwelling rodent species documented at Engineer Cantonment, the eastern chipmunk and the eastern gray squirrel, have not expanded their range in the area, but have vanished since 1820. It has been suggested that although the increase in forest cover would seem to provide them with more habitat, the change in forest composition has been unfavorable to them: they prefer mature oak-hickory woods to the cottonwood forest that has grown up along the Missouri.
## Archaeology
History records no further use of the Engineer Cantonment site after 1820. With the passage of years, the location was forgotten. During the 20th century, there were some desultory attempts to find it; the failure of these led to the general belief that the remains of the site had been obliterated by flooding and cutting of the river, by quarrying operations, or by other modern development.
In 2002, the Nebraska State Historical Society (NSHS) undertook an archaeological sampling survey in the greater Omaha area; it was thought that Engineer Cantonment and Fort Lisa might be found in the northern part of the study area. Planned improvements to a county road also called for an assessment of the impact on local cultural sites.
While at Engineer Cantonment, Peale had produced several sketches of the camp and its surroundings. In early 2003, when the trees on the bluffs were bare, NSHS archaeologists saw that a stretch of the bluffs appeared to match Peale's drawing, including a wide ravine that Peale had depicted behind the camp. A trench was dug at the putative site, which produced limestone fragments, some discolored by burning, possibly remnants of a fireplace. Screening of dirt taken from the trench in the area of the burned limestone yielded, among other things, a brass button and a trigger guard fragment similar to items found at Fort Atkinson.
Ground-penetrating radar followed by further excavation revealed a building measuring about 30 feet (9.1 m) east-west by 48 feet (15 m) north-south. The building was divided into two rooms by an interior wall, with a double fireplace in the middle. Fragments of ceramic tobacco pipes and tableware of a sort used around 1820 tended to support the conjecture that the site was actually Engineer Cantonment. The quality of the items also lent support to the conjecture: while tin cups and utensils would have been used by common soldiers, the wine bottles and painted porcelain found at the site were consistent with the upper stratum of society to which the expedition's scientists belonged.
Peale's drawing appeared to show two buildings, one behind the other, near the mouth of a wide ravine. In the foreground, not far from the front building, the Western Engineer and several keelboats were moored in what appeared to be an oxbow cutoff of the Missouri. Although the oxbow was no longer extant in the early 21st century, trenching east of the two-room building discovered the edge of the harbor.
The search for the second building depicted by Peale was unsuccessful. Initially, it was assumed that the building already discovered was the eastern of the two, so trenches were dug to the west and southwest. These yielded no evidence of a building. The archaeologists then investigated the hypothesis that the undiscovered building was east of the known one. Excavations in that direction yielded limestone fragments and a few artifacts, but nothing that could define a building. These eastern items were buried more shallowly than the remains of the known building, and it was conjectured that the remains of the western building had been covered and protected by the alluvial fan from the ravine, while the eastern building was buried only shallowly or not at all, and its remains were effaced by exposure and erosion.
Excavation continued through the 2005 season, after which the site was left open, but enclosed in a large portable building to protect it and allow further excavations. In 2011, the Missouri flooded, inundating and damaging the site; in the spring of 2015, NSHS archaeologists and students participating in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's Archeological Field School removed silt deposited by the flood to re-expose the 2003–2005 excavations.
In 2015, Engineer Cantonment was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
## See also
- Fort Atkinson
- Fort Lisa
- Cabanne's Trading Post
- Winter Quarters
- History of North Omaha, Nebraska
- Landmarks in North Omaha, Nebraska
|
1,613,973 |
Stanisław Kot
| 1,168,170,044 |
Polish historian and politician (1885–1975)
|
[
"1885 births",
"1975 deaths",
"20th-century Polish historians",
"Academic staff of Jagiellonian University",
"Ambassadors of Poland to Italy",
"Ambassadors of Poland to the Soviet Union",
"Burials at North Sheen Cemetery",
"Historians of Poland",
"Historians of education",
"Interior ministers of Poland",
"Jagiellonian University alumni",
"Literary historians",
"Members of the Polish Academy of Learning",
"People from Ropczyce-Sędziszów County",
"People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria",
"People's Party (Poland) politicians",
"Polish Austro-Hungarians",
"Polish biographers",
"Polish expatriates in the United Kingdom",
"Polish magazine editors",
"Polish male non-fiction writers",
"Polish newspaper editors",
"Polish people of World War I",
"Polish people of World War II",
"Polish refugees",
"Polish schoolteachers",
"Reformation historians"
] |
Stanisław Kot (22 October 1885 – 26 December 1975) was a Polish historian and politician. A native of the Austrian partition of Poland, he was attracted to the cause of Polish independence early in life. As a professor of the Jagiellonian University (1920–1933), he held the chair of the History of Culture. His principal expertise was in the politics, ideologies, education, and literature of the 16th- and 17th-century Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He is particularly known for his contributions to the study of the Reformation in Poland.
As a Second Polish Republic politician, he was a member of the People's Party; and, during World War II, he held several posts in the Polish Government in Exile, including those of Minister of the Interior (1940–1941), Minister of State (1942–1943), and Minister of Information (1943–1944). He also served, during the war, as Polish ambassador to the Soviet Union (1941–1942); and shortly after the war, as Polish ambassador to Italy (1945–1947).
In 1947, in the wake of the communist takeover of Poland, he became a political refugee, living in France and later in the United Kingdom, where he was the leader of the People's Party in exile.
## Early life and education
Kot was born into a peasant family in Ruda, in the Austrian-partition Galicia region of Austro-Hungary. His father Marcin, a leading citizen of the village, could read and write, and was involved in the patriotic movement of Lesser Poland, the historic region to which Ruda belonged. Kot attended elementary school in Czarna and Sędziszów and gymnasium in Rzeszów, and became active in Polish-independence youth groups in Galicia, part of the Austrian partition of Poland.
In 1904 he matriculated in law at Lwów University, but in 1905 he transferred to Kraków's Jagiellonian University, where in 1909 he obtained a Ph.D. in classics for a thesis on The Influence of the Political Theories of Classical Antiquity on the Political Ideas of Sixteenth-Century Poland, with Special Reference to Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski. At university he was active in the student socialist movement, and clashed with right-wing National Democrats over his insistence on respecting the rights of the region's ethnic Ukrainian citizens. Kot also rejected the National Democrats' antisemitism.
## Career
### Schoolteaching and World War I
In 1908–1912 he taught at secondary schools in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) and Kraków. In 1911 he married Ida Proksch. In 1912–1914, thanks to a scholarship from the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, he studied in France and made several study trips to Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium.
During World War I he was active in politics, culture, and education, working with the Polish Legions. From 1915 he headed the Press Department of the Polish Supreme National Committee. From 1914 to 1917 or 1919 (sources vary) he published a newspaper, Wiadomości Polskie (Polish News); during that time, his political views shifted from left-leaning to centrist. However, he preferred scholarly over political work, and during the 1920s he took little part, if any, in politics.
### Historian
Kot published his first scholarly work in 1910, about Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski’s views on education. His early research thus began with the history of education in Poland, but over time his interest gravitated toward the history of culture, in particular the Reformation in Poland. After Poland had in November 1918 regained independence, incarnated as the Second Polish Republic, Kot in 1919 began publishing the book series, Biblioteka Narodowa [pl] (The National Library), which continues to the present; up to the outbreak of World War II, he oversaw the publication of 177 volumes. He also edited another book series, Biblioteka Pisarzów Polskich (The Library of Polish Writers).
In 1920 Kot habilitated his doctorate and was appointed a professor at Kraków's Jagiellonian University, in 1924 earning a full professorship and holding a chair in the History of Culture newly created for him. Kot was popular with his students, particularly those from ethnic minorities, and has been described as "a strong opponent of nationalism and antisemitism". His opposition to the antisemitism then common among Polish chauvinists has been attributed to the political activism that he had begun in his student days.
In 1919 Kot published a biography of Modrzewski which, as of 1999, was still considered the most exhaustive and reliable work on the subject. In 1932 he published a book on Socinianism in Poland: The Social and Political Ideas of the Polish Antitrinitarians in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries – a detailed monograph on the Polish Brethren – which appeared in English in 1957 and is considered his most influential monograph. He also published a well-received textbook, Historia Wychowania (History of Education; first, single-volume edition, 1924; second, revised, two-volume edition, 1933–1934).
From 1921 until 1939 he edited the quarterly, Reformacja w Polsce (The Reformation in Poland), which he had established; it was published by the Society for Research into the History of the Reformation. For a while he also edited another journal, Archiwum do dziejów literatury i oświaty (Archive for the History of Literature and Education), published by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1921 he became a corresponding member of the said Academy, in 1928 advancing to a full active member. In 1927 he became a member of the PEN Club. In 1929 he was inducted into the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences. In 1930 he organized a large academic conference dedicated to the study of the 16th-century Polish poet Jan Kochanowski. From 1929 to 1939 Kot was chairman of the Commission for the History of Education and Schools in Poland. In 1935 or 1937 (sources vary) he was a guest lecturer at Paris' Collège de France. In 1941 he received an honorary degree from Oxford University, where he also lectured that year; and in 1959, from the University of Basel.
Kot's main scholarly expertise comprised the politics, ideologies, and literature of the 16th- and 17th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In particular, he specialized in the Reformation in Poland, the history of education in Poland, Poland's cultural contacts with the West, historical Polish political thought and doctrines, and observations of Polish national characteristics. His studies of Polish emigrations to Western Europe and to cities in France, Germany, and Italy were trailblazing.
Wiktor Weintraub writes that Kot was a university professor for a period of only thirteen years, cut short by the consequences of his political activities; and that, in assessing Kot the scholar, "one cannot avoid a certain feeling of frustration" since, while he produced substantial research in the decade following his 1909 Ph.D. degree, despite the disruptions of World War I, his subsequent scholarship lost its initial drive and was not as productive.
### Politician
#### 1930s
In the early 1930s Kot participated in protests directed against the government. One protest opposed a reform of the educational system. In 1933, when the Sanation government controlled by Józef Piłsudski was mistreating political prisoners at the Brześć fortress, Kot was a principal organizer of a protest by university professors.
Soon after, in September 1933, due to the Sanation government's pressure Kot, then aged 48, was forced to take early retirement from Jagiellonian University; this was widely seen as retribution for his political activities, such as his connection with professors' resistance against the suppression of university autonomy and in connection with protests against the government's imprisonment of Centrolew politicians. From that point on, Kot would focus an increasing amount of his time on politics, and less and less on scholarly activities.
In 1933 Kot joined the People's Party and from 1936 to 1939 was a member of its executive committee. He was aligned with the party's right wing, and was also involved in the Front Morges political alliance. He acted on Wincenty Witos' behalf in Poland (Witos then being in foreign exile) and helped organize a 1937 rural strike, leading to his two-day arrest by Polish authorities.
#### World War II
In 1939, after the German invasion of Poland and the start of the Second World War, Kot escaped to Romania, then through Hungary and Switzerland to France, where in October 1939 he took part in forming the Polish Government in Exile. That December he became its Deputy Prime Minister or Deputy Secretary of State. He worked closely with Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski and was a vocal opponent of Sanation, which was now in the political opposition. In February 1940, Kot met in Paris with the resistance envoy Jan Karski, who had just arrived from Poland. Karski's report stated that German policies were oppressive, and that the Polish Jewish community was being singled out for especially harsh treatment. In the spring of 1940, meeting with representatives of British Jewry in France, Kot criticized the bulk of Poland's Jews for failing to assimilate into Polish society and suggested that, after the war, most Jews would have to leave Poland. From October 1940 to August 1941 Kot was Minister of the Interior. He was also active in preserving Polish culture, supporting Polish artists, educators, and scholars through the Fund for National Culture. In New York City in 1942, he cofounded the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA).
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and the subsequent reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Poland and the Soviet Union (severed upon the Soviet invasion of Poland), from November 1941 until July 1942 Kot was Polish Ambassador to the Soviet Union in Moscow. In that capacity he was very active in helping Polish refugees in the Soviet Union. One of his main responsibilities was to ensure the "rapid release of all Poles held in Soviet prisons and camps" and to establish Polish consulates on Soviet territory. Despite his attempts, he failed to secure the release of some, including Polish-Jewish Bund and Second International executive-committee members Viktor Alter and Henryk Ehrlich. He objected to the creation of a separate Jewish Legion within the Anders Army – a question that divided the Jewish community itself. After Kot's tour of duty as Poland's ambassador to the Soviet Union, until 1943 he served as Polish Minister of State in the Near East, where substantial Polish armed forces were stationed. From March 1943 Kot was the Polish exile government's Minister of Information. One of his most memorable acts in this capacity was the public disclosure, on 17 April that year, of the Katyn Massacre. In that communiqué, the Polish government asked for a Red Cross investigation. This was rejected by Stalin, who used the fact that the Germans had also requested such an investigation as "proof" of a Polish-German conspiracy, and turned it into a pretext for breaking off Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations. After Prime Minister Sikorski's death on 4 July 1943 at Gibraltar, President Władysław Raczkiewicz asked Stanisław Mikołajczyk, who had been acting Prime Minister in General Sikorski's absence, to form a government. Kot retained his post as Minister of Information in Mikolajczyk's cabinet until 1944.
### Post-World War II
In July 1945 Kot returned to Poland with a number of politicians, including Stanisław Mikołajczyk, who hoped to establish a dialogue with the new communist authorities. From 1945 to 1947 Kot worked with the Provisional Government of National Unity, which sought to bring together the Polish Government-in-Exile and the Soviet-sponsored Polish communist government. Throughout most of that period Kot served as Poland's ambassador to Italy. In 1947, in the wake of staged elections and of trials suppressing People's Party activists deemed insufficiently cooperative with the Soviet-backed communists – events that marked the effective takeover of Poland by the communists – Kot, fearing persecution, resigned his post and went back into exile.
Kot was a political refugee in Paris, before moving to the United Kingdom. In France he became involved with the International Rescue Committee. He supported the London-based Polish Government in Exile, and from 1955 was the leader of the People's Party in exile. He was also active in the International Peasant Union. He published scholarly articles in international academic journals, and memoirs of his time as Polish ambassador to the USSR. Some of his final research concerned the Polish Reformation, interactions between Polish and Western cultures, medieval proverbs, and biographies of Yuri Nemyrych and Szymon Budny. He received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to publish a study on the Reformation in Poland, but was unable to finish it before his health deteriorated. In January 1964 he suffered a stroke that left him in a coma for two years and thereafter bedridden and unable to work for the rest of his life. 1965 saw the publication of his memoirs, Conversations with the Kremlin and Dispatches from Russia. He died in London, England, on 26 December 1975, soon after turning 90. His funeral took place in London on 7 January 1976 at the North Sheen Cemetery.
## Legacy
Peter Brock and Zdzisław Pietrzyk [pl] write: "Like a long line of historians beginning in antiquity, Stanisław Kot was both a writer of history and a politician who helped to shape events. Whereas in his scholarly writings he preserved a calm impartiality, with any polemical thrust usually concealed from the reader's view, Kot from his [secondary]-school days emerged as 'a passionate politician, evoking strong emotions and partisan prejudices'."
Polish communist-era historiography described him as a reactionary leader of the extreme nationalist right, even calling him "the greatest enemy of communism and of the revolutionary currents of worker-peasant collaboration." In the West, some Polish émigrés criticized him for opposing Józef Piłsudski's interbellum Sanation political movement and for attempting to find a modus vivendi with communist authorities during and after World War II. Brock and Pietrzyk write that, while Kot was respected among the international community, he was ostracized by many Polish exiles: "the Polish exiled community... never forgave him for his return to Poland in 1945; while he, for his part, waged a relentless – and almost obsessive – war against the National Democrats and Pilsudskiites, who predominated among the exiles".
Kot the politician could be maladroit, with a tendency to suspect hostile conspiracies, especially on the part of the Sanation political movement. In 1928, Sanation founder Józef Piłsudski had relieved Władysław Sikorski of his army command; the latter would go on to become Kot's colleague in the wartime exile government. Also, in 1933, Sanation had pressured Kot into retiring prematurely from his Jagiellonian University professorial chair. Critics have seen Kot's last official appointment, as the Polish communist government's ambassador to Rome, as a disappointing end to his political career. Janusz Tazbir comments that "it is a tragedy" that, too often in Kot's life, especially after 1939, "the mediocre politician stole the limelight from the magisterial scholar". Tazbir writes that many of Kot's history writings remain valuable and continue to be reissued, as opposed to his writings on contemporary politics, which Tazbir considers properly forgotten.
According to Agnieszka Wałęga, Kot was "among the founders of the history of education as a scholarly discipline in Poland". Lucyna Hurło writes that "his works in the... history of education, culture, literature, and [the R]eformation and Antitrinitarianism exemplify [scholarly] reliability." Waclaw Soroka writes that "in Kot, the intellectual history of Poland and Eastern and Central Europe gained an outstanding researcher and exponent." Lech Szczucki has called him "likely the most influential and industrious Polish historian of the interwar period", and writes that his contribution to the study of the Polish Reformation is of extreme value. Wiktor Weintraub has termed him "one of the leading 20th-century Polish historians" and writes that "in the Polish scholarly community... Kot secured [a] position as a first-rank historian." Brock and Pietrzyk have assessed him to be a "historian of major stature". Wojciech Roszkowski and Jan Kofman [pl] summarized his life: "He left a vast scholarly legacy in the history of education and history of culture, including particularly the history of the Reformation."
Kot won high praise for his organizational activities, including his work with committees, his founding and editing of scholarly journals and book series, his organizing of conferences, his mentoring of numerous graduate students. During his years at Jagiellonian University, Kot's disciples included Henryk Barycz [pl], Stanisław Bednarski [pl], Wanda Bobkowska [pl], Stanisław Bodniak [pl], Maria Czapska, Józef Feldman, Jan Hulewicz [pl], Alodia Kawecka-Gryczowa [pl], Bogdan Suchodolski, Stanislaw Szczotka [pl], Marek Wajsblum [pl], Wiktor Weintraub, Ignacy Zarębski, and Jerzy Zathey. Kot also influenced foreign scholars, including his Italian student Delio Cantimori [it]. Having inspired hosts of scholars, mostly through his students, many of whom became academics, he is regarded as the founder of his own historical school ("Kot's school" of the Polish Reformation). The periodical, Reformacja w Polsce (The Reformation in Poland), which he started before World War II, was revived after the war and continues to this day as the academic journal Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce [pl] (The Renaissance and the Reformation in Poland).
Kot wrote 95 major studies, books, and articles. His work, however, was published in Polish and thus had less influence on international, particularly English-language, scholarship. Only one of his books was translated into English (Socinianism in Poland, 1957). Particularly after World War II, a number of his scholarly articles were published in, or translated into, languages other than Polish. During Poland's communist era, with few exceptions, censorship did not allow his works to be reprinted, discussed, or even cited.
In 1976 Jerzy Giedroyc, editor of Kultura, in Paris, called for a monograph on Kot's life. Such a work (in the form of a Festschrift) had in fact been in preparation before World War II, but the manuscript had been badly damaged during the war, and efforts to reconstruct it had been stopped by Poland's communist authorities. In December 1997 a conference on "Stanisław Kot – uczony i polityk" ("Stanisław Kot – scholar and politician") was held in Kraków, organized by Jagiellonian University. The conference included an exhibit on Kot's life and work. Conference materials were published in a 2001 book of the same title, whose cover note described Kot as "undeniably a great scholar and politician". In 2000 Tadeusz Rutkowski [pl] published a biography of Kot, Stanisław Kot 1885-1975. Biografia polityczna (Stanisław Kot 1885-1975: A Political Biography). Janusz Tazbir wrote in a review of Rutkowski's book that he himself was working on a biography of Kot the scholar, but Tazbir had not finished it before his 2016 death.
## Selected bibliography
- 1910: Szkoła lewartowska: z dziejów szkolnictwa ariańskiego w Polsce (The Lewartów School in the History of Arian Schools in Poland).
- History of Poland's Cultural Relations with other Countries.
- 1919: Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski
- 1924: Historia wychowania (The History of Education), 2 vols.; 2nd revised edition, 1933/34.
- 1932: Ideologia polityczna i społeczna braci polskich zwanych arianami (1957 English translation by E.M. Wilbur: Socinianism in Poland: the Social and Political Ideas of the Polish Brethren, Called Arians).
- 1958: Chyliński's Lithuanian Bible: Origin and Historical Background, Poznań, Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk: Komisja Filologiczna, 1958, 25 pages.
|
20,605,210 |
Glarentza
| 1,129,735,222 |
Human settlement in Greece
|
[
"13th-century architecture in Greece",
"Castles and fortifications of the Principality of Achaea",
"City walls in Greece",
"Despotate of the Morea",
"Former populated places in Greece",
"Kastro-Kyllini",
"Medieval Elis",
"Mediterranean port cities and towns in Greece",
"Mints (currency)",
"Mints of Europe",
"Populated places established in the 13th century"
] |
Glarentza (Greek: Γλαρέντζα), also known as or Clarenia, Clarence, or Chiarenza, was a medieval town located near the site of modern Kyllini in Elis, at the westernmost point of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece. Founded in the mid-13th century by William II of Villehardouin, the town served as the main port and mint of the Frankish Principality of Achaea, being located next to the Principality's capital, Andravida. Commerce with Italy brought great prosperity, but the town began to decline in the early 15th century as the Principality itself declined. In 1428, Glarentza was ceded to the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea, and served as its co-capital, being the residence of one of the Palaiologos despots, until the Ottoman conquest in 1460. Under Ottoman rule, Glarentza declined rapidly as the commercial links with Italy were broken, and by the 16th century was abandoned and falling into ruin. Little remains of the town today: traces of the city wall, of a church and a few other buildings, as well as the silted-up harbour.
## History
Glarentza was founded in the mid-13th century by William II of Villehardouin (ruled 1246–78), the ruler of the Principality of Achaea, a Frankish state established after the Fourth Crusade and encompassing the Peloponnese or Morea peninsula in southern Greece. Its Frankish foundation is evident in its name, Clarence or Clairence in French, Chiarenza or Clarenza in Italian, Clarentia or Clarencia in Latin, rendered Κλαρέντσα (Klarentsa), Κλαρίντζα (Klarintza), or Γλαρέντζα (Glarentza) in contemporary Greek documents.
The medieval town was located a bit further west of the modern village of Kyllini, on the northern tip of a headland that forms the westernmost point of the Peloponnese. This was a site known since antiquity as the best anchorage in all of Elis, and was likely the site of the ancient city of Cyllene. Glarentza was established as the haven for the Principality's capital, located inland at Andravida, some 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) away. Along with Andravida and the fortress of Clermont or Chlemoutsi, some 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the port, Glarentza formed the administrative heart of the Principality of Achaea.
Glarentza profited from its location and became the main port for communication and traffic between the Morea and Italy. As described in the town's Greek Ministry of Culture website, Glarentza "rapidly established itself as the most important financial and urban centre of the Crusader principality, with an international renown", while according to the medievalist Antoine Bon, it was "the agglomeration which should most resemble, by its activity, a city in the modern sense of the word". It was a cosmopolitan city, frequented by emissaries from Italy, soldiers and merchants, chiefly Venetians. Trade brought great prosperity, as evidenced by the fact that it used its own system of weights and measures in the 14th century. It featured a hospital as well as banks, lodgings for the mariners, and a Franciscan monastery. Based on a 1391 list of fiefs, the town counted ca. 300 hearths, making it among the largest in the Principality.
The town was also the site of the princely mint, which from the 13th century until its cessation, in 1353, struck denier tournois or tornese coins, inscribed initially with [DE] CLARENTIA, and, from the reign of Florent of Hainaut (ruled 1289–97) onwards, with DE CLARENCIA. Although Andravida was the main residence of the princely court, Glarentza too was a location of political significance, and several parliaments and assemblies took place there, such as the adjudication on the inheritance of the Barony of Akova in 1276, or the parliament and oath of allegiance to Isabella of Villehardouin and Florent of Hainaut in 1289. Glarentza was surrounded by a set of walls, but scholars have long disputed exactly when this was done. The debate concerns the relation between Glarentza and the nearby fortress of Clermont/Chlemoutsi, which in the view of those who consider Glarentza to have originally been unfortified served as the town's citadel, in which case this was probably the original site of the mint, whence its alternative name of "Castel Tornese".
In June 1315, Glarentza was captured by the Aragonese troops of the infante Ferdinand of Majorca, who claimed the princely title of Achaea for himself by virtue of his marriage to Isabella of Sabran, granddaughter of William II of Villehardouin. Ferdinand made Glarentza his residence, and soon seized all of Elis, aided by the defection of several Achaean barons dissatisfied with the Principality's rule by the Angevins of Naples. Ferdinand began minting coins with his name—the rarest issues of the Glarentza mint—but his reign was cut short with the arrival of the legitimate claimants, Matilda of Hainaut and Louis of Burgundy. In the Battle of Manolada, fought to the northeast of Glarentza on 5 July 1316, the Aragonese were defeated and Ferdinand was killed. The remainder of his army fled to Glarentza, and soon handed over the town and the other fortresses they had occupied and departed the Peloponnese, taking the corpse of Ferdinand with them.
The town's decline began in the early 15th century, following the worsening fortunes of the Principality itself. At that time, Achaea, under Prince Centurione II Zaccaria (ruled 1404–30), found itself endangered by the attacks of the Byzantines of the Despotate of the Morea on the one hand and the expansionist designs of the Tocco family of Cephalonia and Zakynthos on the other. In late 1407, Centurione's own brother-in-law Leonardo II Tocco seized Glarentza and reaped an enormous booty, as recorded in the Chronicle of the Tocco. It took several years of conflicts and diplomatic manoeuvrings before a Venetian-mediated deal restored the city to Centurione in July 1414. In 1417, the Byzantines under the Despot Theodore II Palaiologos and his brother John VIII Palaiologos, launched another attack on the remains of the Principality. The brothers made swift progress, forcing Prince Centurione to retire to Glarentza, which was unsuccessfully attacked by the Byzantines. A truce was concluded in 1418, but in the same year, an Italian adventurer, Olivier Franco, seized the town, which in 1421 he sold to Carlo I Tocco, Leonardo's elder brother.
With Glarentza in their hands, the Tocchi now began to openly pursue their aspirations in the Peloponnese, and attacked the territories of the Latin Archbishop of Patras Stephen Zaccaria, Centurione's brother. In 1427, the Byzantines, led by emperor John VIII in person, attacked the Tocco lands in the Peloponnese. After the Byzantine fleet defeated his navy, Carlo was forced to submit, and in 1428, Glarentza was handed over as part of the dowry of his niece, Maddalena, who was married to the Despot Constantine Palaiologos (the future last Byzantine emperor). When Constantine besieged Patras in 1429, a Catalan fleet that came to the city's aid captured Glarentza, forcing Constantine to ransom it back. He then destroyed its fortifications, so that it could no longer be seized and used by a western power.
In 1430, following the final subjugation of the Principality of Achaea by the Byzantines, the Peloponnese was divided into appanages among the various Palaiologos princes. Glarentza became the residence of Thomas Palaiologos until 1432, when he exchanged his portion with Constantine, who had originally settled at Kalavryta. In 1446, Glarentza and its surrounding region were raided by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Murad II, and in 1460, it fell to the Ottomans along with the remainder of the Byzantine Peloponnese. Although nearby Chlemoutsi continued to play a role as a military stronghold until the 19th century—it was garrisoned by the Venetians during the Ottoman–Venetian War of 1463–79, and attacked by the Knights of Malta in 1620—Glarentza itself seems to have rapidly fallen into obscurity under the Ottomans, apparently declining as the maritime links with Italy were severed. By the 16th century, it was already abandoned and half-ruined. The ruins were described by successive travellers until the 19th century, and photographs were also taken later. During the German occupation of Greece in World War II, the German Army demolished many of the remains.
In the early 19th century, several authors and travellers, like Robert Byron, contended that Glarentza (in its Latin form, Clarentia/Clarencia) gave its name to the royal English title of the "Duke of Clarence", via Princess Matilda of Hainaut and her cousin Philippa of Hainaut, a claim that has been repeated by reputable publications like the Meyers Konversations-Lexikon encyclopedia into the 20th century. However, this view was conclusively rejected already in 1846 by the military officer and antiquarian William Martin Leake, who pointed out that at no time did English royalty hold Moreote titles, and that "Clarence" originates from Clare, Suffolk, and not Glarentza.
## Location and archaeological remains
The town of Glarentza was situated on a small plateau, sloping slightly downwards from west to east, at the extreme northwestern end of the peninsula known in Antiquity as Chelonatas. The town occupied an irregular shape of ca. 450 metres (1,480 ft) from east to west and 350 metres (1,150 ft) from north to south, i.e. a surface of ca. 8,800 square metres (95,000 sq ft). The northern and western sides of the town bordered on the sea and were protected by a cliff of some 50 m in height descending to the sea. The port was located in the north, shielded from the dangerous western and southwestern winds.
There are very few material remains of the medieval town today. The city wall that surrounded the settlement has largely disappeared and is difficult to trace today, but from the remains of its foundations it does not appear to have been a substantial fortification. It was lightly built, with a thickness of perhaps 1.8–2 metres (5.9–6.6 ft), reinforced by rectangular towers. The three gates have left far more substantial remains. The eastern, southeastern and southern sides were fronted by a ditch of some 20–22 metres (66–72 ft), with the excavated soil dumped on the inner side and used to elevate the city wall. A small citadel was located in the southwestern corner of the town. The port was separated from the main town by a wall, and was situated in an excavated basin (today a swamp) and probably separated from the sea by an artificial mole and protected by extensions of the city walls. The entrance to the harbour was from the west, offering protection from both the wind and the coast's shoals.
Among the few remains of buildings from the interior of the town, most notable are a large monumental staircase and a large church, with dimensions of some 43 by 15 metres (141 ft × 49 ft), in the northeast. The church was of relatively simple construction, but of unusual size, and A. Bon proposes its identification with the church of the Franciscans, where assemblies of the nobles of Achaea were held in 1276 and 1289. The remaining portions of the church's walls were completely destroyed by the German Army during the Occupation.
The site is currently managed by the 6th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities. It is accessible by car, and is open for visitors.
|
19,989,165 |
St Symphorien Military Cemetery
| 1,171,551,654 |
Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery
|
[
"Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries in Belgium",
"World War I cemeteries in Belgium",
"World War I memorials in Belgium"
] |
The St Symphorien Military Cemetery is a First World War Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground in Saint-Symphorien, Belgium. It contains the graves of 284 German and 229 Commonwealth soldiers, principally those killed during the Battle of Mons. The cemetery was established by the German Army on land donated by Jean Houzeau de Lehaie. It was initially designed as a woodland cemetery before being redesigned by William Harrison Cowlishaw after the Imperial War Graves Commission took over maintenance of the cemetery after the war.
Notable Commonwealth burials in the cemetery include John Parr and George Lawrence Price, traditionally believed to be the first and last Commonwealth soldiers killed in action during the First World War, and Maurice Dease, the first posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross of World War I. Notable German burials include Oskar Niemeyer, the first Iron Cross recipient of World War I.
## History
### Battle of Mons
The Battle of Mons took place as part of the Battle of the Frontiers, in which the advancing German armies clashed with the advancing Allied armies along the Franco-Belgian and Franco-German borders. The British position on the French flank meant that it stood in the path of the German 1st Army. The British reached Mons on 22 August 1914 and at the time, the French Fifth Army, located on the right of the British, was heavily engaged with the German 2nd and 3rd armies at the Battle of Charleroi. The British agreed to hold the line of the Condé–Mons–Charleroi Canal for twenty-four hours, to prevent the advancing German 1st Army from threatening the French left flank. The British thus spent the day digging in along the canal.
At dawn on 23 August a German artillery bombardment began on the British lines; throughout the day the Germans concentrated on the British at the salient formed by the loop in the canal. At 9:00 a.m., the first German infantry assault began, with the Germans attempting to force their way across four bridges that crossed the canal at the salient. The initial German attack was repulsed with heavy losses but after the Germans switched to an open formation their advance progress more quickly as the looser formation made it more difficult for the British to inflict casualties rapidly. By the afternoon the British position in the salient had become untenable and by 3:00 p.m. the British began retreating to a new defensive line.
### Establishment
Most of the British and German dead from the Battle of Mons were initially buried in church and local cemeteries in Mons and surrounding villages rather than a purpose built military cemetery. Subsequently, the German Army decided to exhume and re-inter the dead in a single location, as they determined the care and maintenance of isolated graves was unsustainable over the long term.
In spring 1916, a German officer by the name of Captain Roemer was searching for an appropriate piece of cemetery land south-east of Mons. During this search he approached renowned biologist and local landowner Jean Houzeau de Lehaie, who offered some former quarry land on his family estate lands between the districts of St. Symphorien and Spienne, possibly to ensure that land associated with Neolithic flint mines of Spiennes was not employed instead. Roemer initially proposed that the land be requisitioned, with compensation being provided by the local authorities. Houzeau de Lehaie refused to accept payment for the land and agreed to part with it only under the condition that it be donated instead of requisitioned, and that in the cemetery the dead of both sides be treated with equal respect. During 1916 and 1917 Landsturm Infantry Battalions exhumed burials from isolated and less maintainable sites and re-interred them in the new cemetery. Most of the bodies that were exhumed were from the north and north east of the Mons battlefield especially near Nimy and Obourg where the British stopped Imperial German units from crossing the Mons-Conde canal. The German and British dead were reburied in graves with markers containing the message Enemies in Life but United in Death (German: Im Leben ein Feind, im Tode vereint), a common German practice during the First World War. The cemetery was inaugurated on 6 September 1917 with a ceremony attended by prominent German figures, including Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg, and Frederick Francis IV, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
The cemetery contained 245 German and 188 British graves at the end of the war. This number increased in the post-war period, as both British and German remains from numerous isolated burial locations were concentrated to St. Symphorien until the cemetery reached its current number of 284 German soldiers and 229 Commonwealth soldiers. Most of the identified German dead in the cemetery died in 1914 and were from units of IX Corps, which originated from the north of Germany from towns like Kiel, Hamburg and Bremen, and in Schleswig-Holstein.
### Post-war
At the end of the war in November 1918, the maintenance of Commonwealth graves passed to Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission). From June 1921, the Belgian War Graves Commission appointed a supervisor to maintain the German graves as the Germans could not do so themselves on account of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1926, Belgium and Germany reached an agreement for the gradual transfer of maintenance responsibility to the Official German Burial Service in Belgium (German: Amtlicher Deutscher Gräberdienst in Belgien) representative at the embassy to Germany in Brussels. The Germans officially referred to the cemetery as Ehrenfriedhof Saint-Symphorien-Spiennes. Number 191. The name recognized that the cemetery was both located in close proximity to the town of Saint-Symphorien and technically located in the administrative areas of Spiennes while concurrently incorporating the number assigned to the cemetery in a Belgian ordered list of German cemeteries.
On 13 October 1930, representatives of the Official German Burial Service in Belgium, the Belgian War Graves Commission and the Imperial War Graves Commission met in Brussels to discuss the status of mixed British-German cemeteries in Belgium. In particular, they met to discuss the status of cemeteries established by Germans during the war where the majority of those buried in the cemetery were German. This meeting was brought about because the Imperial War Graves Commission had begun altering the layout of cemeteries containing a high percentage concentration of German dead and began replacing the existing headstones on the Commonwealth graves with the standardized Imperial War Graves Commission headstones, all without first consulting with the German Burial Service in Belgium. The German delegation hoped to retain the established design character of the cemeteries but were ultimately unsuccessful. Control for the cemetery was immediately passed to the Imperial War Graves Commission and further German contribution was limited to providing headstones for a number of graves that were lacking markers. Now that the Imperial War Graves Commission was in full control of the cemetery they immediately set about redesigning it, assigning the task to Assistant Architect William Harrison Cowlishaw. In 1933 Fritz Schult, Chief of the Official German Burial Service in Belgium, wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin to request that the Imperial War Graves Commission be approached to take control over other split British-German cemeteries such as those at Marcinelle New Communal Cemetery and Hautrage Military Cemetery. The Imperial War Graves Commission was maintaining the German graves at St. Symphorien at no cost to Germany and Schult believed it favorable to transfer management of other cemeteries if the Imperial War Graves Commission would assume all maintenance costs for those cemeteries as well.
### Modern
On 4 August 2014, a ceremony was held at the cemetery to mark the 100th anniversary of the British and Belgian declaration of war following the German invasion of Belgium. It was attended by many important dignitaries including: King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of The Belgians, Prince William, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry as representatives of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Head of the Commonwealth, Joachim Gauck President of Germany, Michael D. Higgins President of the Republic of Ireland, Prime Minister of Belgium Elio Di Rupo and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron.
## Design
### Original design
Captain Bäumer designed the cemetery, assisted by militia-private Pieper. They developed a site plan based on the concept of Cemetery Reform (German: Friedhofsreform), which was popular in Germany at the time. In the cemetery design, particular attention was paid to ensuring simplicity with uniformity in each plot, all within a calming, arboreal environment consistent with a woodland cemetery (German: Waldfriedhof) style. Thirteen plots were marked off and young trees – and later extra conifers – were planted between the plots to ensure their visual and physical separation. The cemetery land itself had many artificial created differences in elevation due to the site being used as a dumping location for surplus soil associated with phosphate mining in the area. The cemetery plants were donated by the city of Bielefeld.
The German graves were grouped according to military unit. Every grave in each grouping receiving a similar headstone, but not necessarily the same as that in other groupings. There were a number of organizations in Germany that were particularly opposed to mass-produced identical headstones and by consequence the cemetery contains a number of differently styled headstones. The German headstones were carved from locally quarried stone, principally bluestone and Belgian Petit Granit. German officers were offered larger headstones to illustrate their higher military rank. The cemetery contains a number of German regimental memorials within the cemetery which were paid and provided by the city or town where the regiment was based.
The Germans treated the British dead in a similar manner to their own. All of the British were buried in individual plots and, like the Germans, grouped by unit as far as possible. The deceased British officers were buried in a plot separate from their troops and it is not known how these graves were marked before they were provided with the standardized Imperial War Grave Commission headstone. The Germans also erected simple regimental memorials that identified the unit or regiment within a number of the British groupings. This included one to the Middlesex Regiment which was mistakenly referred to as the "Royal Middlesex Regiment" although that was not its name at the time.
A classical 7 metres (23 ft) high obelisk memorial made of bluestone was placed near the entrance at the highest point in the cemetery. The monumental inscription on the obelisk is written in German and is dedicated to the German and British soldiers that died during the Battle of Mons: "In memory of the German and English soldiers who fell in the actions near Mons on the 23rd and 24th August 1914." (German: Zum Gedächtnis der am 23. und 24. August 1914 in den Kämpfen bei Mons gefallenen deutschen und englischen Soldaten). Near the cemetery entrance, a tablet in Latin was set out to explain the land was gifted for the purpose of a cemetery by Jean Houzeau de Lehaie.
### Cowlishaw redesign
Full control of the St Symphorien cemetery was transferred to the Imperial War Graves Commission in 1930 after which William Harrison Cowlishaw set about redesigning the cemetery. The main change was the conversion from a woodland cemetery to the more open English garden style cemetery present at most Imperial War Graves Commission cemeteries. Many of the trees were chopped down, particularity those in the predominantly British south-eastern side, and grass sown in this area. The cemetery was made to feel more open but no changes were made to the location of the graves, effectively leaving each plot layout in situ choosing instead to remove vegetation that provided the visual compartmentalization to each plot. The predominantly German north-eastern half was left more characteristically in a woodland cemetery style, although many trees were pruned to ensure that an open view was created between the various plots. The original German headstones were retained and several German headstones added due to transferred graves from other sites. The other principal change was earthwork to create a raised hill where the Cross of Sacrifice would be erected. The German general monument was in no way modified but Cowlishaw likely created the hill to ensure the Cross of Sacrifice was not dwarfed by the German monument. Special memorials were erected to five soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment believed to be buried in unnamed graves. Other special memorials record the names of four British soldiers, buried by the Germans in Obourg Churchyard, whose graves could not be found. Approximately 100 Commonwealth soldiers buried at St Symphorien were unidentified. They are interred under a headstone with a quote by Rudyard Kipling: "A Soldier of the Great War, Known Unto God."
## Notable graves
Notable German burials include Musketier Oskar Niemeyer from the 84th Infantry Regiment was the first recipient of the Iron Cross during the war. Having come to a crossing of the Mons–Condé canal with a closed swing bridge he swam across the canal, returned across the canal with a requisitioned small boat, paddled back across the canal with a team and then opened the bridge allowing the Germans troops to cross in greater numbers. He was killed shortly after opening the bridge.
Notable Commonwealth burials in the cemetery include Private John Parr, of the 4th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment and George Lawrence Price of the Canadian 28th (Northwest) Battalion each believed to be the respective first and last Commonwealth soldiers killed in action during the First World War, as is George Ellison. Also buried in the cemetery is Maurice Dease who was the first posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross in the war. Dease was awarded the Victoria Cross for defending Nimy Bridge and maintained firing of a machine gun until he was hit for a fifth and final time. and Pte EW Mason of 4th Middlesex Regiment because he is much loved by his family.
## Notes and sources
|
70,008,813 |
Värm mer Öl och Bröd
| 1,091,382,821 |
Song by the 18th century Swedish bard Carl Michael Bellman
|
[
"1773 compositions",
"Fredmans epistlar",
"Swedish songs"
] |
Värm mer Öl och Bröd (Warm more Beer and Bread) is epistle No. 43 in the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's 1790 song collection, Fredman's Epistles. The epistle, dated 14 November 1771, is subtitled "Till Ulla Winblad, skrifven vid et ömt tilfälle" ("To Ulla Winblad, written at a sensitive occasion"). The source of the melody has not been traced.
The song details the preparations for Ulla Winblad's childbirth. It ends with the famous and ambiguous line "Masken dold i blomman bådar blommans död" ("The worm hidden in the flower bodes the flower's death"). The epistle is unusual, too, in being quiet and delicate rather than full of noisy humour. It has been described as among the most radical and innovative of Bellman's songs.
## Context
## Song
### Music
The song is mainly in time, with a section in time. The musicologist James Massengale notes that bars 9 to 12 resemble epistle No. 1's ("Sant va dä, ingen dricker") bars 11 to 14 (the pattern recurring also in epistle No. 59, "Hurra Courage, Bagage! God dag Bröder!"). The source of the melody has not been traced. It has 2 verses, each consisting of 15 lines. The rhyming pattern is ABBBA-CDDDCC-EEEA. The song is dated 14 November 1771.
### Lyrics
The song, subtitled "Till Ulla Winblad, skrifven vid et ömt tilfälle" ("To Ulla Winblad, written at a sensitive occasion"), describes the preparations for childbirth. The epistle was most likely inspired by the "real" Ulla Winblad, Maria Kristina Kiellström, who had a stillbirth in 1769.
## Reception and legacy
The Bellman interpreter Thord Lindé writes that the preparations for childbirth form an unusual theme for a song, certainly unique in Bellman's work. In unhygienic 18th century Stockholm, childbirth was a risky event, both for mother and baby. In Lindé's view, the epistle "weaves together birth and death in a very beautiful, sensitive, and gripping way". Carina Burman comments in her biography that pregnancy and childbirth appear in various places in Bellman's work, most poetically in epistle No. 43 with Ulla Winblad in the birthing-bed; in the most burlesque detail in his 1783 book-length poem Bacchi Tempel, "where Ulla after Movitz's death is to give birth to a new little Movitz". She notes the grim reality of the semi-prostitution among tavern women; if they became pregnant, the best they could hope for was for the child to be given board and lodging by a midwife, and for the father to make a one-off payment in support.
Jennie Nell, writing for the Bellman Society, describes epistles 35 ("Bröderna fara väl vilse ibland") and 43 as undoubtedly the most radical and innovative of Bellman's songs. They were, she states, often chosen by female singers in the 20th century, picking up on Fredman's "perplexed and troubled" voice. Tim Berndtsson, writing on Populär poesi, comments that despite Bellman's reputation for humour, some of the best-known epistles like No. 35, No. 43, and No. 81 "Märk hur vår skugga" do not lend themselves to cheap humour. Instead, writes Berndtsson, they have an aesthetic beauty which has stood the test of time.
Johan Stenström writes that most of the epistles are full of noise, whether it is the sound of busy taverns or all the noises of nature with bulls roaring, horses neighing, and dogs barking, while in No. 42, the only winter epistle, "wolves howl everywhere"; and the pagan gods join in, with Jove shaking the world with his thunder in epistle 80, "Liksom en Herdinna, högtids klädd". Epistle No. 43 is one of the quietest of the epistles, since like the erotic No. 72, "Glimmande Nymf!", its subject "demands silence and concentration".
The epistle ends with the famous line "Masken dold i blomman bådar blommans död" (The worm hidden in the flower bodes the flower's death"). The line has a double entendre; the scholar of literature Lennart Breitholtz [sv] stated that the worm here was a phallic symbol, and that the flower had the same metaphorical meaning as the "blomsterskål" (lit: "bowl of flowers") which Chloris may show Movitz in the next epistle, No. 44, if he "Drives in Bacchus's furrows / Up to Fröja's myrtle gate" and wisely follows the advice to "Drink no more than you can hold". Burman states that the epistle's bleak ending is a description of birth, "which simultaneously becomes a description both of orgasm – the little death – and real death", without the usual exhortations to love and drunkenness. Bellman was here following in a tradition of ambiguous endings to poems, such as Israel Holmström [sv]'s erotically humorous epigrams.
Epistle No. 43 has been recorded by Cornelis Vreeswijk on his 1971 album Spring mot Ulla, Spring!; by Fred Åkerström on his 1977 album Vila vid denna källa; and by the actor Mikael Samuelson on his 1990 album Sjunger Fredmans Epistlar.
## See also
- The Sick Rose
|
1,108,067 |
Meralda Warren
| 1,167,844,308 |
Nurse, poet and artist (born 1959)
|
[
"1959 births",
"21st-century poets",
"21st-century women artists",
"21st-century women politicians",
"21st-century women writers",
"Living people",
"Members of the Island Council of the Pitcairn Islands",
"Pitcairn Islands nurses",
"Pitcairn Islands people of American descent",
"Pitcairn Islands people of English descent",
"Pitcairn Islands people of Manx descent",
"Pitcairn Islands people of Polynesian descent",
"Pitcairn Islands people of Saint Kitts and Nevis descent",
"Pitcairn Islands people of Scottish descent",
"Pitcairn Islands politicians",
"Pitcairn Islands women in politics",
"Pitcairn Islands writers",
"Women poets"
] |
Meralda Elva Junior Warren (born 28 June 1959) is an artist and poet of the Pitcairn Islands, a remote British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific. She works in both English and Pitkern, the island's distinctive creole language. Her book, Mi Bas Side Orn Pitcairn, written with the island's six children, is the first to be written and published in both English and Pitkern. As an artist, she works with tapa cloth, a Polynesian tradition. She has also published a cookbook featuring Pitcairn Island cuisine.
Warren has also served as the island's nurse, its only police officer, a ham radio operator, and as a member of the territory's governing council, among many other roles.
## Biography
Warren was born on Pitcairn Island on 28 June 1959, the second child of Jacob Ralph "Chippie" Warren (1920–2007) and Mavis Mary Brown (born 1936). Warren is the sister of Jay Warren (born 1950) who served as the third mayor of the Pitcairn Islands (2004–2007), and previously as the colony's 29th magistrate (1991–1997). She is a first cousin of Mike Warren (born 1964), the colony's fourth mayor (2007–2014). She is the descendant of mutineers from the famed Mutiny on the Bounty (1789) and of the Tahitian men and women who journeyed with the mutineers in settling the island in 1790.
### Artist, poet, author and many other jobs
Warren is a poet, and the author of two books, including Mi Base side orn Pitcairn ("My Favourite Place on Pitcairn"), written with children on Pitcairn Island. It is the first book written and published in Pitkern and English.
Her works include a cookbook, Taste of Pitcairn featuring the cuisine of the Pitcairn Islands, and poetry in both Pitkern and English.
In 2007, Warren revived Pitcairn's tradition of art created on tapa cloth, a woven bark cloth common in Polynesian culture. Her works have been displayed in museums and galleries in Tahiti, Norfolk Island, and New Zealand. In 2011, she was one of seven artists awarded a Commonwealth Connections International Arts Residency, which provided a grant of £8,000 that allowed her to work with other artists in New Zealand. She is the first recipient from the Pitcairn Islands.
Pitcairn has a small population. The island's 48 residents often serve in several capacities or jobs. Warren describes her many roles on her personal website:
> Travelling with patients to New Zealand and Tahiti and taking up Nursing, Radio Operator for the shore to ship skeds from ZBP station and twice daily contact with Auckland international Radio telephone link, Working in our Co-op store, Council member for many years as well as being the Governors appointee member to council a few times, Becoming the first female Police & Immigration Officer for a few years. Lands Commission president, Lands court member, Bee keeper since 1978. ASL operator for siesmic Vault, Installing wireless networking throughout Adamstown, Duncan cleaner, Contract Lawnmowing jobs, and many misc jobs inc Tourism and Entertainment. PHEWWwww. it became apprent to me that what I enjoy most is my art. (T)his is getting pushed aside whilst I am working these time consuming no pay or low paid positions which was making me very tired and yes. ... Bitchy [sic]
Beginning in 1996, Warren served as the island's only police officer. However, since no one had been arrested on the island since the 1950s, her duties involved issuing driving licences and stamping visitors' passports. Warren had no qualifications or formal training to be a police officer, and was given the job because everyone on the island had a "job". The island's jail was described as "the size of a garden shed and riddled with termites", and its cells had been used to store building materials and lifejackets. When the island came into the international spotlight due to a sexual abuse scandal, a law enforcement professional sent to the island criticized their practices, stating "It was glaringly obvious ... that their standard of policing was not really adequate."
Warren was elected on 15 December 2004 to the Island Council. As a radio operator, she broadcasts under the call sign VP6MW.
### Pitcairn's sexual abuse trial
Warren was an outspoken critic of accusations that the island's girls had been sexually abused when young, and the prosecution of a selected number of Pitcairn's male residents. She claimed that young girls on Pitcairn customarily became sexually active after age 12, a practice of underage sex that had been accepted as a Polynesian tradition since the settlement of the island in 1790. One resident, Olive Christian, said of her girlhood, "We all thought sex was like food on the table."
Many Pitcairn Island men blamed the British police for persuading the women involved to press charges. Some of the women agreed, and advocated a conspiracy theory that the trial was, in Warren's words, "a British plot to jail the [community's] able-bodied men and 'close' the island", and that the British officials "picked on all the viable young men, the ones who are the backbone of this place".
A majority of the island's residents denied or excused the allegations. During the trial, Warren circulated a poem titled "Is Seven a Lucky Number?" that criticized the British government and lawyers' attempts to impose British law against their island's traditions.
> > "There's never an age consent set in our Laws Oh 16 is in the British clause What book they choose What next law will they ruse Why must these Seven men be used"
As the case wore on, Warren reflected that "the bottom had fallen out of our world ... We lost our trust for each other." Her brother, Jay Warren, who was accused of "indecent assault", was the only defendant among the seven accused to be acquitted on 24 October 2004.
Warren was convicted of assault during a drunken disagreement with another resident when the two were angered by tensions over the sexual abuse matter. The case was prosecuted by a Crown prosecutor and tried by a New Zealand magistrate. Warren was fined NZ\$60. The case cost the British government NZ\$40,000 to prosecute.
## Works
- 1986: A Taste of Pitcairn: The First Pitcairn Island Cookbook
- 2008: Mi Base side orn Pitcairn ("My Favourite Place on Pitcairn") (compiler)
- 2010: A Taste of Pitcairn: The First Pitcairn Island Cookbook (updated edition)
## See also
- Politics of the Pitcairn Islands
- List of rulers of the Pitcairn Islands
|
27,232,276 |
German destroyer Z43
| 1,133,413,461 |
Destroyer ship
|
[
"1944 ships",
"Maritime incidents in May 1945",
"Scuttled vessels of Germany",
"Ships built in Bremen (state)",
"Type 1936B destroyers"
] |
Z43 was a Type 1936B destroyer built for the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) during World War II. Completed in mid-1944, the ship spent the war in the Baltic Sea, escorting German ships, laying minefields, and bombarding Soviet forces. She participated in a minelaying operation in December 1944, where her sister ships Z35 and Z36 were sunk when they accidentally entered a German minefield. She was badly damaged by a mine on 10 April 1945, and scuttled on 3 May of that same year.
## Design and description
The Type 1936B design retained the hull design of the Type 1936A, but reverted to the lighter main armament of the Type 1936 to reduce topweight and improve seakeeping. The ships had an overall length of 127 metres (416 ft 8 in) and was 121.9 metres (399 ft 11 in) long at the waterline. They had a beam of 12 metres (39 ft 4 in), and a maximum draught of 4.32 metres (14 ft 2 in). The ships displaced 2,519 long tons (2,559 t) at standard load and 3,542 long tons (3,599 t) at deep load. The two Wagner geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller shaft, were designed to produce 70,000 metric horsepower (51,000 kW; 69,000 shp) using steam provided by six Wagner water-tube boilers for a designed speed of 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph). The ships carried a maximum of 835 tonnes (822 long tons) of fuel oil which gave a range of 2,600 nautical miles (4,800 km; 3,000 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). Their crew consisted of 11–15 officers and 305–20 sailors.
The Type 1936B ships carried five 12.7-centimetre (5 in) SK C/34 guns in single mounts with gun shields, two each superimposed, fore and aft of the superstructure. The fifth mount was positioned on top of the rear deckhouse. The guns were designated No. 1 to 5 from front to rear. Their anti-aircraft armament consisted of four 3.7-centimetre (1.5 in) SK C/30 guns in two twin mounts abreast the rear funnel and fifteen 2-centimetre (0.8 in) C/38 guns in three quadruple and three single mounts. The ship carried eight above-water 53.3-centimetre (21 in) torpedo tubes in two power-operated mounts. Two reloads were provided for each mount. They had four depth charge launchers and mine rails could be fitted on the rear deck that had a maximum capacity of 74–76 mines. 'GHG' (Gruppenhorchgerät) passive hydrophones were fitted to detect submarines and a S-Gerät sonar was also probably fitted. The ships were equipped with a FuMO 24 search radar above the bridge.
## Construction and career
Z43 was originally ordered as a Type 1938B destroyer from AG Weser (Deschimag) on 28 June 1939, but the contract was cancelled when the Type 1938B design was abandoned, and the ship was reordered as a Type 1936A (Mob) destroyer. That was changed to a Type 1936B on 17 February 1941. She was laid down as yard number W1029 on 1 May 1942 at Deschimag's Bremen shipyard, launched on 22 September 1943 and commissioned on 31 May 1944 under the command of Fregattenkapitän (Commander) Carl Heinrich Lampe. After working up Z43 was assigned to the 6. Zerstörerflotille (6th Destroyer Flotilla) in October 1944.
The following month, the flotilla and the heavy cruisers Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen shelled Soviet positions during the evacuation of Sworbe, on the Estonian island of Saaremaa, between 20 and 24 November. In mid-December, the 6. Zerstörerflotille, which now consisted of Z43, her sisters Z35 and Z36, and the large torpedo boats T23 and T28, was tasked to lay a new minefield between the Estonian coast and an existing minefield slightly further out to sea. T23 was to escort the other ships and the destroyers were laden with 68 mines each. The mission was postponed to the night of 11/12 December because of bad weather and the flotilla sailed on the morning of the 11th. The weather gradually worsened over the course of the day and the spray and rain made navigation difficult. Having sailed a bit too far north, Z35 and Z36 blundered into the Nashorn (Rhinoceros) minefield that was only 2.5 nautical miles (4.6 km; 2.9 mi) north of the intended position of the new minefield. They both struck mines and sank around 02:00; so close to the minefield, no effort was made to rescue any survivors in the darkness.
In January and early February 1945, Z43 escorted convoys between Gotenhafen, Germany, and Libau, Latvia. Between 18 and 24 February, German forces launched a local counterattack in Samland; Admiral Scheer, Z43, and other ships provided artillery support, targeting Soviet positions near Peyse and Gross-Heydekrug. The German attack temporarily restored the land connection to Königsberg. On 27 February, the ship helped to escort the ocean liner SS Hamburg to Sassnitz. Z43 escorted Admiral Scheer and her sister Lützow from Danzig Bay to Swinemünde on 7 March and then bombarded Soviet positions near Kolberg from 11 to 18 March to cover the evacuation of the city. From 23 March to 7 April, the ship escorted Lützow and other German ships in Danzig Bay while also bombarding Soviet troops.
Z43 was struck by a Soviet bomb that failed to detonate on 9 April, but she struck a mine the following day. The explosion blew a 15-by-4-metre (49 ft × 13 ft) hole in her hull, broke her keel, and flooded the centre and aft boiler rooms. The torpedo boat T33 began a tow, but the destroyer was later able to steam under her own power to Rostock for emergency repairs that included welding several beams to the hull to strengthen it. Z43 then steamed into Warnemünde harbour to provide gunfire support for German troops ashore after having off-loaded all of her anti-aircraft guns and some of her crew. She departed Warnemünde on 2 May for Kiel, having exhausted all of her ammunition. The ship was scuttled near Flensburg the following day.
|
2,196,371 |
Takahito Eguchi
| 1,168,402,900 |
Japanese musician
|
[
"1971 births",
"Anime composers",
"Japanese composers",
"Japanese film score composers",
"Japanese keyboardists",
"Japanese male composers",
"Japanese male film score composers",
"Japanese music arrangers",
"Living people",
"People from Nagasaki",
"Sega people",
"Square Enix people",
"Video game composers"
] |
Takahito Eguchi (江口 貴勅, Eguchi Takahito, born August 28, 1971) is a Japanese composer, orchestrator, and musician. He is best known for collaborating with Noriko Matsueda on Final Fantasy X-2 and with Tomoya Ohtani on several Sonic the Hedgehog games. Eguchi became interested in music when he was six years old after hearing his neighbor playing the piano. He attended the Tokyo Conservatoire Shobi where he acquainted Matsueda.
Eguchi worked at Square Enix from 1998 to 2003 and currently works at Sega. He created mostly electronic music in the early part of his career but now focuses on orchestral composition and arrangement, along with performing keyboards.
## Biography
Born in Nagasaki, Japan, Eguchi became interested in music at the age of six when he heard his neighbor playing the piano. While his father, a judo athlete, initially tried to push him into pursuing sports, he eventually agreed to let him take piano lessons, as long as he agreed to study with his sister. Eguchi enrolled at the Tokyo Conservatoire Shobi, where he met long-term composing partner Noriko Matsueda. After graduating from the conservatoire, he produced numerous compositions, joined a band as a keyboardist, and worked as a software designer. He also gave Matsueda advice on music manipulation during her first game project, Front Mission, in 1995. At her request, he also arranged and orchestrated "Theme of Bahamut Lagoon \~ Opening" for the bonus disc of the original soundtrack to Bahamut Lagoon (1996).
Eguchi joined Square (now Square Enix) in 1998; his first job was composing the 1999 title Racing Lagoon alongside Matsueda. Although his role was minor compared to Matsueda's, he was responsible for the opening and ending themes, the majority of the battle themes, and the bonus track "Taiman Battle Remix". Eguchi and Matsueda collaborated once again in 2000 on the PlayStation 2 game The Bouncer. He created a lot more music than on previous soundtracks; a large amount of the music produced was not used in the game and there were also many post-production demands. He composed the pop ballad "Forevermore", which was arranged and provided lyrics by Narada Michael Walden and Sunny Hilden and performed by Shanice in "Love Is the Gift", the ending theme to the English-language versions of the game. The song was also sold as a single and featured in a promotional album. In 2002, Eguchi arranged the track "Hand in Hand -Reprise-" for Yoko Shimomura's score to Kingdom Hearts.
Eguchi reunited with Matsueda to compose Final Fantasy X-2 (2003). Despite being panned by critics and fans alike and having a low budget, the soundtrack was commercially successful. He was also the game's orchestrator and the composer of the love ballad "Real Emotion/1000 no Kotoba". In 2004, Eguchi and Matsueda composed Final Fantasy X-2 International + Last Mission and arranged three pieces in the Final Fantasy X-2 Piano Collection album. The Piano Collections album was their final project at while at Square Enix, which they both left afterward. Eguchi and Matsueda married in 2009.
Since his departure, he has been involved in several anime projects such as D.N.Angel (2003), Rental Magica (2007), and Trinity Blood (2005). He has also mixed Shimomura's arrangements for the Dark Chronicle Premium Arrange album and performed piano on her vocal album Murmur. In 2006, he contributed three compositions and two arrangements to the Xbox 360 game Sonic the Hedgehog; he also worked on the 2008 follow-up Sonic Unleashed. He has since worked on a number of Sonic Team games, such as Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll, Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure, Sonic Lost World, Sonic Forces and Sonic Frontiers.
## Musical style and influences
Eguchi and Matsueda are noted for creating mainly jazzy and electronic tracks for the scores they have collaborated on; Eguchi is credited for most of the electronic music. The soundtrack to The Bouncer, of which Eguchi and Matsueda co-composed a lot of the pieces, featured among other genres rock, electronica, and jazz fusion. A professional pianist, Eguchi often utilizes the piano in his compositions. He has stated that most of the time he composes and arranges music is at his home studio, where his friends help out by recording acoustic instruments; if the quality of these recordings are not adequate, however, Eguchi replaces them at the company's studio. He has said that by the time he is finished creating the music, he is only sleeping three to four hours a week.
Since joining Sega Digital Studio in 2006, Eguchi has switched over to almost an exclusively orchestral style. On recent projects, he has assisted his fellow co-workers with string and keyboard arrangements, in addition to writing his own material.
He cites Igor Stravinsky, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Miles Davis as musical influences. When asked about which musicians he would like to collaborate with, he replied, "A musician who has passed away, Miles Davis. There are too many living musicians to talk about. A few are Herbie Hancock, Aretha Franklin, and Ryuichi Sakamoto." His interest in composition came about after being inspired by a variety of jazz, electronic, modernist, and pop musicians.
## Works
|
27,647,338 |
Harpy Tomb
| 1,127,370,958 |
Tomb in Turkey
|
[
"Achaemenid Anatolia",
"Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the British Museum",
"Archaeology of the Achaemenid Empire",
"Archaic Greek sculptures",
"Lycia",
"Tombs in Turkey",
"Zoroastrianism"
] |
The Harpy Tomb is a marble chamber from a pillar tomb that stands in the abandoned city of Xanthos, capital of ancient Lycia, a region of southwestern Anatolia in what is now Turkey. Built in the Persian Achaemenid Empire, and dating to approximately 480–470 BC, the chamber topped a tall pillar and was decorated with marble panels carved in bas-relief. The tomb was built for an Iranian prince or governor of Xanthus, perhaps Kybernis.
The marble chamber is carved in the Greek Archaic style. Along with much other material in Xanthos it is heavily influenced by Greek art, but there are also indications of non-Greek influence in the carvings. The reliefs are reminiscent of reliefs at Persepolis. The monument takes its name from the four carved female winged figures, resembling Harpies. The identities of the carved figures and the meaning of the scenes depicted are uncertain, but it is generally now agreed that the winged creatures are not Harpies. The Lycians absorbed much of Greek mythology into their own culture and the scenes may represent Greek deities, but it is also possible they are unknown Lycian deities. An alternative interpretation is that they represent scenes of judgement in the afterlife and scenes of supplication to Lycian rulers.
The carvings were removed from the tomb in the 19th century by archaeologist Charles Fellows and taken to England. Fellows visited Lycia in 1838 and reported finding the remains of a culture that until then was virtually unknown to Europeans. After obtaining permission from the Turkish authorities to remove stone artefacts from the region, Fellows collected a large amount of material from Xanthos under commission from the British Museum in London, where the reliefs are now on display. According to Melanie Michailidis, though bearing a "Greek appearance", the Harpy Tomb, the Nereid Monument and the Tomb of Payava were built according main Zoroastrian criteria "by being composed of thick stone, raised on plinths off the ground, and having single windowless chambers".
## Lycian culture
Lycian culture was at one time viewed as a branch of Greek culture by scholars, especially from the Classical period onwards, when Lycian architecture and sculpture were very much in the Classical Greek style. But the Lycians had a distinct culture of their own, and their religious and funerary rites can be distinguished from the Greek. The Lycian language, although it is Indo-European, is related to Hittite and most probably directly descended from the related Luwian language. Several groups speaking Hittite-related languages continued to exist in Asia Minor for many centuries after the Hittite Empire had passed into history.
Lycia occupied a strategic position between Europe and the Near East. The Greek and Persian worlds met in Lycia, and the Lycians were heavily influenced by both. At one period Persian influence would dominate and at another, Greek, resulting in Lycian culture being an amalgam of both.
Greek influence is found in Lycia from an early date. The Lycian alphabet is derived from Rhodian Greek, with borrowings from other alphabets, possibly Phoenician. The country was conquered by Harpagus in 540 BC, who was acting for the Persians. Lycia's culture was influenced by its annexation into the Persian Empire, but also by its neighbours, the Ionian Greeks. The influence of Greek culture increased after Xerxes' army was defeated at the Battle of Plataea by Greek forces in 479 BC. Kybernis, for whom the Harpy Tomb is thought to have been built, may have died as a consequence of wounds he received in the defeat of Xerxes, either at Plataea or the naval battle of Salamis. He was succeeded by Kuprlli, and then Kheriga, who took an Iranian name and appeared to be pro-Persian. After Alexander the Great's conquest of the country rapid Hellenisation took place in Lycia, and its culture became subsumed in the Greek.
### Mythology
Lycia features heavily in Greek mythology. The Titan goddess Leto fled to Lycia after giving birth, or in order to give birth, to Apollo and Artemis. The Lycians play a part in the Iliad, under their leader Sarpedon, as allies of Troy. Bellerophon killed the fire-breathing monster Chimera which was ravaging Lycia.
These stories may well not have originally been part of Lycian mythology, but may have been borrowed from the Greek. The Greek goddess Leto, for example, may have been equated with the Lycian mother goddess. Having incorporated Leto into their pantheon, the rest of the Greek stories followed naturally. Certainly, the temple to Leto was of some importance in Xanthos. It would appear that the Lycians actively encouraged this synthesis in order to promote themselves as part of the Greek family.
Another story from Greek mythology concerns the origin of the name of the country. According to the myth, Lycia is named after Lycus, the son of Pandion, king of Athens. Prior to Lycus becoming their leader, the Lycians were known as Termilae. Lycus was later to help remove the usurper Metion from the throne of Athens. The real origin of the name, however, would appear to be a derivation of Lukka, the name of the country found in Hittite records.
### Lycian sculpture
Lycian architecture and sculpture depicts skills similar to the Greeks, but to the Greeks, the Lycians, along with other non-Greek peoples of southwestern Anatolia, were often viewed as barbarians. From c. 550 BC, Greek pottery is found in quantity in Lycia; the Lion Tomb, Pillar of the Wrestlers, and the pillars at Isinda and Trysa are all distinctly Greek in style with little eastern symbolism.
Pillar tombs are the earliest form of tomb found in Lycia and go back to the sixth century BC, first appearing c. 540 BC. The pillar tombs appear to be reserved for leading dynasts. House tombs and sarcophagi appear from the mid-5th century BC onwards. Xanthos has 43 monumental tombs of which 17 are sculptured and 35 are pillar tombs, usually to a high standard of workmanship.
The Harpy Tomb belongs to the Late Archaic Greek style. The Archaic Style introduced an element of realism that was developed to its fullest in the later Classical Style, but retained some of the formalism of the earlier Geometric Style in its rules of symmetry. Of the many tombs at Xanthos, the Harpy Tomb is unique in period and style. Other well-known sculptures from Xanthos include the earlier Lion Tomb and the later Tomb of Payava and Nereid Monument.
## Tomb
The tomb was built in Xanthos in the Persian Achaemenid Empire (present-day Antalya Province, Turkey), for an Iranian prince or governor of the city. The Harpy Tomb is in the Acropolis of Xanthos to the north of where the Roman theatre now stands and on its west side. It would have originally stood on the edge of the marketplace. The original pillar is still in place; Fellows took only the sculptures, which have been replaced with cement casts of the originals.
The tomb is the only Late Archaic tomb in Xanthos to have survived the extensive redevelopment of the acropolis in the Roman period, and was left standing as an isolated historical artefact. Many other Lycian tombs survive in Xanthos, but there are no others from this particular period.
The space inside the tomb was later occupied by an early Christian hermit. Fellows noted that the backs of the reliefs still bore the remains of the hermit's religious paintings and monograms. Fellows speculates that this man was a disciple of Simeon Stylites (390–459 AD), one of the eponymously named Christian ascetics known as stylites, who lived on the top of tall columns.
### Construction
The tomb is a large square of carved marble panels. Each side is 7 feet (2.1 m) in length and 3 feet 3 inches (1.0 m) in height. It was originally set upon a large oblong stone pedestal, 17 feet (5.2 m) high, making it an example of a pillar tomb. The top of the pillar has a hollowed out chamber creating a space inside the tomb 7 feet 6 inches (2.3 m) tall from the bottom of the hollow to the top of the reliefs. All four sides are carved with similar relief panels in one of which (the south side) is a small opening to allow a body to be placed in the tomb. This aperture may originally have been closed with a stele. The tomb is roofed with what appear to be three large slabs, one above the other. In fact, the capstone is one single piece, weighing 15 to 20 tons, carved to give the appearance of three layers. Each false slab overlaps the ones below to form an entablature. All the parts, except the sculptured reliefs, are made from local grey-blue limestone.
### Style
The tomb, along with many other artefacts from Lycia of the period, is in the Greek Archaic style. If the dating is accurate (480–470 BC) the Archaic style continued in Lycia for some time after it had become unfashionable in Greece. The sculptures may have been carved by Ionian Greek craftsmen, if not they are heavily influenced by them. There are some features of the carvings that definitely suggest a non-Greek origin. The female faces have full lips and large eyes that are typically Lycian.
## Reliefs
The reliefs show seated figures receiving gifts from standing figures. At the left and right edges on the north and south sides are winged female creatures with bird bodies (the "Harpies"). The winged creatures are carrying away small childlike figures.
Between the winged creatures on the north side is a seated figure receiving a helmet from a standing warrior; under the chair is a bear. Under the winged creature on the right is a kneeling female supplicant. Between the winged creatures on the south side is a seated figure of uncertain sex receiving a dove from a standing female. The seated figure is holding a pomegranate in the left hand and an unidentified object (possibly fruit or an egg) in the right hand.
On the west side are two females seated on thrones and facing each other. Their breasts are large and the nipples and areolae can be seen through their thin clothing. The one on the right holds in her right hand a flower and in her left a pomegranate. The one on the left holds in her right hand a phiale. The opening for insertion of the body is in front of this figure. Above the opening is a cow suckling its calf. This design is also seen on coins from the reign of Sppndaza (475 to 469 BC). On the right of the opening three female figures advance towards the seated figures. The second advancing female holds in her right hand a fruit and in her left a pomegranate flower. The third holds in her raised right hand an object, possibly an egg.
On the east side is a male figure seated on a throne, holding in his right hand a pomegranate flower and being offered a cock by a smaller standing figure. Behind the small standing figure is a male holding in his left hand a staff and advancing with a dog. Behind the seated figure are two advancing females, the first holding in her left hand a pomegranate.
It is thought the carvings on the monument were originally brightly painted. At the time of Fellows' discovery of the monument, the remains of blue paint were found in the backgrounds of the reliefs. Traces of red paint have also been found on other parts.
## Assessment
The reliefs on the tomb show "a Greek–Lycian version of the audiences depicted at Persepolis".
Leo Raditsa, in the Cambridge History of Iran adds;
> Instead of a miniaturized official before the Great King as at Persepolis, a boy offers a cock and a rhyton of wine to the enthroned governor. Common to Greeks, Lycians, and Persians, this ritual gesture of offering had a different significance for each. All saw the same thing and understood it differently – but not differently enough to be unaware that there were other ways of understanding what they saw. For a Greek the scene might depict the worship of a hero; for a Persian, an audience before the Persian governor of Xanthus, faintly reminiscent of the audiences before the Great King in Persepolis. These portrayals of Persia on a small scale reflect in their physical dispositions the spiritual idea of maintaining promises of obedience to superiors; everyone expected from those below him what the granted those above him. Greek craftsmen appear to have done all this work for Persian patrons – with the exception of objects found in graves and seal rings (impressions of many of which were found at Dascylion), which are of Persian manufacture.
## Interpretations
The seated figures are thought to be Lycian gods or deified ancestors. Among the possible identities for the seated figures on the north and south sides are Harpagus, the Median general who became the founder of the Lycian dynasty, and Kybernis, a later king of Lycia. Kybernis is proposed as a possible identity of the occupant of the tomb. Another view is that they are generalised scenes of judgement in Hades rather than earthly rulers. Consistent with this view is the interpretation of the south figure as Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld. The figures to the left and right of the opening may be the goddesses Demeter and Persephone respectively.
The repeated use of the pomegranate in the symbolism is not accidental. Not just in Lycia, but throughout Asia Minor, the Greek world, and Palestine, the pomegranate was widely recognised as a symbol of fructification and procreation. Conversely, it is also a symbol of change and death. This symbolism can be helpful in identifying the deities in the reliefs. The pomegranate is a suitable gift for a goddess of sexuality such as Aphrodite who herself planted the original pomegranate on Cyprus. It is not a suitable gift for an intellectual goddess such as Athena. The pomegranate can have an overtly sexual meaning; Demeter complains that her daughter Persophone was "forced to eat the seed of a pomegranate" in the underworld, by which it is understood that she was raped.
The winged creatures are likely not Harpies, but this misidentification has stuck in the name of the monument. A better match is to the Sirens but many sources doubt either of these claims. The small figures they are carrying away may represent the souls of the dead. Another suggestion for the small figures are that they are the daughters of the hero Pandareus who were carried away to become the Furies.
## Removal of the sculptures
The sculpted reliefs were taken to England by Charles Fellows, who had been commissioned by the British Museum to bring back artefacts after they learned of his 1838 exploration of the region. Until then, Lycian culture was virtually unknown in Western Europe. The tomb was (and still is, minus its reliefs) located in the Acropolis of Xanthos.
Fellows received permission in October 1841 from the Ottoman Sultan to remove stone artefacts from the region. A Royal Navy ship, HMS Beacon commanded by Captain Graves, was tasked with recovering and transporting the items identified by Fellows. The ship sailed from Malta on 30 October but did not arrive on site until 26 December, delayed largely by unanticipated and protracted negotiations with the Turkish authorities. Fellows' documents did not give him the permissions he thought they did (he had not had them translated), and some of the British Government's requests were seen as unreasonable, such as removing stones from the walls of operational military fortresses.
A further delay was caused by a disagreement with Graves. It transpired that the ship had not brought suitable tackle for lifting the heavier pieces. Fellows wanted Graves to return to Malta immediately to fetch the necessary equipment, but Graves requested further orders from his superiors before doing so, which took some time to arrive. The Beacon did not finally return until March 1842.
To remove the sculptures of the Harpy Tomb the capstone, which may have weighed as much as twenty tons and was resting on the sculptured sides, had to be lifted off, causing the sides of the tomb to fall in. Fellows, who had left the sailors to carry out this task in their own way, remarked "but the sculptured parts did not receive more injury than they probably would have done from a more scientific operation". The sculptures of another monument at Xanthos, the Horse Tomb, were left in situ because they were so large that they could only be handled if first sawn into pieces. This Fellows would have done, but the stone-sawyers arrived from Malta with Graves so late in the season that they immediately succumbed to malaria and the task was abandoned. Nevertheless, 80 tons of material were put on board.
|
1,676,115 |
Artabanus I of Parthia
| 1,162,166,450 | null |
[
"122 BC deaths",
"2nd-century BC Iranian people",
"2nd-century BC Parthian monarchs",
"2nd-century BC monarchs in Asia",
"Monarchs killed in action",
"Year of birth unknown"
] |
Artabanus I (Parthian: 𐭍𐭐𐭕𐭓 Ardawān), incorrectly known in older scholarship as Artabanus II, was king of the Parthian Empire, ruling briefly from c. 127 to 124/3 BC. His short reign ended abruptly when he died during a battle against the Yuezhi in the east. He was succeeded by his son Mithridates II.
## Name
Artabanus is the Latin form of the Greek Artábanos (Ἁρτάβανος), itself from the Old Persian \*Arta-bānu ("the glory of Arta."). The Parthian and Middle Persian variant was Ardawān (𐭍𐭐𐭕𐭓).
## Reign
The son of Priapatius, Artabanus I succeeded his nephew Phraates II in 127 BC. Artabanus I must have been relatively old at his accession, due to his father having died in 176 BC. Since the early 2nd century BC, the Arsacids had begun adding obvious signals in their dynastic ideology, which emphasized their association with the heritage of the ancient Iranian Achaemenid Empire. Examples of these signs included a fictitious claim that the first Arsacid king, Arsaces I (r. 247–217 BC) was a descendant of the Achaemenid king of kings, Artaxerxes II (r. 404–358 BC). Achaemenid titles were also assumed by the Arsacids; Artabanus I's brother Mithridates I (r. 171 – 132 BC) was the first Arsacid ruler to adopt the former Achaemenid title of "King of Kings".
However, Artabanus I, like Phraates II, refrained from using the title of "King of Kings", and instead used the title of "Great King". Like the rest of the Parthian kings, he used the title of Arsaces on his coinage, which was the name of the first Parthian ruler Arsaces I (r. 247 – 217 BC), which had become a royal honorific among the Parthian monarchs out of admiration for his achievements. Furthermore, he also used the title of Philhellene ("friend of the Greeks"), which had been introduced during the reign of Mithridates I as part of a policy of maintaining friendly relations with their Greek subjects. The earlier Parthian kings were depicted in Hellenistic clothing on the observe of their coins; this changed under Artabanus I, who is depicted on his coins wearing the Parthian trouser-suit, which is a testimony of the ongoing Iranian revival under the Parthians. Like his two predecessors, Artabanus I is wearing a Hellenistic diadem, whilst his long beard represents the traditional Iranian/Near Eastern custom.
Artabanus I's reign was a period of decline for the Parthian Empire. His predecessor, Phraates II had died fighting invading nomads in the east of the empire. Artabanus I was also forced to fight the nomads—the Saka and Yuezhi, and was reportedly compelled to pay them tribute. Hyspaosines, who had recently created the principality of Characene in southern Mesopotamia, took advantage of the Parthian difficulties in the east by proclaiming his independence from Parthian suzerainty. He then went on to briefly seize Babylon (c. 127 B.C), and by 125/4 BC, he controlled parts of Mesopotamia as indicated by coin mints of him. Artabanus I chose to remain in the east to deal with the nomads, whom he considered more of a danger. In 124/3 BC, just like Phraates II, Artabanus I died during a battle against the Yuezhi in the east, reportedly from a wound in his arm. He was succeeded by his son Mithridates II, who not only finally dealt with the nomads pressuring the eastern Parthian borders, but also expanded Parthian authority in the west, transforming the Parthian Empire into a superpower.
|
41,294,917 |
Somewhere Somehow (album)
| 1,099,702,653 | null |
[
"2013 albums",
"Crowdfunded albums",
"We the Kings albums"
] |
Somewhere Somehow is the fourth studio album by American rock band We the Kings. It is the first album without bassist Drew Thomsen, who was replaced by Charles Trippy. Keyboardist Coley O'Toole was also added into the lineup. After parting ways with S-Curve Records, the group released the single "Just Keep Breathing" in April 2013. Over the next couple of months, the band released "Find You There" and "Any Other Way" as singles before going on the Summer Fest tour. In late September, the band started a campaign to crowd-fund their next album; it eventually received over \$149,000 from 2,309 people. The band recorded in Los Angeles, California, working with Blake Healy, Steve Shebby and David Immerman, all of whom co-wrote and produced songs on the album.
The album was announced for release with the title Vitam Regum, before it was changed to Somewhere Somehow a week later. "Art of War" was released as a single in early December. Somewhere Somehow was released on December 16 through Ozone Entertainment. Following a U.S. tour in March 2014, the group toured Japan and Australia, before joining Warped Tour. A music video was released for "That Feeling" in mid-January 2015. Somewhere Somehow peaked at number 44 on the Billboard 200, and reached the top 10 on several other Billboard charts. It also charted in the top 20 on several UK charts. Despite receiving a mixed critical reception, Clark regarded the album as "a huge success!"
## Background
Following the release of Sunshine State of Mind (2011), bassist Drew Thomsen left We the Kings, citing exhaustion from touring. The band recruited Charles Trippy to replace Thomsen and brought in keyboardist Coley O'Toole, both of whom the band knew from the Bradenton music scene. The band toured throughout 2012, leaving them little time to compose new material. Vocalist/guitarist Travis Clark managed to write one new song during the Christmas break, "Just Keep Breathing". The group parted ways with their previous record label S-Curve in 2013.
After consulting their manager, Bret Disend, We the Kings released "Just Keep Breathing" as a single on April 5, 2013. Considered a success by Broadway World, the song would go on to sell over 149,000 copies in one month. Following this up a month later, the group released "Find You There" on May 5. It would go on to sell 93,000 copies. By this point, the band had four songs demoed. A month later, the band released "Any Other Way" on June 15. In July and August, the band went on the Summer Fest tour, with support from Breathe Carolina, The Ready Set and T. Mills.
## Composition
Clark said the freedom of working without a label "lent a sense of relaxation to the [writing] process and a stress-free environment." Not wishing to write the same album twice, Clark explained that the band "wanted [the new album] to feel 'groovy'", so he spent more time composing the songs. The album's sound has been described as pop by professional reviewers. According to Clark, "Find You There" is about "find[ing] that one special person/or thing that gives [someone] their life purpose." "Art of War" was written for inclusion on The Hunger Games soundtrack (2012), but was left off. "Just Keep Breathing" is about being bullied as child for having red hair.
Clark co-wrote every song on the album with outside writers. "Queen of Hearts", "That Feeling", and "Phoenix Hearts" were co-written with Steve Shebby. "Find You There", "I Feel Alive", "I Like It", "See You in My Dreams", and "Say It Now" were co-written with Blake Healy. "Die Young Live Forever" was co-written with Healy and Ryan Daly. "Any Other Way" was co-written with Healy and Fransisca Hall. "Art of War" was co-written with Healy, Kevin Bard, Taylor Clark, and Dylan Quagliato. "Sad Song" was co-written with Bard and David Immerman, and "Just Keep Breathing" was co-written with Healy and Bard.
## Production
We the Kings planned to release one single per month but they grew impatient. They decided to dedicate two months of studio time to writing a new album. On September 26, 2013, We the Kings set up a crowd-funding campaign on the website IndieGoGo to record a new album with a target goal of \$35,000. The band offered 12 perks to fans who could receive rewards for their contribution such as a "Thank You" in the album's credits section, or spending a day in the studio. While the campaign ran for 30 days, the goal was met within 24 hours. The group received \$67,000 in a matter of two days and eventually received at total of \$149,483 from 2,309 contributors. Initially, the group thought that this figure was an error. After being contacted, IndieGoGo confirmed the amount was correct. Clark commented that their fans "can expect this to be the best album we've ever made, because there are no strings attached. We are the ones deciding everything about this album and with your help we can truly make the best WTK album yet."
Recording took place in Los Angeles, California. All of the album's songs except for "Queen of Hearts", "That Feeling", "Phoenix Hearts", and "Sad Song" were produced by Blake Healy and Clark. "Queen of Hearts", "That Feeling" and "Phoenix Hearts" were produced by Steve Shebby and Clark. "Sad Song" was produced by David Immerman, Shebby, and Clark. Joe Bucci performed additional drums on "Queen of Hearts". "Die Young Live Forever" features guitar parts by Jose Carreon of TheKingsMen, who had contributed enough money to the IndieGoGo project to allow him to record with the band. "Sad Song" features guest vocals by singer-songwriter Elena Coats. Mixing was done by Jeff Julliano at Fused, located in Harbeson, Delaware. Additional editing was done by Garrett Davi. The album was mastered by Brad Blackwood at Euphoric Mastering.
## Release
On November 26, 2013, the band announced their new album, Vitam Regum, for release. On December 3, it was announced that the band had changed the album title to Somewhere Somehow. Two days later, the band revealed the album's artwork. On December 10, the single "Art of War" was released. Five days later, a lyric video was released for "Art of War". Somewhere Somehow was released on December 16 through Ozone Entertainment and We the Kings. Some of the money raised from the crowd-funded campaign went towards marketing the album.
On January 30, 2014, the band released a lyric video for "I Like It". In March, the band went on a tour of the U.S. titled The Art of Tour with support from This Century and Crash the Party. Following this, the band toured Japan and Australia. From mid-June to early August, the band went on the 2014 edition of Warped Tour. Eight of the album's songs were re-recorded acoustically for inclusion on Stripped, which was released in November 2014. On January 16, 2015, the band released a music video for "That Feeling".
## Reception
### Critical response
AllMusic reviewer Mark Deming called the album a "polished, heartfelt set of contemporary pop" with the group's "most accessible work to date." Reviewing the album for Newsday, Glenn Gamboa called it the group's "best album yet", complete with "strong pop hooks and pristine production." Gamboa noted that the band was continually improving their "sound, making everything catchier and harder-hitting." Marcus Clark of SoSoActive called the "over produced pop" backing tracks "decent but I just can't [enjoy] it." Referring to the album as "pop garbage with no kind of appeal", he was unsure why the album was as popular as it was.
### Commercial performance and legacy
Somewhere Somehow sold more copies on its release than the group's previous three albums, debuting at number 44 on the Billboard 200. It also charted at number 3 on the Independent Albums chart, number 5 on the Alternative Albums chart, number 6 on the Top Rock Albums chart, and number 8 on the Digital Albums chart. In the UK, the album charted at number 88 on the Albums Chart, number 17 on the Downloads Chart, number 7 on the Independent Albums Chart, and number 1 on the Independent Albums Breakers Chart. The album also charted at number 81 on the Scottish Albums Chart. Clark later called it "a huge success!"
In 2015, the group found out that "Sad Song" had become their most popular song, despite the song not having a music video nor being performed live on tour. They noticed that the song had accumulated around 20 million plays on Spotify, which Clark initially presumed to be a mistake. Previously, "Check Yes Juliet" was the group's most popular song, selling 2,000 copies per week. "Sad Song", however, was selling 3,000 copies per week. Clark called it "so strange. [...] I just remember finding out that it happened and just being so blown away that for once in our career, we let our fans choose, kind of accidentally, which song we were going to go with." "Sad Song" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in March 2018.
## Track listing
Credits per booklet.
1. "Queen of Hearts" (Travis Clark, Steve Shebby) – 3:34
2. "Find You There" (Clark, Blake Healy) – 3:40
3. "I Feel Alive" (Clark, Healy) – 3:52
4. "I Like It" (Clark, Healy) – 3:19
5. "That Feeling" (Clark, Shebby) – 3:58
6. "See You in My Dreams" (Clark, Healy) – 4:29
7. "Die Young Live Forever" (Clark, Healy, Ryan Daly) – 3:13
8. "Phoenix Hearts" (Clark, Shebby) – 4:04
9. "Any Other Way" (Clark, Healy, Fransisca Hall) – 3:44
10. "Say It Now" (Clark, Healy) – 4:22
11. "Art of War" (Clark, Healy, Kevin Bard, Taylor Clark, Dylan Quagliato) – 4:35
12. "Sad Song" (feat. Elena Coats) (Clark, Bard, David Immerman) – 3:46
13. "Just Keep Breathing" (Clark, Healy, Bard) – 4:05
## Personnel
Personnel per booklet, except where noted.
We the Kings
- Travis Clark – lead vocals, guitar
- Hunter Thomsen – guitar
- Charles Trippy – bass guitar
- Danny Duncan – drums
- Coley O'Toole – keys, guitar,
Additional musicians
- Joe Bucci – additional drums (track 1)
- Jose Carreon – additional guitar (track 7)
Production
- Garrett Davi – additional editing
- Brad Blackwood – mastering
- Evan Blaire – art direction
- Josiah Van Dien – photography
- Steve Shebby – producer (tracks 1, 5, 8 and 12)
- Travis Clark – producer (all tracks)
- Blake Healy – producer (tracks 2–4, 6, 7, 9–11 and 13)
- David Immerman – producer (track 12)
- Jeff Juliano – mixing
## Chart performance
|
984,992 |
Mahākāśyapa
| 1,161,501,285 |
Principal disciple of Gautama Buddha and leader at the First Council
|
[
"5th-century Buddhist monks",
"Arhats",
"Buddhist patriarchs",
"Foremost disciples of Gautama Buddha",
"Indian Buddhist monks"
] |
Mahākāśyapa (Pali: Mahākassapa) was one of the principal disciples of Gautama Buddha. He is regarded in Buddhism as an enlightened disciple, being foremost in ascetic practice. Mahākāśyapa assumed leadership of the monastic community following the paranirvāṇa (death) of the Buddha, presiding over the First Buddhist Council. He was considered to be the first patriarch in a number of Early Buddhist schools and continued to have an important role as patriarch in the Chan and Zen traditions. In Buddhist texts, he assumed many identities, that of a renunciant saint, a lawgiver, an anti-establishment figure, but also a "guarantor of future justice" in the time of Maitreya, the future Buddha—he has been described as "both the anchorite and the friend of mankind, even of the outcast".
In canonical Buddhist texts in several traditions, Mahākāśyapa was born as Pippali in a village and entered an arranged marriage with a woman named Bhadra-Kapilānī. Both of them aspired to lead a celibate life, however, and they decided not to consummate their marriage. Having grown weary of the agricultural profession and the damage it did, they both left the lay life behind to become mendicants. Pippali later met the Buddha, under whom he was ordained as a monk, named Kāśyapa, but later called Mahākāśyapa to distinguish him from other disciples. Mahākāśyapa became an important disciple of the Buddha, to the extent that the Buddha exchanged his robe with him, which was a symbol of the transmittance of the Buddhist teaching. He became foremost in ascetic practices and attained enlightenment shortly after. He often had disputes with Ānanda, the attendant of the Buddha, due to their different dispositions and views. Despite his ascetic, strict and stern reputation, he paid an interest in community matters and teaching, and was known for his compassion for the poor, which sometimes caused him to be depicted as an anti-establishment figure. He had a prominent role in the cremation of the Buddha, acting as a sort of eldest son of the Buddha, as well as being the leader in the subsequent First Council. He is depicted as hesitatingly allowing Ānanda to participate in the council, and chastising him afterwards for a number of offenses the latter was regarded to have committed.
Mahākāśyapa's life as described in the early Buddhist texts has been considerably studied by scholars, who have been skeptical about his role in the cremation, his role toward Ānanda and the historicity of the council itself. A number of scholars have hypothesized that the accounts have later been embellished to emphasize the values of the Buddhist establishment Mahākāśyapa stood for, emphasizing monastic discipline, brahmin and ascetic values, as opposed to the values of Ānanda and other disciples. Regardless, it is clear that Mahākāśyapa had an important role in the early days of the Buddhist community after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, to help establish a stable monastic tradition. He effectively became the leader for the first twenty years after the Buddha, as he had become the most influential figure in the monastic community. For this reason, he was regarded by many early Buddhist schools as a sort of first patriarch, and was seen to have started a lineage of patriarchs of Buddhism.
In many post-canonical texts, Mahākāśyapa decided at the end of his life to enter a state of meditation and suspended animation, which was believed to cause his physical remains to stay intact in a cave under a mountain called Kukkuṭapāda, until the coming of Maitreya Buddha. This story has led to several cults and practices, and affected some Buddhist countries up until early modern times. It has been interpreted by scholars as a narrative to physically connect Gautama Buddha and Maitreya Buddha, through the body of Mahākāśyapa and Gautama Buddha's robe, which covered Mahākāśyapa's remains. In Chan Buddhism, this account was less emphasized, but Mahākāśyapa was seen to have received a special mind-to-mind transmission from Gautama Buddha outside of orthodox scripture, which became essential to the identity of Chan. Again, the robe was an important symbol in this transmission. Apart from having a role in texts and lineage, Mahākāśyapa has often been depicted in Buddhist art as a symbol of reassurance and hope for the future of Buddhism.
## In early Buddhist texts
In the Early Buddhist Texts of several textual traditions, a dozen discourses attributed to Mahākāśyapa have been compiled in a distinct section within several collections of texts. In the Pāli tradition, this is part of the collection called the Saṃyutta Nikāya, and in Chinese Buddhist texts, the collection is called the Saṃyukta Āgama. The latter collection contains two versions of the section on Mahākāśyapa, numbered Taishō 2:99 and 2:100. The Chinese Ekottara Āgama also contains a passage that runs parallel to the Pāli Saṃyutta, T2:99 and T2:100, describing a meeting between the Buddha and Mahākāśyapa, and another passage about him and the monk Bakkula. Finally, there are also Vinaya texts from the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition about Mahākāśyapa in the Tibetan language.
### Early life
Pāli accounts relate that Mahākāśyapa was born Pippali in a brahmin family in a village called Mahātittha, in the kingdom of Magadha, present-day India. His father was a wealthy landlord who in some sources is named Nyagrodha, and in other sources Kapila or Kosigotta; his mother was Sumanādevī. His body had some of the thirty-two characteristics of a Great Man (Sanskrit: Mahāpuruṣalakṣaṇa; Pali: Mahāpurissalakkhaṇa), which in Buddhism are seen as the characteristics of a future Buddha. From his youth onward, he was inclined toward living a spiritual life rather than marrying, but his father wanted him to wed. To send his father on a wild goose chase, he agreed to marry but then produced a perfect golden statue of a woman, and asked his father to find him a woman that matched the statue. Four copies of the image were taken throughout the country to find the right woman. A brahmin from Kapila had a daughter called Bhadra-Kapilānī (Pali: Bhaddā-kapilānī), who had no interest in a family life either. However, her parents wanted her to marry, and to please her mother, she agreed to pay her respects to a shrine of a goddess known for granting a marriage in a high-class family. When she approached the image, however, people noticed that the image appeared ugly compared to her. Her reputation of beauty spread, and soon after Pippali's family learned about her, she was offered in marriage to Pippali.
Next, in the Pāli version of the story, the two exchanged letters to indicate their lack of interest, only to find their letters intercepted by their parents and being forced to marry anyway. In the Mūlasarvāstivāda version of the story, however, Pippali went to visit Bhadra, and without revealing his identity, told her that her future husband would be a bad choice for her, because he had no interest in sensual pleasures. She replied she also did not care for such matters, whereupon he revealed that he was her future husband. Both versions relate that the two agreed to marry and to live celibately, to the chagrin of Pippali's parents.
Pippali is depicted in the Pāli version as very wealthy, using much perfume and possessing much land and chariots. Later, in the Pāli version, Pippali and Bhadra saw animals eating each other on the fertile fields as they were plowed by their workers. The sight brought pity and fear to them, and they determined to live mendicant lives instead, and leave the agricultural business behind. In the Mūlasarvāstivāda version, it was the pitiful sight of the workers instead which brought Pippali to leave his lay life. The two went their separate ways, as not to grow any attachment to each other, and to prevent gossip and disrepute.
### Meeting the Buddha
Shortly after that, Pippali met the Buddha, was struck with devotion when seeing him, and asked to be ordained under him. Thenceforth, he was called Kāśyapa. As he ordained him, the Buddha gave three directives to practice: Kāśyapa should develop a "lively sense of fear and regard" towards his fellow monastics, regardless of their status; Kāśyapa should attentively listen and practice the teachings of the Buddha (Sanskrit: Dharma; Pali: Dhamma); and he should live in mindfulness.
When the two met, (or in some versions, some time later) Mahākāśyapa exchanged his fine and expensive robe with that of the Buddha, a robe made of rags. The exchange came to be seen as a gesture of great respect the Buddha had made. It was unprecedented, and a sign that Mahākāśyapa would preside over the First Council after the Buddha's demise. Texts from different traditions suggest that only a person with the great merit as Mahākāśyapa would be able to wear the robe. The only reason the robe was highly valuable was that it had been worn by the Buddha. In itself it was not valuable, because it came from the lowest source, that is, a female slave's corpse discarded in a charnel ground. This also echoed an earlier exchange that took place after the Buddha's Great Renunciation, when he swapped his lay robes with a hunter in the forest. Finally, the fact that it was a rag-robe contributed to the ascetic identity of the figure of Mahākaśyapa.
Throughout cultures, "inalienable possessions", often textiles, were symbols of authority and continuity in a family. Gautama Buddha giving his robe to Mahākāśyapa in the latter's early monastic years demonstrated a deep sense of respect for this disciple. Mahākāśyapa was seen to safeguard this robe to pass on to the future Buddha. Thus, the robe came to represent a passing on of the transmission of Buddhist teachings, and Mahākāśyapa became a symbol of the continuity of the Buddha's dispensation. In this context, the rag-robe was also associated in several Asian cultures with gestation, birth, rebirth, impermanence and death.
### Monastic life
The Buddha exhorted Mahākāśyapa that he should practice himself "for the welfare and happiness of the multitude" and impressed upon him that he should take upon himself ascetic practices (Sanskrit: dhūtaguṇa, Pali: dhutaṅga). Accordingly, Mahākāśyapa took upon him the thirteen ascetic practices (including living in the wilderness, living only from alms and wearing rag-robes) and became an enlightened disciple (arahat) in nine days. He was then called 'Kāśyapa the Great' (Sanskrit: Mahākāśyapa), because of his good qualities, and to distinguish him from other monks with the same name.
Mahākāśyapa was one of the most revered of the Buddha's disciples, the renunciant par excellence. He was praised by the Buddha as foremost in ascetic practices (Pali: dhutavādānaṃ) and a foremost forest dweller. He excelled in supernatural accomplishments (Pali: iddhi; Sanskrit: ṛddhi) and was equal to the Buddha in meditative absorption (Pali: jhāna; Sanskrit: dhyāna). He is depicted as a monk with great capacity to tolerate discomfort and contentment with the bare necessities of life. In one discourse found in the Pāli and Chinese collections, the Buddha advised Mahākāśyapa that having grown old, he should give up ascetic practices and live close to the Buddha. Mahākāśyapa declined, however. When the Buddha asked him to explain, Mahākāśyapa said he found the practices of benefit to himself. He also argued he could be an example for incoming generations of practitioners. The Buddha agreed with him, and affirmed the benefits of ascetic practices, which he had himself praised for a long time. A second discourse found in the Pāli and two Chinese collections has Mahākāśyapa meet the Buddha as he was wearing simple rag-robes and, according to the Chinese versions, his hair and beard long. Other monks criticized Mahākāśyapa for not looking appropriate when meeting his master. The Buddha responded by praising Mahākāśyapa, however. In the Chinese versions, the Buddha even went so far as to allow Mahākāśyapa to share his seat, but Mahākāśyapa politely declined. When Mahākāśyapa fell ill once, the Buddha went to visit him and reminded him of his efforts in practicing the Buddhist teaching.
### Relation with Ānanda
Mahākāśyapa and Ānanda were fellow disciples of the Buddha. Ānanda was the Buddha's close attendant. Mahākāśyapa is often depicted in the early texts as acting critically toward Ānanda. For example, one time Mahākāśyapa chastised Ānanda in strong words, criticizing the fact that Ānanda was travelling with a large following of young monks who appeared untrained and who had built up a bad reputation. According to the early texts, Ānanda's role in founding the bhikṣunī (nun) order made him popular with the bhikṣunīs. Ānanda often taught them, often encouraged women to ordain, and when he was criticized by Mahākāśyapa, several bhikṣunīs tried to defend him. Another time, shortly after the passing away of the Buddha, Mahākāśyapa gave a teaching to bhikṣunīs in the presence of Ānanda, to which one bhikṣunī, called Sthūlanandā (Pali: Thullanandā), responded by criticizing Mahākāśyapa. She felt it inappropriate that Mahākāśyapa should teach in Ānanda's presence, whom she thought of as the superior monk. Mahākāśyapa asked whether Ānanda agreed with her, but he dismissed her as a foolish woman. Then Mahākāśyapa proceeded to have Ānanda admit that the Buddha publicly had acknowledged Mahākāśyapa for numerous attainments. Sri Lankan scholar Karaluvinna hypothesizes that Mahākāśyapa did this to dispel doubts about his role as leader of the saṃgha (Pali: saṅgha; monastic community). In a similar event, Mahākāśyapa reprimanded Ānanda for not taking responsibility for his pupils. In this case, Sthūlanandā heavily criticized Mahākāśyapa for doing so, and accused him in a hateful rush for having been an adherent of a non-Buddhist religious sect. In some accounts, she even undressed herself in front of him to insult him. He tried to convince her that he was a legitimate disciple of the Buddha but to no avail. Shortly after, she left the nun's life and, in some accounts, died and was reborn in hell.
According to Indologist Oskar von Hinüber, Ānanda's pro-bhikṣunī attitude may well be the reason why there was frequent dispute between Ānanda and Mahākāśyapa. Disputes that eventually led Mahākāśyapa to charge Ānanda with several offenses during the First Buddhist Council, and possibly caused two factions in the saṃgha to emerge, connected with these two disciples.
In general, Mahākāśyapa was known for his aloofness and love of solitude. But as a teacher, he was a stern mentor who held himself and his fellow renunciates against high standards. He was considered worthy of reverence, but also a sharp critic who impressed upon others that respect to him was due. Compared to Ānanda, he was much colder and stricter, but also more impartial and detached, and religion scholar Reiko Ohnuma argues that these broad differences in character explain the events between Mahākāśyapa and Ānanda better than the more specific idea of pro- and anti-bhikṣunī stances. Pāli scholar Rune Johansson (1918–1981) argued that the events surrounding Mahākāśyapa, Ānanda and the bhikṣunīs prove that in Buddhism, enlightened disciples can still be seen to make mistakes. Going against this, however, Buddhist studies scholar Bhikkhu Analayo hypothesizes that Mahākāśyapa chose to teach Ānanda to abandon favoritism and left the bhikṣunīs for Ānanda himself to deal with.
### Teacher and mentor
Pāli texts state that the Buddha regarded Mahākāśyapa as his equal in exhorting monks to lead active and zealous lives, and the Buddha praised him for his capacity to instill faith in lay people by teaching. Karaluvinna believes that the Buddha may have been grooming Mahākāśyapa for his later role as leader of the saṃgha. In the Saṃyutta discourses featuring Mahākāśyapa in the Pāli and its Chinese parallels, Mahākāśyapa is raised as an example of teaching doctrine from a pure and compassionate intention. Religion scholar Shayne Clarke argues that the aloof and austere ascetic as he is presented in most texts does not provide a complete picture. Anālayo notes that he did take an active concern in community matters, spent time teaching doctrine and persuaded fellow monastics to practice asceticism. This is also shown in his role as leader of the First Council. The Sanskrit Mahākarmavibhaṅga states that Mahākāśyapa carried out important teaching work, and was able to bring Buddhism to the people in the northwest, starting with Avanti.
However, because of his stern tone of teaching and his being selective in people to teach, his teaching style came under criticism by other monks and bhikṣunīs: he was not popular, especially among bhikṣunīs. This caused him to gradually withdraw from teaching, Anālayo argues. Such an ideal of an enlightened disciple with ascetic values, as depicted in Mahākāśyapa and in a more extreme form in the disciple Bakkula, could reflect sentiments and inclinations among some groups of early Buddhists.
Clarke argues that the image of Mahākāśyapa as a detached ascetic was the way he was "branded" by the early Buddhists to the public in general. Studying Mūlasarvāstivāda texts of monastic discipline, Clarke points out that there is also an "in-house" perspective on Mahākāśyapa, which shows that he interacted with his former wife turned bhikṣunī frequently to mentor her. Shortly after Mahākāśyapa became ordained under the Buddha, he met his former wife Bhadra, who had joined an order of naked ascetics led by Nirgrantha Pūraṇa (Pali: Pūraṇa Kassapa). She was regularly targeted for rape by her fellow ascetics, however. Mahākāśyapa pitied her and persuaded her to become ordained as a Buddhist bhikṣunī instead. Nevertheless, she was still harassed often, but now only when going outside. Since this happened when Bhadra went out in villages to obtain alms, Mahākāśyapa requested the Buddha's permission to daily give half of the alms food he had gained to her, so she did not need to go out anymore. His actions came under criticism, however, from a group of monks called the Group of Six, as well as Sthūlanandā. Although these monastics were known for their misbehavior, Clarke thinks their criticism was probably indicative of "the general monastic ambivalence toward those of an ascetic bent". Writing about Sthūlanandā, Ohnuma says that Sthūlanandā went against the idea of detachment and renunciation as generally advocated in early Buddhist monasticism, which is why she hated Mahākāśyapa and Bhadra. She expressed criticism of Mahākāśyapa often, even when he did not act with typical ascetic detachment. Regardless, Mahākāśyapa continued to guide his former wife and she attained arhat (Pali: arahant) afterwards. In a poem attributed to her, she praises her ex-husband's gifts, shared vision of the truth and spiritual friendship. Mahākāśyapa did not mention her in his poems, though.
Mahākāśyapa was sometimes consulted by other leading monks on points of doctrine. After some teachers from non-Buddhist sects asked the elder Śāriputra about the unanswered questions, he consulted with Mahākāśyapa as to why the Buddha had never given an answer to these questions. At another occasion, Śāriputra consulted him about developing efforts in the practice of Buddhist teachings. Mahākāśyapa was also Śroṇa-Koṭikarṇa's (Pali: Soṇa-Koṭikaṇṇa) teacher and friend of the family, and later his upādhyāya (Pali: upajjhāya). He taught the Aṭṭhakavagga to him, and later Śroṇa became well known for the recitation of it.
Another aspect of Mahākāśyapa's role as teacher was his compassion for the poor. Numerous accounts describe how he went out of his way to give impoverished donors the chance to give to him and support him in his livelihood. Such donors would typically provide him with secondhand food, which in the culture of Brahminism at the time was considered impure. By receiving food from these donors, Mahākāśyapa was considered a field of merit for them, or, in other words, an opportunity for them to make merit and "vanquish their bad karma". In one case, he sought out a very poor woman who was at the end of her life, just to give her an opportunity to give a little. At first she did not dare to because she felt the food's quality was too low, but when Mahākāśyapa kept waiting, she eventually realized he had just come for her, and gave. Religion scholar Liz Wilson argues that these accounts of generosity have been influenced by pre-Buddhist beliefs of Vedic sacrifice, in which the sacrificer and the sacrificed are connected, and the offering contains something of the person offering. By giving something of themselves, the donors acquire a new self, and purify themselves by means of the monastic recipient. In one account, a leprose person accidentally lets her finger fall off in a bowl of food she is offering. Mahākāśyapa accepts and consumes the offering anyway. Further, Mahākāśyapa's choice for poor people to make merit is further amplified by having supernatural or extraordinary donors like deities or a wealthy merchant compete with the poor, and Mahākāśyapa accepting only the poor as donor. In one discourse, he even advises other monastics against visiting "high-born families". The poor donors making an offering to Mahākāśyapa thus become empowered with a high status and power through their merit-making. Wilson surmises, "[t]he perfect donor, in Mahakassapa's eyes, is the donor who has the least to give...".
Mahākāśyapa's insistence on accepting offerings from the poor and refusing those from high-standing or supernatural donors was part of the anti-establishment character with which Mahākāśyapa is depicted. This also includes his long hair and beard. In one text, Mahākāśyapa's refusal of high-profile donors led to the Buddha issuing a rule that donations must not be refused.
### Final respects to the Buddha
According to the early Pāli discourse about the Buddha's last days and passing into Nirvāṇa (Pali: Mahāparinibbāna Sutta), Mahākāśyapa learnt about the Buddha's parinirvāṇa (Pali: parnibbāna; death and attainment of final Nirvāṇa) after seven days. He was resting from a journey with a following of monks when he met an ājīvika ascetic who was carrying a flower from a coral tree which originated from heaven. He asked him about the flower, and it turned out that the entire area of Kuśinagara (Pali: Kusinara), where the Buddha had passed away, was covered in it. According to some Tibetan sources, however, Mahākāśyapa knew of the Buddha's passing because of an earthquake. In the Pāli texts, Mahākāśyapa then rushed back from the Pāva Mountain to arrive in Kuśinagara seven days later. But in the Tibetan texts, Mahākāśyapa was concerned that King Ajātaśatru might die of shock when he heard of the Buddha's passing. He therefore warned a brahmin who worked at the court, who was able to prevent the king from dying. Only then did he proceed to Kuśinagara.
It turned out the Malla people from Kuśinagara had attempted to light the funeral pyre of the Buddha but were unable to. Pāli accounts state that the monk Anuruddha explained to them that deities prevented the funeral pyre from being lit until the arrival of Mahākāśyapa, although sixth-century Chinese Buddhist texts say it was the spiritual power of the Buddha instead which caused the delay. The accounts continue that Mahākāśyapa paid "deep and tender homage" at the Buddha's feet. The Buddha's feet miraculously emerged from the coffin, in which the Buddha's body was enshrouded with many layers of cloth. As soon as he had finished, the pyre lit spontaneously, although in some versions, Mahākāśyapa lit the pyre himself in the traditional Indian role of the eldest son.
Buddhologist André Bareau (1921–1993) regarded the episode of Mahākāśyapa learning of the Buddha's parinirvāṇa and his lighting of the pyre as an embellishment that was inserted by authors of monastic discipline over the fifth, fourth and third centuries BCE, to emphasize the person of Mahākāśyapa. Bareau reasoned that Mahākāśyapa did not attend the Buddha's cremation in the original version, and that Mahākāśyapa could have taken a route of just a few hours via Pāva to Kuśinagara. Regardless, the story of the delay and of Mahākāśyapa eventually lighting the funeral pyre indicates how much Mahākāśyapa was respected, as he was regarded as the most important heir to the Buddha's dispensation.
### First Buddhist Council
#### Narratives
When the Buddha had attained parinirvāṇa (death), and when Mahākāśyapa was reportedly 120 years old, the number of disciples that had once met the Buddha or had attained enlightenment was shrinking. Some monks, among them a monk called Subhadra (Pali: Subhadda), expressed satisfaction that they could now do as they pleased, because their teacher the Buddha was no longer there to prohibit them from anything. Some Chinese and Tibetan texts state that there was "doubt and consternation" among many disciples. The Sanskrit Aśokavadāna and the Chinese Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra say that many enlightened disciples wished to stop teaching, leave the world behind and attain paranirvāṇa. This alarmed Mahākāśyapa, and he successfully attempted to stop his fellow disciples from leaving the world. To record the Buddha's discourses and preserve monastic discipline, Mahākāśyapa set up the First Buddhist Council. According to the texts, the First Buddhist Council was held in a cave called Saptaparṇaguhā in Rājagṛha (Pali: Sattapaṇṇaguhā; Rājagaha, present-day Rajgir), which was the site of many Buddhist discourses. In the first rains retreat (Sanskrit: varṣa, Pali: vassa) after the Buddha had died, Mahākāśyapa called upon Ānanda to recite the discourses he had heard, as a representative on this council. There was a rule issued, however, that only arhats were allowed to attend the council, to prevent bias like favoritism or sectarianism from clouding the disciples' memories. Ānanda had not attained enlightenment yet. Mahākāśyapa therefore did not yet allow Ānanda to attend. Although he knew that Ānanda's presence in the council was required, he did not want to be biased by allowing an exception to the rule. The Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition adds that Mahākāśyapa initially allowed Ānanda to join as a sort of servant assisting during the council, but then was forced to remove him when the disciple Anuruddha saw that Ānanda was not yet enlightened.
Nevertheless, that night, Ānanda was able to attain enlightenment. When the Council began the next morning, Mahākāśyapa questioned Upāli, to establish the texts on monastic discipline for monks and bhikṣuṇis. Ānanda was consulted to recite the discourses and to determine which were authentic and which were not. Mahākāśyapa asked of each discourse that Ānanda listed where, when, and to whom it was given. Then the assembly agreed that Ānanda's memories and recitations were correct, after which the discourse collection (Sanskrit: Sūtra Piṭaka, Pali: Sutta Piṭaka) was considered finalized and closed. In some versions of the account, the Abhidharma (Pali: Abhidhamma) was also standardized during this council, or rather its precursor the Mātṛka. Some texts say it was Mahākāśyapa who reviewed it, and other texts say it was Ānanda or Śāriputra. During the recitations, one problem was raised. Before the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, he had mentioned to Ānanda that, if required, minor rules could be abolished after his passing. Now the question remained what the Buddha had meant when he said minor rules. The monks present at the council discussed several possibilities, but it was not resolved. To prevent disrepute of the saṃgha and criticism from non-Buddhists, Mahākāśyapa opposed to abolish any rules of discipline. After the council, Mahákáyapa attempted to have the monks Gavāmpati and Purāṇa approve the results of the council, but both preferred not to give their opinion about the matter.
During the same council, Ānanda was charged for an offense by Mahākāśyapa and other members of the saṅgha for having enabled women to join the monastic order. Besides this, he was charged for having forgotten to request the Buddha to specify which offenses of monastic discipline could be disregarded; for having stepped on the Buddha's robe; for having allowed women to honor the Buddha's body after his death, which was not properly covered, and during which his body was sullied by their tears; and for having failed to ask the Buddha to continue to live on. Ānanda did not acknowledge these as offenses, but he conceded to do a formal confession anyway, "... in faith of the opinion of the venerable elder monks".
#### Historicity
The most well-known version of the First Council is that of Mahākāśyapa being the head. However, texts of the Sarvāstivāda, Mūlasarvāstivāda, and Mahīśāsaka traditions relate that this was Ājñāta Kauṇḍinya (Pali: Añña-Koṇḍañña) instead, as Kauṇḍinya was the most senior disciple. Buddhologist Jean Przyluski (1885–1944) argued that the earliest accounts placed Kauṇḍinya at the head of the saṃgha, and that originally, Mahākāśyapa was a conventional figure, with no administrative or leading role. However, because of his unquestioned ascetic saint-like reputation, Mahākāśyapa came to replace Kauṇḍinya's role as leader during the cremation and the First Council. Przyluski's theory has been criticized, however, on the grounds that it is difficult to maintain that the three textual traditions he mentioned are the oldest. Still, Bareau argued that the incident with Subhadra leading to Mahākāśyapa summoning the council is a later insertion, though early enough to be found in all traditions of early Buddhist texts. He believed it was the authors of texts of monastic discipline that inserted it shortly after the Buddha's passing away, at the end of the fifth century BCE, to glorify Mahākāśyapa.
Tradition states that the First Council lasted for seven months. However, many scholars, from the late 19th century onward, have considered the historicity of the First Council improbable. Some scholars, such as Orientalist Ivan Minayev (1840–1890), thought there must have been assemblies after the Buddha's death, but considered only the main characters and some events before or after the First Council historical, and not the council itself. Other scholars, such as Bareau and Indologist Hermann Oldenberg (1854–1920), considered it likely that the account of the First Council was written after the Second Council, and based on that of the Second, since there were not any major problems to solve after the Buddha's death, or any other need to organize the First Council. On the other hand, archaeologist Louis Finot (1864–1935) and Indologist E. E. Obermiller [ru] (1901–1935) thought the account of the First Council was authentic, because of the correspondences between the Pāli texts and the Sanskrit traditions. Orientalist Louis de La Vallée-Poussin (1869–1938) and Indologist Nalinaksha Dutt (1893–1973) thought it was historical, but in the form of a simple recitation of discipline (Sanskrit: prātimokṣa, Pali: pātimokkha; according to Dutt, in order settle the "minor rules") not a complete council with a full review of the discourses. Indologist Richard Gombrich, following Bhikkhus Sujato and Brahmali's arguments, considers that the Council "makes good sense". They argue that the Council was historical, because all the known versions of monastic discipline relate it. Some of those, such as the Theravāda discipline, do not include the recitation of the Abhidharma in their account, even though it was an important part of their identity—this shows the historical nature of the accounts.
Indologist Erich Frauwallner (1898–1974) noted that in the earliest Buddhist discourses little mention is made of Mahākāśyapa, especially when compared to Ānanda. However, in the accounts about the First Council, Mahākāśyapa appears very prominent, whereas Ānanda is humbled and given far less credit. Frauwallner argued this points at "a deep reaching modification and revaluation of the tradition" concerning the position of these two figures. On a similar note, Buddhist studies scholar Jonathan Silk remarks that the earliest Chinese translations hardly mention Mahākāśyapa. Ray argues there is a difference in this between Pāli texts and texts from other early schools: the Pāli version of Mahākāśyapa is a much more ordinary person, depicted with far less supernatural powers and moral authority than in texts such as those from the Mūlasarvāstivāda discipline and in the Mahāvastu. Although there are some Pāli texts that do emphasize forest renunciation, these are fragmented elements that stand in stark contrast with Mahākāśyapa's general role in the Pāli history of the monastic establishment.
Von Hinüber, Przyluski and Bareau have argued that the account of Ānanda being charged with offenses during the council indicate tensions between competing Early Buddhist schools, i.e. schools that emphasized the discourses and schools that emphasized monastic discipline. These differences have affected the scriptures of each tradition: e.g. the Pāli and Mahīśāsaka textual traditions portray a Mahākāśyapa that is more critical of Ānanda than that the Sarvāstivāda tradition depicts him, reflecting a preference for discipline on the part of the former traditions, and a preference for discourse for the latter. Analyzing six recensions of different textual traditions of the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta extensively, Bareau distinguished two layers in the text, an older and a newer one, the former, fifth century BCE, belonging to the compilers that emphasized discourse, the latter, mostly fourth and third century BCE, to the ones that emphasized discipline; the former emphasizing the figure of Ānanda, the latter Mahākāśyapa. Buddhologist André Migot (1892–1967) argued, too, that the oldest texts (fifth century BCE) mostly glorify Ānanda as being the most well-learned (Sanskrit: bahuśruta, Pali: bahussutta); a second series of newer texts (fourth century-early third century BCE) glorify Mahākāśyapa as being eminent in discipline (Sanskrit: śīla, Pali: sīla); and the newest texts (mid third century BCE) glorify Śāriputra as being the wisest (Sanskrit: prajñā, Pali: paññā). Mahākāśyapa was mostly associated with the texts of monastic discipline, during the fourth century until early third century BCE when Buddhism was prominent in Vaiśālī. Bareau, Przyluski and Indologist I. B. Horner (1896–1981) therefore argued that the offenses Ānanda were charged with were a later interpolation. Scholar of religion Ellison Banks Findly disagrees, however, because the account in the texts of monastic discipline fits in with the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta and with Ānanda's character as generally depicted in the texts. Minayev thought the charges were an ancient tradition, because they are not usually the material of legends, because the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (602–664) reported a stūpa (Pali: thūpa; a memorial mound or monument) that was erected in memory of the event, and because the ambiguity about what constitutes major and minor rules would have been typical for that period.
Expanding on the theory of the two factions, Przyluski noted that the figure of Ānanda represents Buddhism in an early form, whereas Mahākaśyapa represents a Buddhism that had undergone reform. Ānanda represents a "religion of love", whereas Mahākaśyapa represents "a rough ascetic spirit". Migot interpreted Ānanda's figure as a devotionalist form of Buddhism focused on the guru, replaced by Mahākāśyapa's established monasticism with less focus on devotion.
Although the Buddha did not appoint a formal successor, Mahākāśyapa's leading role and seniority effectively made him the head of the saṃgha during the first twenty years after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa. After the passing away of the Buddha and his close disciples Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana, he had become the most influential figure in the Buddhist order. In the Early Buddhist Texts, Mahākāśyapa's death is not discussed. This is discussed in post-canonical texts, however.
## In post-canonical texts
### Patriarch
In many Indian Sanskrit and East Asian texts, from as early as the second century CE, Mahākāśyapa is considered the first patriarch of the lineage which transmitted the teaching of the Buddha, with Ānanda being the second. One of the earliest motifs of a tradition of patriarchs is that of the Five Masters of the Dharma (Sanskrit: dharmācārya), found in Sanskrit texts from the second century CE, including the Aśokāvadāna and the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, and many archaeological findings. This tradition may in itself be based on early Buddhist accounts about the First Council, but further expanded on the idea of the preservation of the teachings. The accounts about the Five Masters seems to derive not so much from a concern about the transmission of the teaching though, but rather a concern regarding the absence of the Buddha himself. The texts gave the Masters of the Dharma each a similar role and charisma as the Buddha, or, as Buddhist studies scholar John S. Strong puts it, "all, in a sense, Buddhas in their own time". This fit in with the concept of inheritance in ancient India, in which a son would not only inherit his father's possessions, but also his position and identity. Several early Buddhist schools would expand on the idea of the Five Masters of the Dharma, including the Sarvāstivadins, the Mūlasarvāstivādins and the Sthāviras, each of which extended the list to include their own masters as patriarchs.
There is an account dating back from the Sarvāstivāda and Mūlasarvāstivāda textual traditions which states that before Mahākāśyapa died, he bestowed the Buddha's teaching on Ānanda as a formal passing on of authority, telling Ānanda to pass the teaching on to his pupil Śāṇakavāsī (Pali: Saṇavāsī; Śāṇakavāsin or Śāṇāvasika). Mahākāśyapa made a prediction that later would come true that a lay person called Śāṇakavāsī would make many gifts to the saṅgha during a feast. After this event, Ānanda would successfully persuade him to become ordained and be his pupil. Later, just before Ānanda died, he passed the teaching on to his pupil as Mahākāśyapa had told him to. Ray notes that Mahākāśyapa is depicted here as choosing not only his successor, but also the successor of his successor, which emphasizes the preeminent position that Mahākāśyapa was seen to have.
Buddhist studies scholars Akira Hirakawa (1915–2002) and Bibhuti Baruah have expressed skepticism about the teacher–student relationship between Mahākāśyapa and Ānanda. They have argued that there was discord between the two, as indicated in the early texts. Hirakawa has further hypothesized that Mahākāśyapa and Ānanda were co-disciples, with the same teacher being Gautama Buddha, so there would be no need for a transmission between the two. East Asian religion scholar Elizabeth Morrison cites a tract by the Zen scholar Qisong (1007–1072) about the tradition of patriarchs in Buddhism. He noted the problem of a transmission between co-disciples who are not master and student. He resolved the problem by comparing Mahākāśyapa and Ānanda to siblings who inherit according to birth order. Responding to Hirakawa's arguments, Silk further argues that the unilinear nature of the transmission made it impossible for both Mahākāśyapa and Ānanda to receive the transmission from the Buddha, so Ānanda had to receive the transmission from Mahākāśyapa instead.
### Preserving the Buddha's relics
The fifth-century commentary to the Dīgha Nikāya relates that after the Buddha's paranirvāṇa, Mahākāśyapa was concerned that the Buddha's remains or relics would become too dispersed, since they were now divided in eight portions. He gathered the portions of the Buddha's relics, by requesting them from the families who had preserved them, though he left a token amount of relics with the families. With the help of King Ajātaśatru, he then preserved them in an underground chamber called the "shrine for the eighty disciples" to the east of Rājagṛha. Because of the name, Southeast Asia scholar François Lagirarde raises the question whether this chamber may also have been intended for the burial of relics of foremost disciples, but Strong interprets that it was a ruse: the whole operation was done in secrecy because Mahākāśyapa feared for the safety of the Buddha's relics. Later, according to post-canonical Buddhist texts such as the Theravāda Paṭhamasambodhi, the remains thus enshrined in one place were taken out and divided by emperor Aśoka (c.268–232 BCE) throughout India in 84,000 portions. Instead of the relics being hid away somewhere, they were now accessible to the population at large.
The earliest accounts have Mahākāśyapa merely visit and pay his respects to each of the eight portions of the relics; later accounts have him gather the relics as well. There is a parallel here with the First Council, in which Mahākāśyapa gathered the entire body of the Buddha's teachings (Sanskrit: dharmakāya; Pali: dhammakāya) in one place, as he is depicted gathering the Buddha's remains (Sanskrit and Pali: rūpakāya) in one place. Still, there may be a historical basis to the motif of the single place with the Buddha's relics. Przyluski and Bareau have argued on textual and other grounds that the Buddha's relics were originally kept in one single place, in a sepulcher (Przyluski) or a stūpa (Bareau).
### Awaiting Maitreya
#### Accounts
Post-canonical Sanskrit texts such as Avadānas, as well as the travelogues of medieval Chinese pilgrims, numerous Chinese translations, and Southeast Asian vernacular texts, relate Mahākāśyapa's death. Some of the earliest of these are a Chinese translation from the fourth century CE and the Aśokavadāna, which is dated to the second century CE. They state that Mahākāśyapa's body was enshrined underneath the mountain Kukkuṭapāda ( Gurupādaka, in Magadha) where it remains until the arising of the next Buddha, Maitreya (Pali: Mettiya).
A Thai text relates that Mahākāśyapa knew through his meditation that he was about to die and attain paranirvāṇa on the next day. The day after, he informed his pupils of his death and taught them, then went for alms, wearing the robe he had received from the Buddha. In the texts on discipline from the Mūlasarvāstivāda tradition, it says he also went to pay his respects to the Buddha's relics. In several texts, he attempted to visit King Ajātaśatru, but the king was asleep. Mahākāśyapa then cleaned the monastery, and proceeded to Kukkuṭapāda, the place of burial he had selected. He gave a final teaching to the lay people, and performed supernatural accomplishments.
Having settled in a cave there in the middle of three peaks, he covered himself in the robe he had received from the Buddha. The texts then state he took a vow that his body would stay there until the arriving of Maitreya Buddha, which is an uncountable number of years. His body would not decay in that time, but become visible and disintegrate in the time of Maitreya Buddha. Though Mahākāśyapa died after the vow, his body remained intact according to his resolution. The three mountain peaks then closed in on the body. Later, King Ajātaśatru heard about the news of Mahākāśyapa's passing, and fainted of grief. He wanted to visit Mahākāśyapa once more. Ānanda and King Ajātaśatru went to the mountain, which slightly opened, just enough for the two to see Mahākāśyapa's body. In the Mūlasarvāstivāda discipline and the Aśokāvadāna, the king wanted to cremate the body, but Ānanda told him it would remain until the time of Maitreya Buddha. When they left, the mountain closed up again. Later, emperor Aśoka would also visit the mountain with the monk Upagupta, after the latter took him to see the stūpa of the Buddha's disciples.
The accounts then continue that in the future, in the time of Maitreya Buddha, the mountain opens upon his visit, in "the way a cakravartin opens a city gate". However, people in Maitreya Buddha's time are much taller than during the time of Gautama Buddha. In one text, Maitreya Buddha's disciples are therefore contemptuous of Mahākāśyapa, whose head is no larger than an insect to them. Gautama Buddha's robe barely covers two of their fingers, making them marvel how small Gautama Buddha was. Eventually, in several accounts, Maitreya Buddha takes Mahākāśyapa's body in his hands, explains to his pupils what great person he was, and sees the body miraculously burn in his hands, according to Mahākāśyapa's vow. But in the well-known account of Xuanzang, as well as the Tocharian Maitreyasamitināṭaka and other accounts, Mahākāśyapa is alive and waiting in his "cavern of meditation", until the time of Maitreya: he hands over the robe to Maitreya Buddha explaining who it is from, and expresses his joy at having met two Buddhas. He then hovers in the air, displays supernatural accomplishments that are reminiscent of Gautama Buddha, and bursts miraculously into flames. In the Mūlasarvāstivāda discipline and the Aśokāvadāna, the account ends with Maitreya Buddha's disciples attaining arhat, as the encounter has caused their pride to be humbled.
#### Cults and practices
The Kukkuṭapāda Mountain was identified by traditional authors with several places in North India, and some of these places had become famous place of pilgrimage and cult by the time the Chinese pilgrim Faxian (337–c.422 CE) and later Xuanzang visited. These pilgrimage places, featuring depictions of Mahākāśyapa, have been connected by Buddhist studies scholar Vincent Tournier with an aspiration to be born in Maitreya's following.
In sixth-century Chinese steles, Mahākāśyapa is often depicted waiting for Maitreya Buddha in the cave, cloaked in the robe and a hood. He is given a role as successor of the Gautama Buddha. Buddhist studies scholar Miyaji Akira proposes that Mahākāśyapa waiting in the cave became the basis of a theme in Korean Buddhist art featuring monks meditating in caves. Korean studies scholar Sunkyung Kim does point out, however, that similar motifs can already be found in earlier Buddhist art, showing Buddha Gautama sitting. The story of Mahākāśyapa awaiting Maitreya Buddha had an important impact in Japan, up until early modern times. Jikigyō (1671–c.1724), the leader of a chiliastic religious movement, locked himself in his monastic cell to starve to death, and have his mummified corpse meet with Maitreya Buddha in the future.
With regard to South- and Southeast Asia, the interest in the relationship between Maitreya and Mahākāśyapa spread to Ceylon during the reign of Kassapa II (652–661) and Kassapa V (929–939). They most likely honored Mahākāśyapa for his role in the Abhidharma recitations at the First Council. Kassapa V identified with Mahākāśyapa (Pali: Mahākassapa) and aspired to be reborn with Maitreya as well. Presently, the account of Mahākāśyapa's parinirvāṇa is not widely recognized in dominant Buddhist traditions in Thailand, but Lagirarde raises the question whether this is only a recent development. It is still a common belief among the Thai that the body of a very pure and venerated monk will not decompose.
#### Scholarly analysis
In the early texts, Mahākāśyapa is depicted as the keeper of the Buddhist teaching during the First Council; in the story of him awaiting Maitreya Buddha this role is extended. In some early Chinese texts, Mahākāśyapa is seen stating to Ānanda that all devotees present at the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha Gautama will be reborn in Tusita heaven and meet Maitreya; in the story of the cave this association with Maitreya is further extended. Since the end of Mahākāśyapa's life after the First Council was not discussed in the early texts, his demise, or the postponement thereof, naturally gave rise to legends.
Tournier speculates that the story of Mahākāśyapa resolving that his body endure until the next Buddha is a "conscious attempt to dress the arhat in a bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) garb". On a similar note, Strong argues the story shows sentiments that are at the root of the bodhisattva ideal, and may have led to the idea of the Eighteen Arhats (pinyin: lo-han) that "postpone" their death to protect the Buddhist teaching till the arrival of Maitreya. Indologist Padmanabh Jaini argues that the story was created by the Mūlasarvāstivādins to connect Maitreya Buddha to Gautama Buddha, through a line of transmission. In this, they may have been influenced by the Indo-Greeks and Persians, who ruled the area where the Mūlasarvāstivādins lived. Historian Max Deeg raises the question, however, that if Jaini is correct, why no traces of an early development of the legend can be found. Silk also hypothesizes that the story was developed by Mahāyāna authors to create a narrative to connect the two Buddhas physically through Mahākāśyapa's paranirvāṇa and the passing on of the robe. Lagirarde notes, however, that not all Āgama sources insist on connecting the two Buddhas. Furthermore, Pāli, Thai and Laotian sources do not mention the passing on of the robe, yet the meeting is still narrated as significant. Silk also notes that the Sanskrit texts the Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra, the Mahāprajñāpāramitōpadeśa and the Divyāvadāna contain the story of Mahākāśyapa under the mountain, and do not mention the robe of the Buddha at all. But in every version of the account there is a physical connection between Gautama Buddha, Mahākāśyapa and Maitreya Buddha. He concludes that Mahāyāna authors used Mahākāśyapa as a way to legitimize the Mahāyāna teachings, by affirming that there were more authentic teachings which had not yet come.
Translator Saddhatissa, and with him Silk, argue that there is no equivalent account about Mahākāśyapa waiting in the cave that can be found in the Pāli tradition apart from a single reference in a post-canonical text. But Lagirarde points out that the reference found by Saddhatissa and Silk (called the Mahāsampiṇḍanidāna, which Saddhatissa dates to the twelfth century) does indicate the story was known in the Pāli tradition. Lagirarde also lists several later vernacular texts from Theravāda countries that mention the account, in the Siamese, Northern Thai and Laotian languages. Indeed, Silk himself points at a Pāli sub-commentary to the Aṅguttara Nikāya which mentions that Mahākāśyapa retreated at age hundred twenty in a cave close to where the First Council was held. He would dwell there and "make the Buddha's teaching last for 5000 years". The First Council itself was held in a cave too, and it may have led to the motif of Mahākāśyapa waiting in a cave. Furthermore, in some canonical Pāli texts Mahākāśyapa talks about the decay and disappearance of the Buddhist dispensation, which may also have been a foundation for the story.
### In Mahāyāna discourses
In general, Sanskrit texts often mention Mahākāśyapa. Silk argues that Mahāyāna polemicists used Mahākāśyapa as an interlocutor in their discourses, because of his stern conservative stance in the early texts and opposition of innovation, and his close association with Gautama Buddha. This fit with the conservative ideas on Buddhist practice among the early Mahāyāna authors, and the need to legitimize Mahāyāna doctrine, surrounding them with an aura of authenticity.
#### In Chan Buddhism
Mahākāśyapa has a significant role in texts from the Chan tradition. In East Asia, there is a Chan and Zen tradition, first recounted in The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp (Chinese: 景德傳燈錄; pinyin: Tiansheng Guangdeng-lu), which is a 1036 genealogical record about Chan Buddhism. According to this tradition, Mahākāśyapa once received a direct "transmission" from Gautama Buddha. Chan and Zen purport to lead their adherents to insights akin to that mentioned by the Buddha in the Flower Sermon (Chinese: 拈華微笑; pinyin: Nianhua weixiao; lit. 'Holding up a flower and smiling subtly') given on the Vulture Peak, in which he held up a white flower and just admired it in his hand, without speaking. All the disciples just looked on without knowing how to react, but only Mahākāśyapa smiled faintly, and the Buddha picked him as one who truly understood him and was worthy to be the one receiving a special "mind-to-mind transmission" (pinyin: yixin chuanxin).
Thus, a way within Buddhism developed which concentrated on direct experience rather than on rational creeds or revealed scriptures. Chan therefore became a method of meditative religion which seek to enlighten people in the manner that Mahākāśyapa experienced: "A special transmission outside the scriptures, directly pointing at the heart of man, looking into one's own nature." This transmission was then purportedly passed on by the Buddha to Mahākāśyapa, who then passed it on to a long list of Indian and Chinese patriarchs, eventually reaching Bodhidharma (5th or 6th century CE), who brought Chan Buddhism to China, and passed it on to Huike (487–593 CE). The Jingde Record took the passing on of the robe from Buddha Gautama to Mahākāśyapa to refer to a secret transmission of Chan teachings, within the specific Chan lineage.The story of the Flower Sermon was also recorded in later texts, between the 11th and 14th centuries. At least one of these texts was probably written to defend the authenticity of the Flower Sermon, which was even questioned in Chan circles. Eventually, the story became well known among both Buddhist monks and Chan-oriented literati. It was incorporated as a meditative topic in the 1228 Chan text The Gateless Barrier (pinyin: Wumen Guan), in which the Buddha confirmed that the mind-to-mind transmission was complete. Although the Flower Sermon's main point is to depict a wordless special transmission "outside the teaching", the tradition was defended and authorized through Buddhist scripture.
The Flower Sermon event is regarded by modern scholars as an invention, but does provide insight into the philosophical concerns and identity of Chan Buddhism. Since Chan Buddhism values the direct transmission from the teacher's mind to that of the student, more so than scriptures, the unbroken lineage of patriarchs is an important part of the tradition. Moreover, whereas in many Buddhist traditions it was recounted that Mahākāśyapa would pass on Gautama Buddha's robe to Maitreya Buddha, in Chan a different tradition developed, in which Mahākāśyapa passed on the robe to the next patriarch Ānanda, and so on through a list of Indian and Chinese patriarchs. Some Chan masters, such as Dōgen (1200–1253), did believe that this robe would eventually be passed forward to Mahākāśyapa and eventually Maitreya.
As Japanese Buddhist texts saw the transmission of Gautama Buddha's robe as a symbol of birth and gestation, similarly, the flower in the Flower Sermon was seen as a symbol of death and cremation. Besides the Flower Sermon, the appearance of the Buddha's feet when Mahākāśyapa pays his final respects, as well as the Buddha sharing his seat with Mahākāśyapa are also considered mind-to-mind transmissions.
## Legacy
### Values
Being one of the most well-known disciples of the Buddha, Mahākāśyapa embodies the highest ideals of early Buddhist monasticism. Buddhist studies scholar Asanga Tilakaratne points out that Mahākāśyapa's ascetic and austere values and dislike for women on the one hand, and Ānanda's active, city-dwelling values and support for women on the other hand, are two sides of the spectrum than can be seen throughout the history of Buddhist monasticism. Monastic vocations and monastic orders tend to be along these two ends of the spectrum, with compassionate engagement on the one hand, and dispassionate detachment on the other hand. This can be traced back to these two disciples. Specifically, the Theravāda tradition has been influenced much by the model of Mahākāśyapa. In some early Theravāda texts about Mahākāśyapa, the values of forest renunciation are contrasted with that of settled monasticism. Renunciation in the forest is considered superior, and settled monasticism is considered a deterioration of the holy life.
Przyluski and several other scholars have argued that in the early texts, Mahākaśyapa represents ascetic and brahmin values. The ascetic values are seen in the account in which Mahākaśyapa refuses to give up ascetic practices, going against the advice of the Buddha. Such refusal was highly unusual for a disciple of the Buddha. The brahmin values can be observed from the account of the accusations leveled against Ānanda, which appear to be based more on brahmin values than violations of monastic discipline. Both these brahmin and ascetic values, as represented by the figure of Mahākaśyapa, would lead to strong opposition to the founding of the bhikṣunī order in early Buddhism. The ascetic values Mahākāśyapa represented, however, were a reaction to less austere tendencies that appeared in early Buddhism at the time.
Ray concludes that the texts present Mahākāśyapa in different ways. Mahākāśyapa assumes many roles and identities in the texts, that of a renunciant saint, a lawgiver, an anti-establishment figure, but also a "guarantor of future justice" in the time of Maitreya. Indologist C.A.F. Rhys Davids (1857–1942) stated he was "both the anchorite and the friend of mankind, even of the outcast". His figure unites the opposites of established monasticism and forest renunciation, and "transcends any particular Buddhist group or set of interests". Drawing from Przyluski's textual criticism, Ray argues that when Mahākāśyapa replaced Kauṇḍinya as the head of the saṃgha after the Buddha's passing away, his ascetic saint-like role was appropriated into the monastic establishment to serve the need for a charismatic leader. This led him to possess both the character of the anti-establishment ascetic, as well as that of the settled monastic governor.
### Eldest son of the Buddha
In Abhidharma texts of several Buddhist schools, the fulfilment of Mahākāśyapa's vow in the mountain Kukuṭapada is connected to a vow Gautama Buddha took to prevent his body from being cremated before Mahākāśyapa's arrival at his teacher's cremation grounds. Buddhist studies scholar Gregory Schopen analyzes several post-canonical Buddhist texts and concludes that in both instances, a vow is taken based on psychic powers, which is then shown to be effective after the death of the person with those psychic powers. Mahākāśyapa's psychic powers are needed for his role in the texts as the one who preserves the Buddha's dispensation. Indeed, later Buddhist texts depict Mahākāśyapa as the eldest son of the Buddha, who leads both the funerals of his father and, as his heir, presides over the First Council. Eventually, he came to be seen as the first teacher after the Buddha and as the beginning of a lineage of teachers. This conceptualization is found within several Buddhist schools, including the Theravādins and the Mahāsaṅghikas. Indeed, Theravāda sees him as a sort of "Father of the Church".
### Historical lineages
Furthermore, Mahākāśyapa is described in the Pāli commentary to the Dīgha Nikāya as the person responsible for the preservation of collection that was the precursor to the Saṃyutta Nikāya and the Saṃyuktaka Āgama. In both the Nikāya and Āgama version of this same collection, therefore, a great deal of attention is given to him, and Tournier thinks it possible that the lineage of teachers preserving this collection, probably originating from the Sthāviras, also conceived themselves as preservers of Mahākāśyapa's legacy. This is also reflected in the language used in inscriptions from the Sinhalese monk Mahānāman (5th–6th century CE) and in later texts used in the Sinhalese tradition, which both connect Mahānāman's lineage with that of Mahākāśyapa, and also that of the future Buddha Maitreya. However, some Pāli sources indicate that Mahākāśyapa was part of the lineage of the Aṅguttara Nikāya reciters instead.
One of the early Buddhist schools, the Kāśyapīyas (Pali: Kassapīya), was founded by Mahākāśyapa, according to scholars Paramārtha (499–569) and Kuiji (632–682). Other traditional scholars have argued instead it was another Kāśyapa, who lived three centuries after the Buddha. When the differences between the early Buddhist schools grew more prominent, the Mahāsaṅghikas affiliated themselves with the figure of Mahākāśyapa, and claimed him as their founder and patron-saint. They presented themselves as more orthodox than other schools, such as Theravāda.
### In art and culture
In Buddhist art, depictions of Mahākāśyapa have "left an indelible mark". He was depicted in paranirvāṇa scenes as a reassurance that Gautama Buddha's dispensation would not be lost; he was depicted next to Maitreya Buddha as an anticipatory vision of the future. The scene in which he paid his final respects to the Buddha became a well-known depiction in Buddhist art, and Strong has argued that it may have led to the cult of the Buddha's footprints.
In Chinese art, Mahākāśyapa is usually depicted with a long beard and hair. Buddhist studies scholar Mun-Keat Choong hypothesizes that these depictions found their way back in at least one Chinese Buddhist discourse, the discourse in which Mahākāśyapa is criticized for looking inappropriate. This may have been the work of the translators. In Mahāyāna iconography, Mahākāśyapa is often depicted flanking the Buddha at the left side, together with Ānanda at the right. The two disciples have been very popular in art depictions since the time of Greco-Buddhism, and Migot argued that the tradition of Mahākāśyapa and Ānanda being the Buddha's two main disciples was older than that of the tradition of Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana, because in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta only the former pair features, and the traditional explanation for this that Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana did not outlive the Buddha seems unconvincing. In Chan temples, the image of Mahākāśyapa is often placed in a central position, being the first patriarch of the tradition. In the history of Mahāyāna Buddhism, as the rag-robe asceticism of Mahākāśyapa contributed to his legendary figure and the legitimation of the Mahāyāna creed, rag-robes became an icon in East Asian Buddhism. The Buddha's disciples and founders of East Asian Buddhism were often depicted in them. When fukudenkai sewing groups were founded in Japan in the early twentieth century, to introduce sewing robes for monastics as a spiritual practice, they often referred to the early Buddhist account of Mahākāśyapa receiving the rag-robes from the Buddha. Fukudenkai practitioners usually use second-hand clothes to sew the rag-robes, just like in the time of the Buddha.
In May 2022, Sushant More, a botany researcher from Mumbai, Maharashtra discovered a new plant Lepidagathis mahakassapae endemic to the state and named it after Mahākāśyapa, following the Pāli spelling of his name.
|
22,396,748 |
28 cm SK L/40 "Bruno"
| 1,154,617,829 | null |
[
"280 mm artillery",
"World War I railway artillery of Germany"
] |
The 28 cm SK L/40 "Bruno" (SK — Schnelladekanone (quick-loading cannon) L — Länge (with a 40 caliber barrel) was a German railroad gun. Originally a naval gun, it was adapted for land service after its ships were disarmed beginning in 1916. It served on the Western Front and on coast defense duties in Occupied Flanders during World War I. Belgium received four guns as reparations after the war. The Germans used two of those guns in World War II after Belgium's surrender during the Battle of France and on coast-defense duties on the Gironde Estuary for the rest of the war.
## Design and history
These 28 cm SK L/40 guns were used as the main armament of the Braunschweig and Deutschland-class pre-dreadnought battleships, but they were transferred to the Army from the Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) when those ships began to be relegated to training duties in 1916 after the Battle of Jutland had proved that they were not suitable for contemporary naval combat. One change made for land service was the fitting of a large counterweight just forward of the trunnions to counteract the preponderance of weight towards the breech. This, although heavy, was simpler than adding equilibrators to perform the same function. In 1917, the first four guns, formerly used on SMS Lothringen, were placed in firing platform (Bettungsschiessgerüst) mountings for coast defense duty as part of Batterie Graf Spee on the island of Wangerooge.
The firing platform was a semi-portable mount that could be emplaced anywhere after several weeks of labor to prepare the position. It rotated on a pivot at the front of the mount. The rear was supported by rollers resting on a semicircular rail and was generally equipped with a gun shield.
Twenty guns, from the battleships Braunschweig, Hessen, Preussen, Deutschland, Schlesien, and Schleswig-Holstein were mounted on the railroad and firing platform (Eisenbahn und Bettungsschiessgerüst) (E. u. B.) mounts successfully used by other German railroad guns.
The E. u. B. could fire from any suitable section of track after curved wedges were bolted to the track behind each wheel to absorb any residual recoil after the gun cradle recoiled backwards. It also had a pintle built into the underside of the front of the mount. Two large rollers were fitted to the underside of the mount at the rear. Seven cars could carry a portable metal firing platform (Bettungslafette) that had a central pivot mount and an outer rail. It was assembled with the aid of a derrick or crane, which took between three and five days, and railroad tracks were laid slightly past the firing platform to accommodate the front bogies of the gun. The gun was moved over the firing platform and then lowered into position after the central section of rail was removed. After the gun's pintle was bolted to the firing platform's pivot mount, the entire carriage was jacked up so that the trucks and their sections of rail could be removed. The carriage was then lowered so that the rear rollers rested on the outer track. Concrete versions were also used. It could have up to 360° of traverse.
### Ammunition
Ammunition was moved by means of an overhead rail from which a shell trolley carried individual shells to be placed in the loading tray fixed to the breech. An extensible rail could be raised and braced in place to allow the shell trolley to reach shells placed on the ground or in an ammunition car behind the mount. This ammunition car sometimes had its own overhead rail to move the shells forward to where the trolley in the mount could reach it through a hatch in the roof. The shell and powder were manually rammed into the gun. The gun had to be loaded at zero elevation and thus needed to be re-aimed between each shot. It used the German naval system of ammunition where the base charge was held in a metallic cartridge case and supplemented by another charge in a silk bag which was rammed first.
## Combat history
The Navy kept most of the "Brunos" and used them on coast-defense duties, mainly in Occupied Flanders to protect the ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge. Sailor Artillery Regiment (German: Matrosen Artillerie Regiment) 1 defended the latter with Batteries Hessen (3 or 4 guns) and Braunschweig (4 x "Brunos"). Those same sources disagree about the number of guns assigned to Batteries Hannover (3 or 4 "Brunos") and Preussen (4 guns) defending Ostende under the command of Sailor Artillery Regiment 2. Battery Rossbach, with 2 guns, saw service against the British during the German spring offensive in March–April 1918. Only two "Brunos" were given to the Army - they served in Battery 746 and Bavarian Battery (German: Bayerische Batterie) 1005. The latter gun, on E. u. B. mount No. 7, formerly carried by Hessen, was captured by the Australian Army on 8 August 1918. Its barrel is preserved today in Canberra, Australia, as the Amiens Gun.
After the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918, a battery of four "Brunos" stationed in Belgium sought asylum in the Netherlands. They were given to Belgium as reparations. Six were destroyed in 1921–22 by the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control.
After the surrender of Belgium on 28 May 1940, two "Brunos" were used by Battery 655 between 8 and 10 June to fire on Brimont and Reims from Amifontaine. One gun was destroyed when a shell detonated prematurely in the barrel while firing on those targets. By the end of 1941, two "Brunos" were assigned to Battery 721 and stationed at Le Verdon-sur-Mer defending the mouth of the Gironde Estuary under the command of Artillery Group Gironde-South (German: Artilleriegruppe Gironde-Süd). The battery was able to retreat to Germany by 1 September 1944 after the invasion of Normandy began in June 1944, but nothing is known of its activities afterwards.
|
18,014,285 |
Diaphragmatic rupture
| 1,162,625,918 |
Tear in the thoracic diaphragm, usually caused by physical trauma
|
[
"Chest trauma"
] |
Diaphragmatic rupture (also called diaphragmatic injury or tear) is a tear of the diaphragm, the muscle across the bottom of the ribcage that plays a crucial role in breathing. Most commonly, acquired diaphragmatic tears result from physical trauma. Diaphragmatic rupture can result from blunt or penetrating trauma and occurs in about 0.5% of all people with trauma.
Diagnostic techniques include X-ray, computed tomography, and surgical techniques such as an explorative surgery. Diagnosis is often difficult because signs may not show up on X-ray, or signs that do show up appear similar to other conditions. Signs and symptoms include chest and abdominal pain, difficulty breathing, and decreased lung sounds. When a tear is discovered, surgery is needed to repair it.
Injuries to the diaphragm are usually accompanied by other injuries, and they indicate that more severe injury may have occurred. The outcome often depends more on associated injuries than on the diaphragmatic injury itself. Since the pressure is higher in the abdominal cavity than the chest cavity, rupture of the diaphragm is almost always associated with herniation of abdominal organs into the chest cavity, which is called a diaphragmatic hernia. This herniation can interfere with breathing.
## Signs and symptoms
Symptoms may include pain, orthopnea, (shortness of breath when lying flat), and coughing. In people with herniation of abdominal organs, signs of intestinal blockage or sepsis in the abdomen may be present. Bowel sounds may be heard in the chest, and shoulder or epigastric pain may be present. When the injury is not noticed right away, the main symptoms are those that indicate bowel obstruction.
## Causes
Diaphragmatic rupture may be caused by blunt trauma, penetrating trauma, and by iatrogenic causes (as a result of medical intervention), for example during surgery to the abdomen or chest. It has also occurred spontaneously at the time of pregnancy or for no discernible reason. Injury to the diaphragm is reported to be present in 8% of cases of blunt chest trauma. In cases of blunt trauma, vehicle accidents and falls are the most common causes. Penetrating trauma has been reported to cause 12.3–20% of cases, but it has also been proposed as a more common cause than blunt trauma; discrepancies could be due to varying regional, social, and economic factors in the areas studied. Stab and gunshot wounds can cause diaphragmatic injuries. Clinicians are trained to suspect diaphragmatic rupture particularly if penetrating trauma has occurred to the lower chest or upper abdomen. With penetrating trauma, the contents of the abdomen may not herniate into the chest cavity right away, but they may do so later, causing the presentation to be delayed. Since the diaphragm moves up and down during breathing, penetrating trauma to various parts of the torso may injure the diaphragm; penetrating injuries as high as the third rib and as low as the twelfth have been found to injure the diaphragm. Iatrogenic cases have occurred as a complication of medical procedures involving the thorax or abdomen. It has occurred as a complication of thoracentesis and radiofrequency ablation.
## Mechanism
Although the mechanism is unknown, it is proposed that a blow to the abdomen may raise the pressure within the abdomen so high that the diaphragm ruptures. Blunt trauma creates a large pressure gradient between the abdominal and thoracic cavities; this gradient, in addition to causing the rupture, can also cause abdominal contents to herniate into the thoracic cavity. Abdominal contents in the pleural space interfere with heart function and lung function. High intrathoracic pressure results in an increase in right atrial pressure, disrupting the filling of the heart and venous return of blood. As venous return determines cardiac output, this results in a reduction of cardiac output. If ventilation of the lung on the side of the tear is severely inhibited, hypoxemia (low blood oxygen) results. Usually, the rupture is on the same side as an impact. A blow to the side is three times more likely to cause diaphragmatic rupture than a blow to the front.
## Diagnosis
Physical examinations are not accurate, as there is usually no specific physical sign that can be used to diagnose this condition. Thoracoscopic and laparoscopic methods can be accurate. Chest X-ray is known to be unreliable in diagnosing diaphragmatic rupture; it has low sensitivity and specificity for the injury. Often another injury such as pulmonary contusion masks the injury on the X-ray film. Half the time, initial X-rays are normal; in most of those that are not, hemothorax or pneumothorax is present. A nasogastric tube from the stomach may appear on the film in the chest cavity; this sign is pathognomonic for diaphragmatic rupture, but it is rare. The X-ray is better able to detect the injury when taken from the back with the person upright, but this is not usually possible because the person is usually not stable enough; thus it is usually taken from the front with the person lying supine. Positive pressure ventilation helps keep the abdominal organs from herniating into the chest cavity, but this also can prevent the injury from being discovered on an X-ray.A CT scan has an increased accuracy of diagnosis over X-ray, but no specific findings on a CT scan exist to establish a diagnosis. The free edge of a ruptured diaphragm may curl and become perpendicular to the chest wall, a sign known as a dangling diaphragm. A herniated organ may constrict at the location of a rupture, a sign known as the collar sign. If the liver herniates through a rupture on the right side, it may produce two signs known as the hump and band signs. The hump sign is a form of the collar sign on the right. The band sign is a bright line that intersects the liver. it is believed to result due to the ruptured diaphragm compressing. Although CT scanning increases chances that diaphragmatic rupture will be diagnosed before surgery, the rate of diagnosis before surgery is still only 31–43.5%. Another diagnostic method is laparotomy, but this misses diaphragmatic ruptures up to 15% of the time. Often diaphragmatic injury is discovered during a laparotomy that was undertaken because of another abdominal injury. Because laparotomies are more common in those with penetrating trauma than compared to those who experienced a blunt force injury, diaphragmatic rupture is found more often in these people. Thoracoscopy is more reliable in detecting diaphragmatic tears than laparotomy and is especially useful when chronic diaphragmatic hernia is suspected.
### Location
Between 50 and 80% of diaphragmatic ruptures occur on the left side. It is possible that the liver, which is situated in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen, cushions the diaphragm. However, injuries occurring on the left side are also easier to detect in X-ray films. Half of diaphragmatic ruptures that occur on the right side are associated with liver injury. Injuries occurring on the right are associated with a higher rate of death and more numerous and serious accompanying injuries. Bilateral diaphragmatic rupture, which occurs in 1–2% of ruptures, is associated with a much higher death rate (mortality) than injuries that occur on just one side.
## Treatment
Since the diaphragm is in constant motion with respiration, and because it is under tension, lacerations will not heal on their own. The injury usually becomes larger with time if not repaired. The main goals of surgery are to repair any injuries to the diaphragm and to move any herniated abdominal organs back to their original place. This is done be debriding nonviable tissue and closing the rupture. Most of the time, the injury is repaired during laparotomy. Early surgery is important, as diaphragmatic atrophy and adhesions occur over time. Sutures are used in the repair. Other injuries, such as hemothorax, may present a more immediate threat and may need to be treated first if they accompany diaphragmatic rupture. Video-assisted thoracoscopy may be used.
## Prognosis
In most cases, isolated diaphragmatic rupture is associated with good outcome if it is surgically repaired. The death rate (mortality) for diaphragmatic rupture after blunt and penetrating trauma is estimated to be 15–40% and 10–30% respectively, but other injuries play a large role in determining outcome. Herniation of abdominal organs is present in 3–4% of people with abdominal trauma who present to a trauma center.
## Epidemiology
Diaphragmatic injuries are present in 1–7% of people with significant blunt trauma and an average of 3% of abdominal injuries. A high body mass index may be associated with a higher risk of diaphragmatic rupture in people involved in vehicle accidents. Over 90% occur due to trauma from vehicle accidents. Due to the great force needed to rupture the diaphragm, it is rare for the diaphragm alone to be injured, especially in blunt trauma; other injuries are associated in as many as 80–100% of cases. In fact, if the diaphragm is injured, it is an indication that more severe injuries to organs may have occurred. Thus, the mortality after a diagnosis of diaphragmatic rupture is 17%, with most deaths due to lung complications. Common associated injuries include head injury, injuries to the aorta, fractures of the pelvis and long bones, and lacerations of the liver and spleen. Associated injuries occur in over three quarters of cases.
## History
In 1579, Ambroise Paré made the first description of diaphragmatic rupture in a French artillery captain who had been shot eight months before his death. He died from complications of the rupture. Using autopsies, Paré also described diaphragmatic rupture in people who had suffered blunt and penetrating trauma. Reports of diaphragmatic herniation due to injury date back at least as far as the 17th century. Petit was the first to establish the difference between acquired and congenital diaphragmatic hernia, which results from a congenital malformation of the diaphragm. In 1888, Naumann repaired a hernia of the stomach into the left chest that was caused by trauma.
## Other animals
Diaphragmatic rupture is a common and well-known complication of blunt abdominal trauma in cats and dogs. The organs that herniate into the pleural cavity are determined by the location of the rupture. They are most commonly circumferential tears that occur at the attachment of the diaphragm and rib. Is these cases, the organs that herniate may include the liver, small intestine, stomach, spleen, omentum, and/or uterus. Dorsal tears are uncommon, and may cause a kidney to herniate into the thorax. Symptoms include difficulty breathing, vomiting, collapse, and an absence of palpable organs in the abdomen. Symptoms can worsen quickly and be lethal, especially in the case of severe bleeding, bruised heart, or strangulation of herniated intestine. It is also possible that there may only be subtle signs, and the condition is only incidentally detected months to years after the injury during a medical scan.
## See also
- Diaphragmatic hernia
- Chest injury
|
63,862,610 |
Malcolm Buie Seawell
| 1,129,545,683 |
Lawyer and politician in North Carolina, USA (1909-1977)
|
[
"1909 births",
"1977 deaths",
"20th-century American lawyers",
"North Carolina Attorneys General",
"North Carolina Democrats",
"North Carolina lawyers",
"People from Lee County, North Carolina",
"Seawell family"
] |
Malcolm Buie Seawell (December 18, 1909 – January 19, 1977) was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as North Carolina Attorney General from 1958 to 1960. Seawell was raised in Lee County, North Carolina. After law school, he moved to Lumberton and joined a law firm. From 1942 to 1945 he worked for the U.S. Department of War in Washington, D.C. He then returned to Lumberton and successfully ran for the office of mayor in 1947. He held the post until the following year when he was appointed 9th Solicitorial District Solicitor. While working as solicitor Seawell gained state-wide prominence for his aggressive efforts to prosecute the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and was credited for ultimately pushing the organization out of Robeson County. Governor Luther H. Hodges later made him a judge before appointing him Attorney General of North Carolina in 1958 to fill a vacancy.
As attorney general, Seawell felt that the decision of the United States Supreme Court to desegregate schools in Brown v. Board of Education had to be respected and supported token integration efforts. His stance on Brown was controversial and cost him the support of conservative whites. He also opposed labor union activism and criticized the sit-in movement. In February 1960 Seawell resigned from the Attorney's General office to seek the Democratic nomination to become Governor of North Carolina. Though he had the quiet backing of Hodges and the support of many North Carolina businessmen, his moderate stance on racial issues deprived him of wide popular support as racial liberals supported Terry Sanford and racial conservatives supported I. Beverly Lake. He placed third in the Democratic primary election and subsequently withdrew his candidacy.
In 1965 Governor Dan K. Moore appointed Seawell Chairman of the State Board of Elections. The following year Moore made him chair of a Committee on Law and Order, tasked with investigating the activities of the KKK. Seawell resigned in protest after accusing the State Bureau of Investigation of withholding documents evidencing criminal activity that would allow North Carolina to revoke the KKK's state charter. He shortly thereafter resigned from the State Board of Elections and withdrew from politics. Seawell later served as an executive for the Leaf Tobacco Exporter's Association and Tobacco Association of the United States in Chapel Hill. He retired in April 1976 and moved back to Lumberton, where he died in 1977.
## Early life
Malcolm Buie Seawell was born on December 18, 1909, in Jonesboro, Lee County, North Carolina, United States. He was the son of jurist Aaron A. F. Seawell and Bertha (née Smith) Seawell. He graduated from Sanford High School in 1927. He then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in 1931. He went on to graduate from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1934, and worked at the school's Institute of Government from then until the following year, when he was admitted to the North Carolina State Bar. He then spent the next three years working for the North Carolina Commissioner of Paroles before moving to Lumberton in January 1938 and joining a law firm.
In April 1942, he became acting solicitor of the Lumberton district recorder's court. That December he was hired as an attorney by the Civilian Legal Personnel Committee of the U.S. Department of War in Washington, D.C. He worked there until 1945. Seawell married Frances Poole on June 9, 1936, and had a son, Malcolm Jr., and a daughter, Terrell.
## Political career
### Local offices
Seawell, a member of the Democratic Party, ran in 1947 to become Mayor of Lumberton. He campaigned on a broad platform of impartial administration, the hiring of experts to manage zoning, increased playgrounds for children, and the holding of a referendum to adopt a city manager system of government. He defeated the incumbent mayor in the April primary election, 787 to 780. He proceeded to win the May general election, securing 380 of the 415 total votes, and was sworn in on May 7. As mayor he implemented a city manager system of government.
He held the office until the following year when he was appointed 9th Solicitorial District Solicitor (equivalent to district attorney) by North Carolina Governor R. Gregg Cherry, filling a vacancy created by Frank Ertel Carlyle's departure. He was sworn in on November 6, 1948, and vacated the office of mayor. The law firm of which he was a partner formally dissolved. He ran unopposed for the office in 1950 and won reelection in 1954 by a substantial margin. While serving as solicitor, Seawell worked closely with Robeson County Sheriff Malcolm McLeod to shut down illegal distilleries and arrest bootleggers.
He gained state-wide prominence for his efforts to combat the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a white supremacist organization. He intensively researched its culture and protocols. In 1950, he told Imperial Wizard Thomas L. Hamilton of the Association of Carolina Klans to leave his solicitorial district or face legal action. Hamilton promptly moved to South Carolina.
In February 1952, Seawell, using a membership roster seized from a KKK recruiter, arrested 16 klansmen for violating an 1868 state statute prohibiting participation in secret political societies. Although the arrest warrants did not mention the KKK explicitly, Seawell told the detainees, "You were arrested...because you are members of the KKK." In response to reports that klansmen were abducting people from their homes and taking them to South Carolina to flog them, Seawell issued a threat to the group, stating that anyone caught doing so would be charged with first-degree burglary, a crime then punishable by death. Hamilton criticised the invocation of the 1868 law in a letter to Seawell, to which the latter responded by daring Hamilton to appear in Robeson County and face arrest. Twelve of the men were released after renouncing their KKK membership and the others were acquitted after a jury could not decide whether to convict them.
In March 1952, a cross was burned on the front lawn of Seawell's home, although police attributed the incident to pranksters and doubted that klansmen were responsible. Seawell was credited for ultimately pushing the KKK out of Robeson County.
On June 4, 1955, Governor Luther H. Hodges appointed Seawell to be the judge of North Carolina's new 16th Judicial District representing Robeson and Scotland counties. He was elected unopposed to keep the post in 1956. That year there was a vacancy in the Office of the North Carolina Attorney General. A group of Seawell's friends lobbied for him to be nominated to the post, but Hodges ultimately appointed George B. Patton instead.
### State offices
In April 1958, Seawell was appointed by Hodges to become North Carolina Attorney General after Patton announced his resignation. He was sworn in on April 15 and vacated his judgeship.
Shortly after assuming office, Seawell declared his opposition to the strategy of "massive resistance", whereby governments would close public schools rather than follow court orders to racially desegregate them. He felt that the decision of the United States Supreme Court to integrate schools in Brown v. Board of Education had to be respected. While personally disappointed with the outcome of the case, he felt it would be easier to defend North Carolina's actions in court if he took a moderate approach towards segregation, and he supported token integration efforts. His stance on Brown caused conservative whites in North Carolina to consider him "soft on race". In late 1958, he said on the matter, "I intend to take my stand on the side of the law ... If this is politically inexpedient, dangerous, or fatal, I'll just have to be content with what my future holds for me."
Seawell was also opposed to labor union activism and aggressively sought the prosecution of organizer Boyd E. Payton following a period of labor unrest in 1959. He condemned the sit-in movement, which protested segregationist business practices, as he thought it worsened race relations. In January 1959, Hodges sent him to Monroe to argue on behalf of the state against the granting of a writ of habeas corpus to the defendants in the "Kissing Case", which concerned two young black boys who had been sentenced to juvenile reformatory school after being kissed by a white girl. Seawell attempted to use the hearing to present himself as more racially conservative, specifically by intensely questioning civil rights activist Robert F. Williams on the witness stand. The judge in the case ultimately denied the petition for the writ. Seawell subsequently denounced some civil rights groups, chiefly those who had intervened in the "Kissing Case", as a greater threat to peace in North Carolina than the KKK.
Upon the commencement of the Greensboro sit-ins in early 1960 by black college students aimed at desegregating lunch counters, Seawell suggested that store owners could have demonstrators removed for trespassing and advised university administrators to keep their students on campus.
On February 20, 1960, Seawell announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination to become Governor of North Carolina and sent a letter of resignation from the Attorney's General office to Hodges, effective February 29. He ran as a fiscal conservative, emphasizing industrialization as a means of improving North Carolinians' wages and supporting public schools. His opponents were Terry Sanford, I. Beverly Lake, and John Larkins. Seawell had the quiet backing of Hodges and the support of many North Carolina businessmen. He also had the support of his cousin Chub Seawell, who had run as a Republican candidate for governor in 1952.
Sanford and Larkins were both convinced that Hodges had recruited Seawell, although both men denied this. Sanford was disappointed that Seawell had entered the race, and later said that had he not run he would have appointed him to the North Carolina Supreme Court. He was the only candidate at this stage to publicly affirm that the Brown ruling was legally legitimate. However, his moderate stance on racial issues deprived him of wide popular support; racial liberals supported Sanford, and racial conservatives supported Lake. He placed third in the May Democratic primary election, garnering 101,148 votes. He subsequently dropped out of the race and endorsed Sanford in the runoff election, saying that Sanford's moderate stance on school desegregation would guarantee the continued operation of public schools, unlike Lake's strong segregationist position.
In 1961, North Carolina's two U.S. Senators recommended that President John F. Kennedy nominate Seawell to the second federal judgeship of North Carolina's U.S. Middle District. He was ultimately passed over for the appointment, a decision he attributed to the lobbying of labor unions.
In 1965, Governor Dan K. Moore appointed Seawell Chairman of the State Board of Elections. At the first board meeting he chaired the body adopted a policy that "The law is to be obeyed." When the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, Seawell expressed his disapproval of it but said that he was bound to enforce it. He was troubled by the abolition of literacy tests under the law, saying "this means the moron or the nit-wit can vote without knowing the issues". In January 1966 Moore appointed Seawell chairman of a Committee on Law and Order, tasked with investigating the activities of the KKK. While working on the committee Seawell came into conflict with the State Bureau of Investigation, which he felt was withholding documents evidencing criminal activity that would allow North Carolina to revoke the KKK's state charter. Moore sided with the head of the bureau, asserting that it had turned over all relevant documents to the committee. Seawell resigned from the committee on June 24 in protest of the withholding of documents. On July 28, he resigned from his position as Chairman of the State Board of Elections and declared that he had no further political ambitions.
## Later life
Seawell later served as an executive for the Leaf Tobacco Exporter's Association and Tobacco Association of the United States in Chapel Hill. He retired in April 1976 and moved back to Lumberton. He died in his sleep at his home on January 19, 1977.
|
27,191,975 |
My First Kiss
| 1,149,423,400 |
2010 single by 3OH!3
|
[
"2010 singles",
"2010 songs",
"3OH!3 songs",
"Kesha songs",
"Song recordings produced by Benny Blanco",
"Song recordings produced by Dr. Luke",
"Songs about kissing",
"Songs written by Benny Blanco",
"Songs written by Dr. Luke",
"Songs written by Nathaniel Motte",
"Songs written by Sean Foreman"
] |
"My First Kiss" is a song recorded by American electronic duo 3OH!3. The song was written by Lukasz Gottwald, Sean Foreman, Nathaniel Motte and Benny Blanco, and was produced by Dr. Luke, and Blanco for their third studio album, Streets of Gold (2010). The song was released as the lead single from Streets of Gold on May 4, 2010. The song's inspiration is about going through one's first kiss and exploring further parts of a relationship.
Critical reception of the song was mixed. Though the song is 3OH!3's song, Kesha's feature on the track was praised by multiple critics for her strong delivery while 3OH!3's performance was met with mixed reviews, some calling them irritating. The song achieved commercial success by reaching the top ten in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, while charting within the top forty in multiple other countries. The song performed greatest in the United States reaching a peak of number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and has gone on to sell 1,800,000 copies as of 2016. The music video for "My First Kiss" follows a similar theme to its title. The dominant scenes of the video feature people kissing in front of multicolored backings with 3OH!3's logo present in much of the scenes. The song was performed on Regis and Kelly.
Ashley Tisdale sang the parts of Kesha with the duo 3OH!3 in the episode "Worried Baby Blues" on her television series, Hellcats, and the original version of the song used in other episode "I Say a Little Prayer" of the same series. The song was used in the 2012 film American Reunion, and was also included on the official soundtrack of the movie.
## Background and composition
"My First Kiss" was written by Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte alongside Dr. Luke and Benny Blanco. The song was produced by Dr. Luke and Benny Blanco with vocal editing done by Emily Wright. While being interviewed by MTV, Foreman explained the song's inspiration: "The song is about a girl you really like, and the story line of going through your first kiss with a girl to exploring further parts of the relationship." While composing the song, Foreman and Motte decided that they needed to add a female to the song. Kesha, who had worked with Blanco and Luke, was asked to participate in the song and later came into the studio to contribute her lines.
"My First Kiss" is an upbeat dominant electropop song that incorporates elements of power pop. The song features elements of "electro bleeps" and a brief snippets of "beatbox sounds". Present throughout the song, are sounds of kissing noises in between verses. According to sheet music published at Musicnotes, the song is written in common time with a moderate beat rate of 138 beats per minute. The song is written in the key of E minor and the vocal range in the song spans from the note of E<sub>3</sub> to the note of B<sub>4</sub>. According to Sara D Anderson of AOL Radio, Kesha plays the role of a boy's first crush "who decides to not let him go past first base: 'She don't wanna give it up / Baby I can get it up / If I had it my way / Hey! I'll make you say.'"
## Critical reception
Robert Copsey of Digital Spy met the song with a negative review. Copsey commended Kesha's work throughout the song calling her "cheeky (and a tad tipsy)". 3OH!3 however, were called "simply irritating". Copsey commented that the song was simply "another shouty electro-hop nugget that's as rowdy and intimidating as the school bully after a can of Red Bull". Fraser McAlpine from BBC was also negative in his review of the song. Like Copsey, McAlpine complimented Kesha's verses in the song noting it was his favorite part of the song, "The best bit is the playground rhyme, and Kesha's slurry delivery beats that of the '3 by MILES. It's probably cos she's flirting and they're shouting." He went on to criticize the song for being too similar to "Don't Trust Me," commenting, "There's not a lot in it between this and 'Don't Trust Me', musically or thematically speaking." McAlpine went on the give the song two out of five stars.
Bill Lamb of About.com met the song with a positive review giving the single four out of a possible five stars. Lamb wrote "[though] part of me wants to find this terribly annoying" that hardly matters as "3OH!3 and Kesha are probably the most gifted artists of the moment performing irresistibly catchy music". His conclusion of the song was, "like it or not, the 3OH!3 boys are back, and it looks like they plan to stay awhile."
## Commercial performance
In the United States, "My First Kiss" entered the US Billboard Hot 100 on the issue date titled May 22, 2010, at number nine where the single reached its peak. The song went on to sell over 500,000 copies in 2010 in the United States and has since been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). As of 2016, the song has now sold 1,800,000 copies in the United States. In the same week, "My First Kiss" entered the Canadian Hot 100 at number seven where it also reached its peak. In October 2010 the single was certified platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) for sales of 80,000 units.
Internationally, "My First Kiss" entered the Australian charts at number twenty-five. After steadily ascending the charts for seven weeks, the single reached a peak of thirteen where it stayed for two weeks. The song was listed on the chart for a total of seventeen weeks and has since received platinum certification by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for sales of 70,000 units. In the United Kingdom, the single entered and peaked at number seven on its first week on the chart.
## Music video
The music video for "My First Kiss" was filmed in New York City by director, Isaac Ravishankara. The song's music video is relative to the song's theme: kissing. Foreman explained, "[And] the video is a play on kissing in general, and lips, and getting close up to a bunch of lips, and people coming out of mouths and just, like, really cool transitions." The video follows a similar theme that is relative to the song's title, "My First Kiss". It features a lot of people (punks, teachers, sailors, soldiers, lesbians, nerds, an elderly couple and hirsute rockers) "smooching, kissing, and making out." The video is made up of different scenes all using multi-colored backdrops as the video's dominant backing. The main scenes present are of "3OH!3 bouncing around and throw[ing] punches at the camera" while singing their versus and occasional close-ups of different pairs of lips that are mouthing different lyrics of the song. Kesha is also present throughout the video, mainly on her verses where she is seen in close-ups of her lips and dancing around the screen on the chorus.
At the end, the camera quickly zooms out to reveal that 3OH!3 are inside Ke\$ha's mouth. She then eats them before kissing at the camera.
James Montgomery from MTV News reviewed the video for "My First Kiss" positively. Montgomery commented on how simple the song's video was but noted that wasn't a negative, he commented, "like pretty much everything 3OH!3 do, there's an undeniable charm to both the song and the video. Perhaps it's the power-tool chorus, or the "ooh-ooh-ooh" vocal harmonies. Maybe it's Kesha's sexy ass. Or maybe I just like watching a whole bunch of people lock lips. The whole thing is a lot of fun. It gets in your head. And hey, it's the summer — school's out, and gleefully stupid is in."
## Live performance
The song was performed live on March 27, 2010, alongside Kesha.
The song was performed live on Regis and Kelly on July 30, 2010.
## Track listing
- Digital Download
1. "My First Kiss" (Feat. Kesha) – 3:12
- My First Kiss (Remix) – EP
1. "My First Kiss" (Gucci Mane Remix) (Feat. Kesha) – 3:12
2. "My First Kiss" (Chuckie Extended Version) (Feat. Kesha) – 7:34
3. "My First Kiss" (Innerpartysystem Remix) (Feat. Kesha) – 5:07
4. "My First Kiss" (Feat. Kesha) (Video) – 3:20
- UK My First Kiss – EP
1. "My First Kiss" (Feat. Kesha) – 3:12
2. "My First Kiss" (Chuckie Remix) (Feat. Kesha) – 3:39
3. "My First Kiss" (Chuckie Extended Version) (Feat. Kesha) – 7:34
4. "My First Kiss" (Innerpartysystem Remix) (Feat. Kesha) – 5:07
5. "My First Kiss" (Skeet Remix) – 4:42
## Credits and personnel
- Songwriting – Dr. Luke, Sean Foreman, Nathaniel Motte and Benny Blanco
- Production – Dr. Luke and Benny Blanco
- Engineering – Emily Wright, Sam Holland and Benny Blanco
- Instruments and programming – Dr. Luke, Nathaniel Motte and Benny Blanco
- Additional vocals – Dr. Luke and Benny Blanco
- Vocal Editing – Emily Wright
Source
## Charts and certifications
### Charts
### Year-end charts
### Certifications
## Release history
|
17,690,968 |
Disturbia (song)
| 1,172,068,115 |
2008 single by Rihanna
|
[
"2007 songs",
"2008 singles",
"2008 songs",
"Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles",
"Electropop songs",
"Music videos directed by Anthony Mandler",
"Number-one singles in Belgium",
"Number-one singles in New Zealand",
"Rihanna songs",
"Songs about diseases and disorders",
"Songs written by Andre Merritt",
"Songs written by Brian Kennedy (record producer)",
"Songs written by Chris Brown"
] |
"Disturbia" is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna for Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded (2008), a re-release of her third studio album Good Girl Gone Bad (2007). It was written by Andre Merritt, Chris Brown, Brian Kennedy and Rob. A!, with the production of the song helmed by Kennedy. The song was released as the third single from the reloaded edition of the album, and seventh overall. "Disturbia" was sent to US contemporary hit radio on June 17, 2008, and was released as a CD single in the United Kingdom on July 22, 2008.
"Disturbia" is an uptempo dance-pop and electropop song with a "sizzling" beat. Lyrically, the song is about the experiences of anguish, anxiety, and confusion. The song received positive reviews from music critics, who generally praised its dark musical tone, lyrics and beat, and noted that it is reminiscent of Rihanna's previous single, "Don't Stop the Music" (2007). "Disturbia" earned Rihanna an award for Best International Song at the 2009 NRJ Music Awards and a nomination for Best Dance Recording at the 2009 Grammy Awards.
"Disturbia" was a commercial success, and peaked at number one in Belgium (Flanders) and New Zealand and became a top-ten hit in more than twenty countries including Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The song topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for two consecutive weeks, and became Rihanna's third number-one single from Good Girl Gone Bad and fourth overall on the Hot 100. The accompanying music video for "Disturbia" was directed by Anthony Mandler, which portrays Rihanna in various locations such as in a prison cell and gas chamber. "Disturbia" has regularly featured on the set lists of Rihanna's tours and live performances since its release.
## Background
"Disturbia" was written by American recording artist Chris Brown and his team which included Brian Kennedy, Rob. A, and Andre Merritt, better known as the Graffiti Artizts. The track was originally considered to be part of the re-release edition of Brown's second studio album, Exclusive (2007). However, after finishing the song, he took preference to another song, "Forever", which later became the lead single from his re-released album, titled Exclusive: The Forever Edition (2008). He felt that "Disturbia" would be better suited for a female singer and instead forwarded the song to Rihanna. When writing the song, he was inspired "to go totally left and kind of weird". Speaking to USA Today, Brown described his feelings with regard to him giving the song to Rihanna: "It's fun being creative and even if you have a concept in your head to write about, you can write it and give it and give it to someone else because it might not personally fit you, but it might be an idea you have."
"Disturbia" was recorded in April 2008 at Rocky Mountain Recorders in Denver, Colorado. Speaking to Nick Levine of Digital Spy, Rihanna explained: "I went into the studio making music my way. I found myself all at once." In an interview on This Morning, Rihanna said that the song is not necessarily about a specific personal experience, but rather the general feelings of mental anguish, anxiety and confusion. Rihanna further explained that she wanted to record the song because she felt that listeners would be able to relate to the subject matter. When Good Girl Gone Bad was repackaged, Rihanna approached L.A. Reid, boss of Def Jam, suggesting to release "Disturbia" as a single and follow-up to "Take a Bow". Speaking to MTV News, Reid said, "It was the first time Rihanna actually came to me and said, 'Here's the song I want to put out.' She played me the song. That was her taking control [...] She understands what hits are, and she knows what she wants to say. She's at that place where she can do that."
## Composition
Musically, "Disturbia" is an uptempo dance-pop and electropop song with a "sizzling" beat. The song is reminiscent of Rihanna's previous single "Don't Stop the Music" (2007). The rock-tinged song opens with a horror movie-like scream, followed by the hook "Bum-bum-be-dum-bum-bum-be-dum-bum" which has been likened to the "Ella-ella-ella-ey-ey" hook from "Umbrella" (2007). BBC News interpreted it as Rihanna singing about being frightened but felt that its lyrics made no sense.
Fraser McAlpine from BBC Music has claimed that the song's chorus can be likened to Eiffel 65's "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" (1999). According to digital music sheet published at Musicnotes.com by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, "Disturbia" is composed in a key of B minor and is set in common time with a moderate techno-pop groove. Rihanna's vocal range spans from the lower note of D<sub>3</sub> to the high note of E<sub>5</sub> and the track follows a chord progression of Bm-D-A-G in the verses and chorus. The song features various vocal effects, namely the use of Auto-Tune and a vocoder in contrast with the detached electronic bounce of the song and its weaving, winding melody.
## Reception and accolades
"Disturbia" received positive reviews from contemporary music critics. Josh Tyrangiel of Time complimented the song's "rubber-ball melodies that bounce around your head". Alex Fletcher of Digital Spy said that unlike the usual seventh single release by an artist, "Disturbia" is one Rihanna's stronger releases and that it proves that she is ruling '08 much like she did '07. He went on to describe it as a "fun-packed electro treat filled with sizzling beats and crazy vocal effects." Fletcher further highlighted the song's strong intro hook and said that the chorus is her catchiest since "Umbrella". Spence D of IGN felt that the track has an infectious "Bum-bum-be-dum-bum-bum" hook that sucks you into the detached electronic bounce of the track. Jaime Gill from Yahoo! Music highlighted the song's "insistent hook, sturdy beat and weaving, winding melody." Fraser McAlpine from the BBC Music deemed the song's plus points to be Rihanna's icy whine, the frosty-rave chorus and the Eiffel 65-like refrain.
Billboard ranked the song at number nine on its list of "Songs of the Summer of 2008". Time magazine has named the song on number two on its list of '10 Best Songs of the Summer', only behind Kid Rock's "All Summer Long". According to Caryn Ganz of Rolling Stone, "Disturbia" was the second best song of 2008, only behind MGMT's "Kids". The song won the award for Best International Song at the 2009 NRJ Music Awards, however, after a miscommunication, Katy Perry accepted the award for her single "I Kissed a Girl". Later, it was revealed that originally Rihanna won the award. The song also earned Rihanna a nomination for Best Dance Recording at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, but lost to Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger".
## Chart performance
"Disturbia" debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number eighteen on June 26, 2008, becoming Rihanna's sixth top 20 from Good Girl Gone Bad. In the issue dated August 14, 2008 the song topped the chart, selling 148,000 downloads according to Nielsen SoundScan and replaced Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" after seven weeks at the top. "Disturbia" became Rihanna's fourth number-one song on the chart only after "SOS", "Umbrella" and "Take a Bow", and tied her with Beyoncé and Mariah Carey for most number-one singles of the decade. The single topped the chart for two consecutive weeks. For the Billboard issue dated September 13, 2008, "Disturbia" also topped both the Hot Dance Club Play and Hot Dance Airplay charts. The song also peaked at number one on the US Billboard Pop Songs, becoming her third number one on the chart, after "Unfaithful" and "Take a Bow". "Disturbia" has been certified six-times platinum by the RIAA, having sold 4.8 million digital copies as of June 2015, marking Rihanna's third best-selling single in the country. The song was also successful in Canada, where it peaked at number two on the Canadian Hot 100, remaining at the position for five weeks.
In the United Kingdom, following the release of Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded, "Disturbia" debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number forty-seven due to strong digital sales. After the release of the music video, the song re-entered the chart at number forty-seven, ultimately peaking at number three from digital sales. The song remained within the top ten for eleven weeks, marking Rihanna's eighth top ten single in the country. "Disturbia" also became Rihanna's third longest charting single in the UK, having spent 36 weeks in the top 100, being passed only by "Don't Stop the Music" and the worldwide hit single "Umbrella". "Disturbia" has sold over 430,000 copies in the country as of 2010.
Elsewhere in Europe, "Disturbia" managed to reach the top ten in fifteen other countries. The song debuted on number three in France and stayed there for one week. Disturbia stayed on the French Singles Chart for 36 weeks, becoming Rihanna's second longest charting single on it, only after "Only Girl (In the World). The single was more successful in Belgium (Flanders) where it peaked at number one and managed to peak at number four in Belgium (Wallonia). It was later certified Gold by the Belgian Entertainment Association for selling over 10,000 copies. In Spain, "Disturbia" reached a peak of ten and was also certified Gold by the Productores de Música de España. The song managed to reach number two in Finland, number three in Norway, number four in Austria, Denmark, Hungary, the Republic of Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland, number five in Germany, number seven in Slovakia, and number ten in Czech Republic and Netherlands. It also reached number one in New Zealand, becoming Rihanna's third number one single, and her first since "Umbrella". On August 23, 2009 "Disturbia" was certified Platinum, for selling over 15,000 copies. In Australia, it managed to reach number six. It was certified Gold on the downloads alone, before the physical release several weeks later, when it was subsequently certified Platinum.
## Music video
### Background
The music video for "Disturbia" was filmed in Los Angeles, California. Originally, it was reported that the video was directed by American photographer and director, David LaChapelle, who previously directed Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty" (2002) and Gwen Stefani's "Rich Girl" (2004). However, later sources surfaced stating that the video was directed by Rihanna's long collaborator Anthony Mandler, who previously directed her music videos for "Shut Up and Drive" (2007), "Hate That I Love You" (2007) and "Take a Bow" (2008). Rihanna also co-directed the video, becoming her second work after the co-direction for the 2007 single "Don't Stop the Music". The "Disturbia" music video, was released exclusively on iTunes on July 22, 2008.
### Synopsis and reception
The music video for "Disturbia" begins in a surrealistic, circus-like torture chamber where Rihanna is seen dressed in black, wearing dark make-up and long black nails while she presses the keys of a big dark piano and looks into the camera. As the song starts different images of Rihanna are shown. In one of the scenes, she is seen imprisoned wearing lenses that make it look as if her eyes have rolled into the back of her head. Rihanna stays in the prison with two men watching on her from both sides. Other scenes include Rihanna sitting on a throne chair and singing the song, while two strange women (one is played by American drag queen Detox Icunt) surround her. Then, multiple people around her are holding her in front of a gas chamber. As the chorus starts, Rihanna is seen tied up in a bed from which she can't escape. During the song's bridge, Rihanna and her dancers perform a Thriller-esque dance routine. As the second verse starts, Rihanna is seen holding a column and fire is around her. As the song continues, Rihanna drags a man doll around a metal web. In the second chorus, she wears metal spines while tarantulas are all over her body. Also her hands are being stuck in the wall and her legs in the floor creating a disturbing and shocking image for the viewers. In the later scene, Rihanna is in a very tiny room, with her hands and legs being tied up. The video ends with Rihanna turning around in her chair.
According to Tamar Anitai from MTV Buzzworthy, "Disturbia" is "yin to the yang of Chris Brown's 'Wall to Wall' which features creepy-crawly chicks climbing the walls in latex." He later, listed the video at number five on the "Buzzworthy's Top 5 Most Paranoid Music Videos" stating: "In Rihanna's 'Disturbia' video, obsession manifests itself in freaky-deaky tarantulas, wigs, wolves, and a creepy dude in an eye patch. And S&M-y corsets. Paranoia never looked so supernaturally sexy!". Simon Vozick-Levinson from Entertainment Weekly also reviewed the video commenting: "It looks like she accidentally wandered into Nine Inch Nails' 'Closer' video, or else some sort of freaky Victorian mental hospital". He later continued saying that the video is not what he expected from a dance-pop song, but that "it's also cool that Rihanna is trying something new." Jillian Mapes of Billboard wrote that in the video, Rihanna created "a memorable and edgy image akin more to Marilyn Manson than her Top 40 colleagues." The video was voted the sixth-best music video of the 2000s in a Billboard poll.
## Live performances
Rihanna performed "Disturbia" for first time at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. The song opened the show, and was performed after Britney Spears' opening speech. Rihanna performed it while revealing a leather "goth inspired" outfit. Together with the dancer troops, she performed a Thriller inspired dance, with glow sticks and leather props being used through the performance. About the performance, Brian Orloff from People commented that "after Britney left, the stage was ceded to a futuristic-looking Rihanna, who launched into her hit 'Disturbia' with a goth-theme." In 2011, according to poll made by Billboard, the performance was the tenth best ever on the MTV Video Music Awards. On September 19, 2008, Rihanna went to France, to perform "Disturbia" at Star Academy France. Following the performance of the song, Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded soared from number forty-three to number eleven and peaked at number eight the following week, becoming Rihanna's first album to reach the top ten in France. Rihanna also performed "Disturbia" at the NFL Pepsi Smash Super Bowl Bash in Tampa, Florida held the Thursday and Friday prior to the 2009 Super Bowl. It was the first song on the set-list that also featured other songs from her latest release Good Girl Gone Bad. The performance of the song featured a sample from White Stripes song "Seven Nation Army" and flames that shot up across the front of the stage.
Following the release of her fourth studio album Rated R (2009), Rihanna held a Nokia promotional concert at Brixton Academy in London. Rihanna performed the song as part of a set list, which included some songs from the new release: "Russian Roulette", "Wait Your Turn" and "Hard", the latter of which Rihanna was joined on stage by Young Jeezy, to perform the song together. However, during the set, Rihanna also performed other songs from Good Girl Gone Bad, including "Don't Stop the Music" and "Take a Bow". On February 5, 2010, Rihanna performed at the Pepsi Super Bowl in Miami, Florida, performing "Disturbia" in a medley with other songs including "Russian Roulette" and "Wait Your Turn". In February 2010 she also recorded an AOL Sessions, where she performed the song together with other tracks including "Hard", "Rude Boy" and "Take a Bow".
Rihanna performed "Disturbia" on her three major tours: Good Girl Gone Bad (2007—09), Last Girl on Earth (2010—11) and the Loud Tour (2011). The song was added on the Good Girl Gone Bad Tour set list during the Australasian leg of the tour. It was the opening song, performed only after the intro on the tour. Rihanna also performed "Disturbia" on her second major concert tour, Last Girl on Earth Tour. Rihanna performed a slower ballad remix tempo of the song, surrounded by three big four-legged insect monsters as she crawled on the floor to escape while singing it. About the performance Lisa Wilton from Calgary Sun commented that: "Rihanna's goth side came out – and by 'goth side' I mean she sang alongside dancers dressed as freaky, giant spiders – during the darker dancefloor anthem, 'Disturbia'." On her Loud Tour, Rihanna performed "Disturbia" as second track, only after the opening song "Only Girl (In the World)". Rihanna performed the song in a brightly colored sequined bikini, while partially been dragging on a moveable floor. Rob Williams from Winnipeg Free Press stated: "Rihanna dropped her blue coat to reveal a jewel-encrusted bikini for 'Disturbia'. It was the first of numerous costume changes that showed off her fashion sense and plenty of skin." Rihanna performed "Disturbia" at Radio 1's Hackney Weekend on May 24, 2012, as the second song on the setlist.
## Formats and track listing
Digital download
1. "Disturbia" (Album Version) – 4:00
2. "Disturbia" (Instrumental) – 3:58
Digital Remixes
1. "Disturbia" (Jody Den Broeder Remix) – 7:45
2. "Disturbia" (Craig C's Master Vocal Mix) – 9:17
3. "Disturbia" (Craig C's and Nique's Tribal Mayhem Mix) – 8:21
4. "Disturbia" (Jody Den Broeder Bum Bum Dub) – 8:15
5. "Disturbia" (Craig C's Disturbstramental Mix) – 9:17
FR Extended Play
1. "Disturbia" (Album Version) – 4:00
2. "Disturbia" (Jody den Broeder Radio Edit) – 3:52
3. "Disturbia" (Instrumental) – 3:58
UK and German CD single
1. "Disturbia" – 3:58
2. "Disturbia" (Jody den Broeder Radio Edit) – 3:52
3. "Disturbia" (Instrumental) – 3:58
4. "Disturbia" (Music video) – 4:20
## Credits and personnel
Credits are taken from Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded liner notes.
- Lead Vocals by Rihanna
- Backing vocals by Andre Meritt and Chris Brown
- Written and composed by Andre Meritt, Chris Brown, Brian Kennedy and Robert Allen
- Produced by Brian Kennedy
- Recorded at the Rocky Mountain Recorders in Denver, Colorado
- Recorded by Andrew Vastola
- Vocal Production by Makeba Ridick
- Mixed by Phil Tan
- Assistant (s): Carlos Oyanedel
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
### Decade-end charts
## Certifications and sales
## Release history
## See also
- List of Ultratop 50 number-one singles of 2008
- New Zealand top 50 singles of 2008
- List of Billboard Hot 100 number ones of 2008
- List of Billboard Hot Dance Club Play number ones of 2008
- List of best-selling singles in the United States
|
45,087,714 |
Trevor Kincaid
| 1,170,326,272 |
Canadian-American scientist (1872–1970)
|
[
"1872 births",
"1970 deaths",
"20th-century American zoologists",
"Canadian emigrants to the United States",
"People from Friday Harbor, Washington",
"People from Peterborough, Ontario",
"University of Washington alumni",
"University of Washington faculty"
] |
Trevor Kincaid (December 21, 1872 – July 1, 1970) was a Canadian-American scientist and professor at the University of Washington who achieved national acclaim for his scientific achievements while an undergraduate student. Kincaid's interests ranged from insect life to marine biology to mollusks, though he once described himself as an "omniologist" (one who studies everything). He is best known for introducing the gypsy moth parasite to the United States, for helping establish the Washington state oyster industry, and as the driving force behind the creation of the Friday Harbor Laboratories. Kincaid is responsible for the identification and naming of hundreds of species; at least 47 plant and animal species were, in turn, named after him. In 1938 he was designated Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus of the University of Washington, that school's highest honor for its alumni.
## Early life and education
### Family and childhood
Trevor Kincaid was born in Peterborough, Ontario, in 1872. He was the son of Robert Kincaid, a first generation Canadian whose own father had immigrated from Ireland in the early 19th century. Robert Kincaid received his medical degree from Queen's University and undertook his internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. In 1861, Kincaid found himself caught up in the war hysteria that followed the capitulation of Fort Sumter and volunteered to join the United States Army, serving during the American Civil War first as a field surgeon and, later, as a member of the medical staff at Armory Square Hospital in Washington, D.C. After the war he returned to Peterborough and took up private medical practice, eventually marrying Mary Bell, who gave birth to Trevor.
In his youth, Kincaid was inquisitive about nature and enjoyed playing lacrosse with friends. A series of bad investments by Robert Kincaid, however, led to the family's bankruptcy, and the Kincaids left Peterborough for Olympia, Washington, in 1889. A paucity of family funds led Kincaid to work a variety of odd jobs for several years following high school, but a chance encounter with University of Washington (UW) biology professor Orson "Bugs" Johnson and the Young Naturalists Society led him to resolve to spend his meager savings to relocate to Seattle and enroll at the university.
### University and national acclaim
As a student, Kincaid showed exceptional aptitude for the natural sciences and achieved national attention for his scientific achievements. In 1897, while still an undergraduate, he accompanied David Starr Jordan to the Pribilof Islands as part of a study of seals undertaken by the American Fur Seal Commission. Back in Washington, Kincaid's interests focused more on insect life, and a report that year in the Boston Evening Transcript noted that he had discovered 41 new species of bees, including 22 of the genus Osmia. Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell, at the time one of America's leading entomologists, directed a portion of the sizable Kincaid bee collection to the Smithsonian Institution.
Kincaid missed commencement exercises at the University of Washington due to his appointment as the entomologist attached to the Harriman Alaska Expedition. During that trip, completed before his 27th birthday, he collected about 8,000 specimens of insect, resulting in the discovery and naming of more than 240 new species, including Mesenchytraeus harrimani, which he named after the expedition's patron, E. H. Harriman.
Following his graduation from the University of Washington, Kincaid went on to earn a master's degree.
## Career
### Teaching and research career
In 1901 Kincaid was hired as a lecturer in biology at the University of Washington. The following year he was promoted to assistant professor and made chairman of the university's newly created zoology department, a position he would continue to hold until his retirement 35 years later.
In his new position, Kincaid began scouting the Puget Sound region for a suitable site at which the university could establish a marine research field station. After evaluating Port Townsend and Rocky Bay, he chose Friday Harbor as the location for what is now known as Friday Harbor Laboratories, concluding that the "great wealth of life in that area" made up for its extremely remote location. After running a laboratory at temporary sites near Friday Harbor for several years, Kincaid personally petitioned for the transfer to the university of the 484-acre Point Caution site (an area of San Juan Island that had been set aside as a military reserve to be used in the event of war with the United Kingdom). In 1921 the U.S. government finally ceded Point Caution to the university.
Kincaid was dispatched to Japan in 1908 by the United States Department of Agriculture to identify and collect a natural parasite for the gypsy moth, which, at the time, was creating havoc in Massachusetts. His continued research on that parasite, a eulophid wasp, took him to Russia the following year. The parasite that he discovered was bred by the US Department of Agriculture as a gypsy moth repellent for many years thereafter. His later work on oyster breeding earned him the nickname the "father of the Northwest oyster industry". During his years at the UW, he was also credited with helping to establish the university's College of Fisheries.
### Later studies
Kincaid was compelled to retire in 1937 due to the University of Washington's mandatory retirement age. He continued research as a professor emeritus into his 80s, purchasing a hand printing press that he used to self-publish a series of reports based on previous research he had made of snails. These papers were published under the name "Calliostoma Press". Proofread by his wife Louise, they were known for being virtually free of typographic errors.
## Personal life
Kincaid married Louise Pennell on August 23, 1917. Pennell had received her master's degree in zoology from the University of Washington the preceding June.
## Death and legacy
Kincaid died in 1970. Kincaid Hall at the University of Washington, constructed in 1971, is named after him.
At least 47 plant and animal species have also been named after Kincaid.
In 1938 Kincaid became the first person to be recognized by the University of Washington as Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus ("Alumnus Worthy of Highest Praise"), the university's highest honor for its past graduates.
## Selected publications
- Smith, E. V., and Kincaid, T. (1920). "A report on the taking of immature salmon in the coastal waters of the state of Washington". Twenty-Eighth and Twenty-Ninth Annual Reports of the State Fish Commissioner. State of Washington Department of Fish and Game. Olympia, Washington. pp. 39–46.
- Kincaid, T. (1900). "The Tenthredinoidea". Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Vol. 2, pp. 341–365.
|
2,872,199 |
Manoj Bajpayee
| 1,173,842,074 |
Indian actor
|
[
"1969 births",
"20th-century Indian male actors",
"21st-century Indian male actors",
"Asia Pacific Screen Award winners",
"Best Actor National Film Award winners",
"Best Supporting Actor National Film Award winners",
"Delhi University alumni",
"Film producers from Bihar",
"Filmfare Awards winners",
"Indian male film actors",
"Indian male stage actors",
"Indian male television actors",
"Indian male voice actors",
"Living people",
"Male actors from Bihar",
"Male actors in Hindi cinema",
"People from West Champaran district",
"Ramjas College alumni",
"Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts",
"Screen Awards winners",
"Special Jury Award (feature film) National Film Award winners",
"Zee Cine Awards winners"
] |
Manoj Bajpayee (born 23 April 1969), also transliterated as Manoj Bajpai, is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Hindi cinema and has also done Telugu and Tamil language films. Widely regarded as one of the finest actors of Hindi cinema or Bollywood, he is the recipient of three National Film Awards, six Filmfare Awards, and two Asia Pacific Screen Awards. In 2019, he was awarded India's fourth-highest civilian honour, the Padma Shri, for his contributions to art.
Born in Belwa, a small village near the city of Bettiah in West Champaran district Bihar, Bajpayee aspired to become an actor since childhood. He relocated to Delhi at the age of seventeen, and applied for the National School of Drama, only to be rejected four times. He continued to do theatre while studying in college. Bajpayee made his feature film debut with a one-minute role in Drohkaal (1994) and a minor role as a dacoit in Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen (1994). After a few unnoticed roles, he played the gangster Bhiku Mhatre in Ram Gopal Varma's 1998 crime drama Satya, which proved to be a breakthrough. Bajpayee received the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor and Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for the film. He then acted in films such as Kaun? (1999) and Shool (1999). For the latter, he won his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
Bajpayee won the Special Jury National Award for Pinjar (2003). This was followed by a series of brief, unnoticed roles in films that failed to propel his career forward. He then played a greedy politician in the political thriller Raajneeti (2010), which was highly appreciated. In 2012, Bajpayee played the critically acclaimed lead character Sardar Khan in Gangs of Wasseypur. His next roles were as a Naxalite in Chakravyuh (2012), and a CBI officer in Special 26 (2013). In 2016, he portrayed Professor Ramchandra Siras, in Hansal Mehta's biographical drama Aligarh, for which he won his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor and the Best Actor Award at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in 2016. He won the National Film Award for Best Actor at the 67th National Film Awards for his performance in the film Bhonsle. He also won Filmfare OTT Award for Best Actor, for The Family Man (2021).
## Early and personal life
Bajpayee was born in a pious Hindu Brahmin family on 23 April 1969 in a small village called Belwa near the city Bettiah in West Champaran, Bihar. He is the second child among his five other siblings, and was named after actor Manoj Kumar. One of his younger sisters Poonam Dubey, is a fashion designer in the film industry. His father was a farmer and his mother was a housewife. As a son of a farmer, Bajpayee would do farming during their vacation. Since childhood, he wanted to become an actor.
His father had difficulty collecting money for their education. He studied in a "hut school" till fourth standard, and later did his schooling at Khrist Raja High School, Bettiah. He completed his 12th class from Maharani Janaki Kunwar College in Bettiah.
He moved to New Delhi at the age of seventeen and went to Satyawati, then to Ramjas College, Delhi University. Bajpayee had heard about the National School of Drama from actors such as Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah, so he applied. He was rejected three times and wanted to commit suicide afterward. He then attended director and acting coach Barry John's workshop after actor Raghubir Yadav's suggestion. Impressed by Bajpayee's acting, John hired him to assist him in his teaching. After that he applied at the National School of Drama for the fourth time, and they offered him a teaching position at the school instead.
Bajpayee was married to a girl from Delhi, but got divorced during his period of struggle. He met actress Shabana Raza, who is also known as Neha, right after her debut film Kareeb (1998). The couple married in 2006 and they have a daughter.
## Career
### 1994–2001: Debut and breakthrough
Following his one-minute role in Govind Nihalani's Drohkaal (1994), Bajpayee acted in the biographical drama Bandit Queen (1994). Tigmanshu Dhulia, the casting director of the film suggested his name to its director Shekhar Kapur. Bajpai was considered for the role of dacoit Vikram Mallah in the film, which eventually went to Nirmal Pandey. Bajpayee got the role of dacoit Mann Singh in the film. During that time, he also did a television serial called Kalakaar, directed by Hansal Mehta and Imtihaan (Doordarshan).
Bajpayee was a struggling actor when Mahesh Bhatt offered him the soap opera Swabhimaan (1995), which aired on Doordarshan. He agreed to do the serial at a low fee. Next, Bajpayee appeared in minor roles in films such as Dastak (1996) and Tamanna (1997). Director Ram Gopal Varma discovered Bajpayee when he was casting for Daud (1997), a comedy film, where he had a supporting role. Following completion of the filming, Varma expressed his regret for offering Bajpayee a minor role. He then promised Bajpayee a prominent role in his next film. Satya (1998), a crime drama, was their next film together. In the film, Bajpayee played gangster Bhiku Mhatre, who accompanies the title character to form their nexus in the Mumbai underworld.
Satya was mostly shot in the real slums of Mumbai. It was screened at the 1998 International Film Festival of India and opened to mostly positive reviews. Anupama Chopra called Bajpayee and others' performances "[..] so good that you can almost smell the Mumbai grime on their sweaty bodies." The film was a commercial success, and Bajpayee won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor and Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his performance. Filmfare later included his performance in the 2010 issue of Bollywood's "Top 80 Iconic Performances". Bajpayee then collaborated with Verma in the year 1999 with Kaun? and Shool; with Verma directing the former and producing the latter. Kaun, was a whodunit with only three characters in a house, where Bajpayee played an annoying talkative stranger. The film was a box office disappointment. Shool saw him play the role of an honest police officer who finds himself in the politician-criminal nexus of the Motihari district in Bihar. Sify labelled Bajpayee's performance in the film as "truly amazing [..] especially the emotional scenes with Raveena Tandon." The film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, with Bajpayee winning the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance. He also acted in the Telugu romantic film Prema Katha (1999).
The year 2000 started for Bajpayee with the comedy Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar!! and the crime drama Ghaath, both alongside Tabu. A dialogue from the former sparked controversy in some political parties. Bajpayee's first release in 2001 was Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's supernatural thriller Aks. His negative portrayal of Raghavan Ghatge, a criminal who dies and is reincarnated in the body of Manu Verma (played by Amitabh Bachchan), garnered him the Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role nomination. It was followed by Shyam Benegal's Zubeidaa, co-starring Rekha and Karisma Kapoor. He played Maharaja Vijayendra Singh of Fatehpur, a polo enthusiast prince with two wives. His character was inspired by Hanwant Singh, the Maharaja of Jodhpur.
### 2002–09: Career struggle
Bajpayee's sole release of 2002 was the road thriller Road. He played the antagonist in the film, a hitchhiker who turns out to be a psychopathic killer, after taking a lift from a couple (played by Vivek Oberoi and Antara Mali). Bajpayee received another Filmfare nomination for Best Performance in a Negative Role, for the film. Pinjar (2003), a period drama, set during the partition of India, was Bajpayee's first release of the year. Directed by Chandraprakash Dwivedi, the film was based on a Punjabi novel of the same name. He received the National Film Special Jury Award for his performance in the film. He subsequently portrayed Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav in J. P. Dutta's ensemble war film LOC: Kargil. It was based on the Kargil War, and Bajpayee was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for it. Both the films were commercially unsuccessful.
Bajpayee's next roles were in Jaago (2004) opposite Raveena Tandon, Makarand Deshpande's Hanan and the thriller Inteqam. In Jaago, he played a police officer who takes the situation into his own hands, after his 10-year-old daughter is raped and killed. The same year, he appeared in a supporting role in Yash Chopra's romantic drama Veer-Zaara (2004). The film was screened at the 55th Berlin Film Festival, and grossed over ₹940 million (US\$12 million) globally, becoming the highest-grossing film of the year. In 2005, Bajpayee acted in Dharmesh Darshan's drama Bewafaa, the thriller Fareb, and the English language film Return to Rajapur. He also acted in the Telugu romance Happy (2006).
In 2007, Bajpayee played Major Suraj Singh in 1971. The film tells the story of six Indian army soldiers, who escape from the Pakistani prison after they were captured during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN, criticised the film but wrote: "[Bajpayee] is in great form, he holds back mostly and in the process, constructs a character that says more with his eyes than with words." He next starred opposite Juhi Chawla in Ganesh Acharya's drama film Swami. Bajpayee's final release of the year was the anthology film Dus Kahaniyaan. He acted in the Sanjay Gupta – directed story Zahir alongside Dia Mirza. All of his 2007 releases were financial failures. Next year, he starred in the ensemble comedy Money Hai Toh Honey Hai (2008), which was also a box office disaster.
Bajpayee's shoulder got injured while filming the Telugu film Vedam, and was absent from the screen for nearly two years. He then returned in a major role with the comedy Jugaad (2009), which was based on the 2006 Delhi sealing drive incident. His next release was the mystery thriller Acid Factory (2009), which was a remake of the 2006 American film Unknown. He played a comic role of one among the people who are kidnapped and locked in a factory with no memory of how they came there. The film did not do well at the box office. The string of financial failures continued with his next release. In Madhur Bhandarkar's Jail (2009), he played a convict serving life imprisonment. He called his role a "narrator" and "mentor" of its protagonist (played by Neil Nitin Mukesh).
### 2010–present: Raajneeti and beyond
In 2010, Bajpayee starred in Prakash Jha's big-budget ensemble political thriller Raajneeti. Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India in her review mentioned that Bajpayee "[..] grab[s] eyeballs in [his] scenes" and "brings back memories of his mesmeric performances." Indian trade journalists were apprehensive of Raajneeti recovering its ₹600 million (US\$7.5 million) investment. The film, however, proved to be a major commercial success, with worldwide earnings of over ₹1.43 billion (US\$18 million). Bajpayee received a Best Supporting Actor nomination at Filmfare for the film. He then acted in two Telugu films; Vedam (2010) and Puli (2010), followed by the comedy Dus Tola (2010). He also provided the voice of Rama in the animated film Ramayana: The Epic, which was based on the Indian epic Ramayana.
Aarakshan (2011), a socio-drama based on the issue of caste based reservations in Indian, was Bajpayee's next film. The film sparked controversy in some groups and was banned in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh before its theatrical release. Trade journalists had high expectations for the film, but it ultimately flopped at the box office. Bajpayee's followup was the thriller Lanka (2011).
In 2012, Bajpayee appeared in Anurag Kashyap's two-part crime film Gangs of Wasseypur. His character Sardar Khan appeared in the first one. To prepare for his role, Bajpayee shaved his head and lost four kilogram of weight. It premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, Toronto film festival, and the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. Gangs of Wasseypur released in India on 22 June to positive response. Anupama Chopra called it his best performance since Bhiku Mhatre in Satya. For his performance in the film, Bajpayee was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor. His next film was the historical drama Chittagong (2012), based on the Chittagong armoury raid. Bajpai portrayed the Bengali independence fighter Surya Sen in it, for which he charged no money. His final release of the year was Chakravyuh, where he played a Naxalite; a role which required him to lose 5 kilograms weight. Writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar called Chakravyuh "the best film of last 20 years". On the contrary, a review carried by India Today called it an "amateurish attempt", but praised Bajpayee's acting.
In 2013, Bajpayee had five releases: Samar, his Tamil debut film, was the first release. He appeared in a supporting role in the film. He then appeared in Neeraj Pandey's heist thriller Special 26. Based on the 1987 Opera House heist, he portrayed a CBI officer in the film. It was followed by the crime film Shootout at Wadala, where he played a character inspired by the gangster Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar. Bajpayee collaborated with Prakash Jha for the fourth time with Satyagraha. The film was loosely inspired by social activist Anna Hazare's fight against corruption in 2011, featuring an ensemble cast, the film was highly anticipated by trade journalists due to its release coinciding with the Mumbai and Delhi gang rape public protests. Satyagraha earned ₹675 million (US\$8.5 million) domestically. Bajpayee then provided the voice of Yudhishthira for Mahabharat, a 3D animation film based on the Indian epic of the same name. In 2014, Bajpayee played the antagonist in the Tamil action film Anjaan.
Bajpayee continued to play negative roles with his next film Tevar (2015). A remake of the 2003 Telugu film Okkadu, the film opened to negative reviews and was a box office failure. The same year, he along with Raveena Tandon, appeared in the patriotic-themed short film Jai Hind. With a run-time of 6 minutes, the film was released on YouTube by OYO Rooms, right before the Indian Independence Day. Bajpayee acted in another short film titled Taandav in 2016. Directed by Devashish Makhija, the film showcased the pressure and scenarios faced by an honest police constable, and was released on YouTube. The same year, he portrayed professor Ramchandra Siras, in Hansal Mehta's biographical drama Aligarh. The story followed the life of a homosexual professor who was expelled from Aligarh Muslim University because of his sexuality. Bajpayee watched a few clippings of Siras to prepare for his role. The film was screened at the 20th Busan International Film Festival, and the 2015 Mumbai Film Festival. Aligarh was released on 26 February 2016 to positive reviews. Bajpayee won the Best Actor award at the 10th Asia Pacific Screen Awards and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. He next played a traffic constable in Rajesh Pillai's swan song Traffic (2016). A remake of the Malayalam film of the same name, the film was released on 6 May 2016. His subsequent release of the year was the biographical sports film Budhia Singh – Born to Run, where he played the coach of Budhia Singh; the world's youngest marathon runner. It was followed by the comedy film Saat Uchakkey (2016) and the short film Ouch directed by Neeraj Pandey.
Bajpayee's first release of 2017 was the spy thriller Naam Shabana, a spin-off to the 2015 film Baby with Taapsee Pannu reprising her role as Shabana. The same year, he reunited with Ram Gopal Varma for the crime drama Sarkar 3. It was the third instalment in the Sarkar film series. In the film, his character was loosely based on Arvind Kejriwal. Later that year, Bajpayee appeared briefly in the drama film Rukh.
In 2018, Bajpayee reunited with Neeraj Pandey with the crime thriller Aiyaary, where he played Colonel Abhay Singh who is in pursuit of his protege Major Jai Bakshi (Sidharth Malhotra). Film critic Namrata Joshi criticised the film's plot and called Bajpayee and one song, the "film's only saving graces". He later appeared in Ahmed Khan's Baaghi 2, alongside Tiger Shroff and Disha Patani. Later that year, Bajpayee acted and made his debut as a producer with the psychological thriller Missing, co-starring Tabu. The film mostly received negative review from critics. Shubhra Gupta called it a "shoddy mess". He next appeared alongside John Abraham in the vigilante action film Satyameva Jayate (2018). The same year he appeared in the psychological drama Gali Guleiyan, directed by debutant Dipesh Jain, where he played an electrician living in Old Delhi, who starts losing his grasp over reality. He won the Best Actor award at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. The film premiered at the 22nd Busan International Film Festival and was also screened at the 2017 MAMI Film Festival, Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, Atlanta Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival and the Chicago International Film Festival. His final release of the year was Tabrez Noorani's ensemble drama Love Sonia, a film about sex trafficking. It had its premiere at the 2018 London Indian Film Festival and was released in India on 14 September 2018.
In Devashish Makhija's Bhonsle, Bajpayee played a terminally ill retired Mumbai cop who befriends a North Indian girl when the locals are trying to get rid of the migrants in the city. The film and his performance met with positive response from critics with Namrata Joshi calling his acting "astounding in his internalisation of Bhonsle and acts with not just his face but by deploying his whole body." The role earned him his first National Film Award for Best Actor and second Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor.
In 2019, he was given India's fourth highest civilian honour Padma Shri for his contributions to art. The same year he portrayed dacoit Man Singh in Abhishek Chaubey's action film Sonchiriya. Raja Sen in his review wrote that Bajpayee is "excellent as a rebel chief." Later, he appeared in the spy action drama web series The Family Man, directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. Bajpayee played the role of Srikant Tiwari, a middle-class man who secretly works for an intelligence agency. The series and his performance received positive response from critics with Rohit Naahar of Hindustan Times writing: "Manoj Bajpayee is, as he usually tends to be, effortlessly excellent." He won the Critics Choice Best Actor, Drama Series Award at the 2020 Filmfare OTT Awards.
In 2020, Bajpayee did a supporting role in Shirish Kunder's crime thriller film Mrs. Serial Killer, co-starring Jacqueline Fernandez. The film, which was released on Netflix, met with a negative response. His final release of the year was the comedy flick Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari alongside Diljit Dosanjh and Fatima Sana Shaikh. It was the first film to release theatrically in India after nearly eight months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The next year, he narrated the Discovery+ documentary show Secrets of Sinauli, directed by Neeraj Pandey. Bajpayee also appeared as a cop trying to solve a murder case in the thriller Silence... Can You Hear It?. The film was released on ZEE5 and met with mixed critical feedback.
## Acting style and influence
Bajpayee is a method actor and a director's actor, and is known for his unconventional roles in films. Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui has cited Bajpayee's performance in Aks (2001 film) as the inspiration for his role as the antagonist in Kick (2014). Bajpayee has also been vocal about the disparity in the pay he commands, in comparison to the top actors in the film industry. He has cited Amitabh Bachchan, Naseeruddin Shah and Raghubir Yadav as his inspirations.
Director Ram Gopal Varma considers him to be "an education" for himself and said he is "simply the best actor I've ever worked with." Shekhar Kapur, who directed him in Bandit Queen, recalls: "Manoj had the ability to portray a lot just by doing little. He never tried to overplay a scene and seemed totally comfortable with a minimalist statement." According to director Hansal Mehta, Manoj "has the ability to transform himself like few others."
Bajpayee's performance as Bhiku Mhatre in Satya is considered to be one of the most memorable characters of Hindi cinema, along with his dialogue in it: "Mumbai ka king kaun? Bhiku Mhatre" (Who is the king of Mumbai? Bhiku Mhatre). Kay Kay Menon credits this character as a turning point for other method actors: "If it were not for Manoj's brilliant performance in Satya, actors like Irrfan and me might still be waiting to be accepted. Manoj opened the doors for us." Writing about the character in his book Popcorn Essayists, journalist-writer Jai Arjun Singh wrote that "the "earthiness" and the "authenticity" [of the character], was the subtle result of a persistence in Bajpai's performance."
## Filmography
## Awards and nominations
|
381,797 |
James Franck
| 1,170,992,047 |
German physicist (1882–1964)
|
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James Franck (; 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964) was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom". He completed his doctorate in 1906 and his habilitation in 1911 at the Frederick William University in Berlin, where he lectured and taught until 1918, having reached the position of professor extraordinarius. He served as a volunteer in the German Army during World War I. He was seriously injured in 1917 in a gas attack and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class.
Franck became the Head of the Physics Division of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft for Physical Chemistry. In 1920, Franck became professor ordinarius of experimental physics and Director of the Second Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Göttingen. While there he worked on quantum physics with Max Born, who was Director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics. His work included the Franck–Hertz experiment, an important confirmation of the Bohr model of the atom. He promoted the careers of women in physics, notably Lise Meitner, Hertha Sponer and Hilde Levi.
After the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, Franck resigned his post in protest against the dismissal of fellow academics. He assisted Frederick Lindemann in helping dismissed Jewish scientists find work overseas, before he left Germany in November 1933. After a year at the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark, he moved to the United States, where he worked at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and then the University of Chicago. During this period he became interested in photosynthesis.
Franck participated in the Manhattan Project during World War II as Director of the Chemistry Division of the Metallurgical Laboratory. He was also the chairman of the Committee on Political and Social Problems regarding the atomic bomb, which is best known for the compilation of the Franck Report, which recommended that the atomic bombs not be used on the Japanese cities without warning.
## Early life
James Franck was born in Hamburg, Germany, on 26 August 1882, into a Jewish family, the second child and first son of Jacob Franck, a banker, and his wife Rebecca née Nachum Drucker. He had an older sister, Paula, and a younger brother, Robert Bernard. His father was a devout and religious man, while his mother came from a family of rabbis. Franck attended primary school in Hamburg. Starting in 1891 he attended the Wilhelm-Gymnasium, which was then a boys-only school.
Hamburg had no university then, so prospective students had to attend one of the 22 universities elsewhere in Germany. Intending to study law and economics, Franck entered the University of Heidelberg in 1901, as it had a renowned law school. He attended lectures on law, but was far more interested in those on science. While there, he met Max Born, who would become a lifelong friend. With Born's help, he was able to persuade his parents to allow him to switch to studying physics and chemistry. Franck attended mathematics lectures by Leo Königsberger and Georg Cantor, but Heidelberg was not strong on the physical sciences, so he decided to go to the Frederick William University in Berlin.
At Berlin, Franck attended lectures by Max Planck and Emil Warburg. On 28 July 1904 he saved a pair of children from drowning in the Spree River. For his Doctor of Philosophy (Dir. Phil.) under Warburg's supervision, Warburg suggested that he study corona discharges. Franck found this topic too complex, so he changed the focus of his thesis. Entitled Über die Beweglichkeit der Ladungsträger der Spitzenentladung ("On the Mobility of Ions"), it would subsequently be published in the Annalen der Physik.
With his thesis completed, Franck had to perform his deferred military service. He was called up on 1 October 1906 and joined the 1st Telegraph Battalion. He suffered a minor horse riding accident in December and was discharged as unfit for duty. He took up an assistantship at the Physikalische Verein in Frankfurt in 1907, but did not enjoy it, and soon returned to Frederick William University. At a concert Franck met Ingrid Josephson, a Swedish pianist. They were married in a Swedish ceremony in Gothenburg on 23 December 1907. They had two daughters, Dagmar (Daggie), who was born in 1909, and Elisabeth (Lisa), who was born in 1912.
To pursue an academic career in Germany, having a doctorate was not enough; one needed a venia legendi, or habilitation. This could be achieved with either another major thesis or by producing a substantial body of published work. Franck chose the latter route. There were many unsolved problems in physics at the time, and by 1914 he had published 34 articles. He was the sole author of some, but generally preferred working in collaboration with Eva von Bahr, Lise Meitner, Robert Pohl, Peter Pringsheim [de], Robert W. Wood, Arthur Wehnelt or Wilhelm Westphal. His most fruitful collaboration was with Gustav Hertz, with whom he wrote 19 articles. He received his habilitation on 20 May 1911.
## Franck–Hertz experiment
In 1914, Franck teamed up with Hertz to perform an experiment to investigate fluorescence. They designed a vacuum tube for studying energetic electrons that flew through a thin vapour of mercury atoms. They discovered that when an electron collided with a mercury atom it could lose only a specific quantity (4.9 electron volts) of its kinetic energy before flying away. A faster electron does not decelerate completely after a collision, but loses precisely the same amount of its kinetic energy. Slower electrons just bounce off mercury atoms without losing any significant speed or kinetic energy.
These experimental results provided confirmation of Albert Einstein's photoelectric effect and Planck's relation (E = fh) linking energy (E) and frequency (f) arising from quantisation of energy with Planck's constant (h). But they also provided evidence supporting the model of the atom that had been proposed the previous year by Niels Bohr. Its key feature was that an electron inside an atom occupies one of the atom's "quantum energy levels". Before a collision, an electron inside the mercury atom occupies its lowest available energy level. After the collision, the electron inside occupies a higher energy level with 4.9 electron volts (eV) more energy. This means that the electron is more loosely bound to the mercury atom. There were no intermediate levels or possibilities.
In a second paper presented in May 1914, Franck and Hertz reported on the light emission by the mercury atoms that had absorbed energy from collisions. They showed that the wavelength of this ultraviolet light corresponded exactly to the 4.9 eV of energy that the flying electron had lost. The relationship of energy and wavelength had also been predicted by Bohr. Franck and Hertz completed their last paper together in December 1918. In it, they reconciled the discrepancies between their results and Bohr's theory, which they now acknowledged. In his Nobel lecture, Franck admitted that it was "completely incomprehensible that we had failed to recognise the fundamental significance of Bohr's theory, so much so, that we never even mentioned it once". On 10 December 1926, Franck and Hertz were awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom.".
## World War I
Franck enlisted in the German Army soon after the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. In December he was sent to the Picardy sector of the Western Front. He became a deputy officer (offizierstellvertreter), and then a lieutenant (leutnant) in 1915. In early 1915 he was transferred to Fritz Haber's new unit that would introduce clouds of chlorine gas as a weapon. With Otto Hahn he was responsible for locating sites for the attacks. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, on 30 March 1915, and the city of Hamburg awarded him the Hanseatic Cross on 11 January 1916. While in hospital with pleurisy, he co-wrote yet another scientific paper with Hertz, and he was appointed an assistant professor in his absence by Frederick William University on 19 September 1916. Sent to the Russian front, he came down with dysentery. He returned to Berlin, where he joined Hertz, Westphal, Hans Geiger, Otto Hahn and others at Haber's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, working on the development of gas masks. He was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, on 23 February 1918. He was discharged from the Army on 25 November 1918, soon after the war ended.
With the war over, Haber's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute now returned to research, and Haber offered Franck a job. His new post came with more pay, but was not a tenured position. It did however allow Franck to pursue his research as he wished. Working with new, younger collaborators such as Walter Grotrian, Paul Knipping, Thea Krüger, Fritz Reiche and Hertha Sponer, his first papers at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute examined atomic electrons in their excited state, results that would later prove important in the development of the laser. They coined the term "metastable" for atoms spending an extended time in a state other than that of least energy. When Niels Bohr visited Berlin in 1920, Meitner and Franck arranged for him to come to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute to talk with the younger staff without the presence of the bonzen ("bigwigs").
## Göttingen
In 1920, the University of Göttingen offered Max Born its chair of theoretical physics, which had recently been vacated by Peter Debye. Göttingen was an important centre for mathematics, thanks to David Hilbert, Felix Klein, Hermann Minkowski and Carl Runge, but not so much for physics. This would change. As part of his price for coming to Göttingen, Born wanted Franck to head experimental physics there. On 15 November 1920, Franck became Professor of Experimental Physics and Director of the Second Institute for Experimental Physics, a fully tenured professor ordinarius. He was allowed two assistants, so he brought Hertha Sponer with him from Berlin to fill one of the positions. Pohl, a gifted teacher, headed the First Institute, and handled the lectures. Franck refurbished the laboratory with the latest equipment using funds from his own pocket.
Under Born and Franck, Göttingen was one of the world's great centres for physics between 1920 and 1933. Although they published only three papers together, Born and Franck discussed every one of their papers with each other. Gaining admittance to Franck's laboratory became highly competitive. His doctoral students included Hans Kopfermann, Arthur R. von Hippel, Wilhelm Hanle, Fritz Houtermans, Heinrich Kuhn, Werner Kroebel [de], Walter Lochte-Holtgreven and Heinz Maier-Leibnitz. In supervising doctoral candidates, Franck had to ensure that thesis topics were well-defined, and would teach the candidate how to conduct original research, while still staying within the limits of the candidate's ability, the laboratory's equipment and the institute's budget. Under his direction, research was carried out into the structure of atoms and molecules.
In his own research, Franck developed what became known as the Franck–Condon principle, a rule in spectroscopy and quantum chemistry that explains the intensity of vibronic transitions, simultaneous changes in electronic and vibrational energy levels of a molecule due to the absorption or emission of a photon of the appropriate energy. The principle states that during an electronic transition, a change from one vibrational energy level to another will be more likely to happen if the two vibrational wave functions overlap more significantly. The principle has since been applied to a wide variety of related phenomena.
For his work during this time period, Franck was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1929.
## Exile
This period came to an end when the Nazi Party won power in Germany in an election on 2 March 1933. The following month it enacted the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which provided for the retirement or dismissal of all Jewish civil servants, along with political opponents of the government. As a veteran of the First World War, Franck was exempt, but he submitted his resignation anyway on 17 April 1933. He once commented that science was his God and nature was his religion. He did not require his daughters to attend religious instruction classes at school, and even let them have a decorated tree at Christmas; but he was proud of his Jewish heritage all the same. He was the first academic to resign in protest over the law. Newspapers around the world reported it, but no government or university protested.
Franck assisted Frederick Lindemann in helping dismissed Jewish scientists find work overseas, before he left Germany in November 1933. After a brief visit to the United States, where he measured the absorption of light in heavy water with Wood at Johns Hopkins University, he took up a position at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. He needed a new collaborator, so he took on Hilde Levi, whose recent thesis had impressed him. His original intention was to continue his research into the fluorescence of vapours and liquids, but under Bohr's influence they began to take an interest in biological aspects of these reactions, particularly photosynthesis, the process by which plants use light to convert carbon dioxide and water into more organic compounds. Biological processes turned out to be far more complicated than simple reactions in atoms and molecules. He co-authored two papers with Levi on the subject, which he would return to over the following years.
Franck found a position at the Polytekniske Læreanstalt in Copenhagen for Arthur von Hippel, who was now his son in law, having married his daughter Dagmar. He decided to provide financial security for his children by dividing his Nobel Prize money between them. The gold medal itself was entrusted to Niels Bohr for safekeeping. When Germany invaded Denmark on 9 April 1940, the Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold medal, along with that of Max von Laue in aqua regia to prevent the Germans from taking them. He placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. After the war, he returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The Nobel Society then recast the Nobel Prize medals.
In 1935, Franck moved to the United States, where he had accepted a professorship at Johns Hopkins University. The laboratory there was poorly equipped compared to the one in Göttingen, but he received \$10,000 for equipment from the Rockefeller Foundation. A more intractable problem was that the university had no money to hire skilled staff. Franck was concerned about his family members remaining in Germany, and needed money to help them emigrate. He therefore accepted an offer from the University of Chicago, where his work on photosynthesis had attracted interest, in 1938.
Franck's first paper there, co-authored with Edward Teller, was on photochemical processes in crystals. Hans Gaffron became his collaborator. They were joined by Pringsheim, who escaped from Belgium after the German invasion. Franck arranged a position for Pringsheim at his laboratory. Both his daughters and their families moved to the United States, and he was also able to bring out his elderly mother and aunt. He became a naturalised United States citizen on 21 July 1941, so he was not an enemy alien when the United States declared war on Germany on 11 December 1941. His daughters still were, though, so they were restricted from travelling, and could not take care of their mother when she fell ill and died on 10 January 1942, although they were permitted to attend her funeral.
In February 1942, Arthur H. Compton established its Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago. As part of the Manhattan Project, its mission was to build nuclear reactors to create plutonium that would be used in atomic bombs. The Metallurgical Laboratory's Chemistry Division was initially headed by Frank Spedding, but he preferred hands on work to administration. Compton then turned to Franck, with some trepidation owing to his German background. Compton later wrote:
> How Franck welcomed an invitation to join our project! It was a vote of confidence that far exceeded his hopes, and it gave him a chance to do his part for the cause of freedom. "It's not the German people I'm fighting", he explained. "It's the Nazis. They have a stranglehold over Germany. The German people are helpless until we can break the strength of their Nazi masters." The chemists welcomed Franck as an elder scientific statesman whose guidance they were glad to follow.
In addition to heading the Chemistry Division, Franck was also the chairman of the Metallurgical Laboratory's Committee on Political and Social Problems regarding the atomic bomb, which consisted of himself and Donald J. Hughes, J. J. Nickson, Eugene Rabinowitch, Glenn T. Seaborg, J. C. Stearns and Leó Szilárd. In 1945, Franck warned Henry A. Wallace of their fears that "mankind has learned to unleash atomic power without being ethically and politically prepared to use it wisely." The committee compiled what became known as the Franck Report. Finished on 11 June 1945, it recommended that the atomic bombs not be used on the Japanese cities without warning. In any event, the Interim Committee decided otherwise.
## Later life
Franck married Hertha Sponer in a civil ceremony on 29 June 1946, his first wife, Ingrid, having died in 1942. In his post-war research, he continued to tackle the problem of explaining the mechanism of photosynthesis. Meitner saw no break between his early and later work. She recalled that
> Franck enjoyed talking about his problems, not so much to explain them to others as to satisfy his own mind. Once a problem had aroused his interest he was completely captivated, indeed obsessed by it. Common sense and straight logic were his main tools, together with simple apparatus. His research followed an almost straight line, from his early studies of ion mobilities to his last work on photosynthesis; it was always the energy exchange between atoms or molecules that fascinated him.
In addition to the Nobel Prize. Franck was awarded the Max Planck medal of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft in 1951 and the Rumford Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his work on photosynthesis in 1955. He became an honorary citizen of Göttingen in 1953, was elected a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1944, and elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1964. He was also an International Member of the American Philosophical Society.
He died suddenly from a heart attack while visiting Göttingen on 21 May 1964, and was buried in Chicago with his first wife.
In 1967, the University of Chicago named the James Franck Institute after him. A lunar crater has also been named in his honour. His papers are in the University of Chicago Library.
## See also
- List of Jewish Nobel laureates
|
1,163,151 |
Jeff Hanneman
| 1,171,529,703 |
American guitarist (1964–2013)
|
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] |
Jeffrey John Hanneman (January 31, 1964 – May 2, 2013) was an American musician, best known as a founding member and guitarist of the thrash metal band Slayer. Hanneman composed both music and lyrics for every Slayer album until his death in 2013. He had his own signature guitar, the ESP Jeff Hanneman Signature model.
## Biography
### Early life
Hanneman was born January 31, 1964, in Long Beach, California, and grew up there in a family containing several war veterans: his father fought in Normandy during World War II and his brothers in Vietnam, making warfare a common conversation topic at the dinner table. War films were popular on TV at the time, and Hanneman often joined his brothers in constructing and coloring tank and plane models. His interest in warfare and military history has been attributed to his upbringing.
In a 2009 interview with Decibel magazine, he stated his father is German, but fought for the Allied side in World War II. In the same interview, he also goes into detail of what district of Germany his father and grandparents hail from. His grandfather was fluent in German.
Hanneman was introduced to heavy metal music as a child through his older sister Mary, when she was listening to Black Sabbath at her house. Once he reached high school, he discovered hardcore punk, which had a significant influence on his style and attitude.
### Slayer
In 1981, Hanneman, who was working as a telemarketer at the time, met Kerry King, when King was auditioning for a southern rock band called "Ledger". King remembered: "As I was leaving, I saw Jeff just kinda standing around playing guitar, and he was playing stuff that I was into, like Def Leppard's 'Wasted' and AC/DC and Priest". After the try-out session, the two guitarists started talking and playing Iron Maiden and Judas Priest songs. Slayer was born when King asked "Why don't we start our own band?", to which Hanneman replied "...Fuck yeah!".
Hanneman stated that he was playing guitar for a year by the time he met King and put an effort into improving his skills after watching him play. Hanneman, who was heavily influenced by hardcore punk music, got the other members into the genre, leading Slayer into a faster and more aggressive approach. The band's drummer Dave Lombardo asserted that his hardcore influences pushed him to play faster, contributing to shape his drumming style.
In 1984, Hanneman, Lombardo, Suicidal Tendencies guitarist Rocky George, and Joey Fuchs (Joey Hanneman) had a brief hardcore punk side project called "Pap Smear" – the band had many tracks and was due to start recording when Hanneman was advised to avoid the side project by Slayer's producer, Rick Rubin, who is quoted as saying "Aaaah, don't do it, man – this is the kind of thing that breaks bands up!" and Hanneman took Rubin's advice. Only a demo was recorded, consisting of Hanneman on vocals and bass, Lombardo on drums, George on guitar, and Joey Fuchs (Joey Hanneman) on vocals. Later two of the songs were re-recorded on Slayer's 1996 album Undisputed Attitude.
Early in Slayer's career, Kerry King began to be heavily influenced by English black metal band Venom, and this influence had a big impact on Hanneman's songwriting as well. Hanneman said in 1987 that although he had begun reading the Satanic bible for lyrical inspiration, he was far from a Satanist. He said his lyrics were typically antitheist in nature and that he hated the idea of Satanism as much as Christianity, calling them "the same thing". "What we're attacking, in a roundabout way, is the Christian TV conmen. It's unbelievable, the amount of money stolen in the name of Jesus", Hanneman said. While he conceded that much of the dark subject matter in his songs was "quite ridiculous", his extreme Satanic lyrics were ultimately "an easy way of offending people". Hanneman took a lot of his lyrical inspiration from books he would read. For example, he described the controversial song "Angel of Death" as "a history lesson" and that the song in no way implied he was a Nazi, saying "I'd read a lot about the Third Reich and was absolutely fascinated by the extremity of it all, the way Hitler had been able to hypnotize a nation and do whatever he wanted."
### Illness and death
In early 2011, Hanneman contracted necrotizing fasciitis on one of his arms. Reports linked this illness with a spider bite he claimed to have received while in a friend's hot tub. Approximately one week later, an intoxicated Hanneman showed the arm to his wife, who recalled "...and I just freaked out when I saw (it). It was bright red and three times the normal size. I said, 'Jeff, we need to go now. We need to get you to the ER.' But all he wanted to do was go to bed and sleep...". The following morning she convinced him to seek medical attention in Loma Linda and it was learned that amputation was one possible outcome. At one point, Hanneman was placed in a medically-induced coma. Prior to surgery, hospital staff informed his wife that he may not survive. Though he did survive, his wife says the illness hindered his ability to play guitar, leading to depression "and he started to lose hope".
In light of his illness and Slayer's upcoming participation in the Australian Soundwave Festival tour that was set to begin on February 26, 2011, the band made the decision to play the dates without Hanneman, and on February 16, 2011, brought on Gary Holt (Exodus) to fill in for him. Pat O'Brien (Cannibal Corpse) joined as Slayer's temporary second guitarist when Holt left the tour to play with Exodus. In 2012, bandmate Tom Araya announced Hanneman's recovery from the infection, though a later update on the band's official website noted that it had "devastated his well-being". In February, 2013, King revealed that Hanneman was still battling health issues that prevented him from performing.
Hanneman died of liver failure on May 2, 2013, in a Southern California hospital near his home. On May 9, 2013, the official cause of death was announced as alcohol-related cirrhosis. Hanneman and his family had apparently been unaware of the extent of the condition until shortly before his death. Slayer expressed shock, stating in a release that "it appeared that he had been improving – he was excited and looking forward to working on a new record." Holt eventually became Hanneman's permanent replacement in Slayer, remaining with the band for the next six years until they disbanded after finishing their final tour in 2019.
## Personal life
In 1989, Hanneman married Kathryn in Las Vegas. They had met in 1983 before the release of the debut album Show No Mercy, during a Slayer show in Buena Park, California.
Hanneman was a reserved person when he was offstage. Unlike the other members, he was very selective in socializing and rarely gave interviews. As vocalist/bassist Araya said: "If he didn't like you, he wouldn't hang with you."
### Interest in German history
Hanneman's interest in German war medals and Nazi Germany was illustrated by many of his lyrics. Those interests in the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS began with medals given to him by his father, including some taken from a dead German soldier. His most prized medal was his Knight's Cross, which he had bought from a Slayer fan for \$1,000. While touring with Motörhead, Hanneman discovered Motörhead vocalist Lemmy's interest in medals, and the two discussed medal designs, weapons and tactics used by the Wehrmacht.
Hanneman's lyrics for the song "Angel of Death" led to accusations of Slayer being Nazi sympathizers. Hanneman defended himself with "I know why people misinterpret it—it's because they get this knee-jerk reaction to it. When they read the lyrics, there's nothing I put in the lyrics that says necessarily [Josef Mengele] was a bad man, because to me—well, isn't that obvious? I shouldn't have to tell you that." The band has stated numerous times that they are not Nazis and do not condone Nazism.
## Influences and style
Hanneman's major influences included hard rock and heavy metal bands like Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Aerosmith, and hardcore punk acts such as Wasted Youth, Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag and T.S.O.L., which led to Slayer's 1996 album Undisputed Attitude. Hanneman's and King's dual guitar solos have been called "wildly chaotic", and "twisted genius". South of Heaven featured "more technical" guitar riffs, utilizing the aforementioned tremolo picking and down-picked notes, improving musicianship while retaining a melodic sense. Both Hanneman and King were ranked number 10 in Guitar World'''s "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time".
John Consterdine of Terrorizer magazine noted: "without Jeff Hanneman, Slayer certainly would not have created some of the most famous riffs in metal, which undoubtedly changed the entire genre". According to Jeff Kitts of Guitar World, he "influenced a generation and changed the course of metal forever". Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse, who considers Hanneman his major influence as a composer, regarded him as "one of the greatest musicians and songwriters in metal" and Alexi Laiho of Children of Bodom described him as "one of the fathers of metal".
Alex Skolnick of Testament asserted that he "wrote some of the best riffs of all time" and "he impacted music in such a way that an entire genre will never be the same". According to Corey Taylor of Slipknot and Stone Sour, Hanneman is "one of the most underrated writers and underrated players that ever was" while Slash of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver defined him "the king of thrash/speed metal guitar".
### Lyrics and music
Hanneman wrote the music for most of the band's fan favorites, songs such as "Angel of Death", "Raining Blood", "Die by the Sword", "South of Heaven", "War Ensemble", "Postmortem", "Dead Skin Mask" and "Seasons in the Abyss", which have all become staples for live performance at Slayer shows. Hanneman's favorite album was Reign in Blood, and he enjoyed performing the songs "Raining Blood" and "Angel of Death". He contributed lyrics and music to every Slayer album, having formed a music and lyric writing partnership with Araya, which sometimes overshadowed King's creative input.
When writing new material, the band writes the music before the lyrics. Hanneman often composed riffs at his house, using a 24-track and a drum machine and then by gathering opinions from the other band members; King and Lombardo made suggestions of alterations. The band will play the riff to get the basic song structure, and then figure out where the lyrics and solos go. Hanneman stated that writing lyrics and music is a "free for all"; "It's all just whoever comes up with what. Sometimes I'll be more on a roll and I'll have more stuff, same with Kerry – it's whoever's hot, really. Anybody can write anything; if it's good we use it, if not we don't."
### Legacy
Hanneman's guitar work had a notable influence on heavy metal music and culture. Musicians such as Robb Flynn (Machine Head), Dino Cazares (Fear Factory, Divine Heresy), Mille Petrozza (Kreator), Andreas Kisser (Sepultura), Dan Lilker (Anthrax, Nuclear Assault), Eric Hoffman (Amon/Deicide), Trevor Peres (Obituary), Mark Morton (Lamb of God) and Kelly Shaefer (Atheist) cited him as an influence on their playing and songwriting. Jeff Walker said that "Hanneman's playing and riff writing and attitude has had a big impact on Carcass". Shavo Odadjian declared that "without Jeff Hanneman, there would be no System of a Down".
## Equipment
Hanneman used a black Gibson Les Paul modified with a Kahler Pro tremolo and a Joe Barden Two/Tone Humbucker bridge pickup in Slayer's early days and through the Show No Mercy and Hell Awaits eras. There are also photos and videos of him playing a natural stain-finished Gibson Explorer during the band's early days. In mid 1985 he began playing B.C. Rich guitars, notably a Rich Bich model he bought off his bandmate Kerry King and subsequently applied various graphics to. His first Bich had a 3x3 headstock, chrome hardware (including the Kahler Pro bridge) and two DiMarzio Super Distortion pickups. He and King can both also be seen with a second set of B.C. Rich's around 1986–1987, which had 6-in-line headstocks, black hardware and DiMarzio pickups. He also used a B.C. Rich Ironbird model more rarely. From 1987, he was seen using a custom made B.C. Rich Gunslinger with similar specs as his '86-'87 era Bich, shortly after he had the pickups replaced with two active EMG 81 humbuckers. In 1988 he began playing the famous Jackson Soloist that he would use constantly as his main guitar for songs played in E-flat tuning until 2001. It was originally shipped to him with passive Jackson pickups (probably a J-50 and J-80) and a JE-1200 mid-boost circuit, but the pickups were soon changed for EMG 81 pickups and the mid-boost circuit was removed as well. Around 1990-1991 Hanneman began using ESP guitars, he mostly used as backup for this Jackson Soloist and other tunings. He had his own signature model made, based on the specs of his original Jackson Soloist. In 2000, Hanneman switched to ESP guitars, which he used exclusively until he stopped touring in early 2011. ESP also gave Hanneman his own signature model (see below), which is still available for purchase. When touring, Hanneman carried six guitars due to the different tunings he utilized. Most albums such as Haunting the Chapel – Divine Intervention and World Painted Blood have E-flat tuning. However, albums such as Diabolus in Musica – Christ Illusion feature alternate tunings such as Drop B and utilizing seven string guitars. The first album, Show No Mercy, was recorded in standard tuning, while live performances of those songs were played in E-flat since about 1984.
### Guitars
- ESP Jeff Hanneman Signature model
- Jackson Custom Shop Soloist
- EMG 81/85 pickups with EMG SPC Mid-Boost circuit
- Kahler Pro bridges
- Dunlop .009-.042 Strings
- D'Addario .009-.042 Strings (earlier)
### Effects
- Shure Wireless System
- Eventide H3000S Harmonizer
- Yamaha SPX-90 Effects Processor
- Rocktron Super C HUSH
- MXR Smart Gate
- BOSS RGE-10 (10 band EQ)
### Amplification
- Marshall JCM800 2203 amplifiers
- Marshall JCM800 1960 Cabinets, later ModeFour Speaker Cabinet, supposedly loaded with Celestion G12T-75 Speakers
## Discography
- 1983: Show No Mercy
- 1984: Haunting the Chapel
- 1985: Hell Awaits
- 1986: Reign in Blood
- 1988: South of Heaven
- 1990: Seasons in the Abyss
- 1994: Divine Intervention
- 1996: Undisputed Attitude
- 1998: Diabolus in Musica
- 2001: God Hates Us All
- 2006: Christ Illusion
- 2009: World Painted Blood
- 2015: Repentless'' (writing credit "Piano Wire")
|
24,573,941 |
Andy Hedlund
| 1,165,331,781 |
American ice hockey player (born 1978)
|
[
"1978 births",
"Adler Mannheim players",
"American men's ice hockey defensemen",
"American people of Swedish descent",
"Binghamton Senators players",
"DEG Metro Stars players",
"EHC Black Wings Linz players",
"Fargo Force players",
"Hershey Bears players",
"Ice hockey people from Hennepin County, Minnesota",
"Ice hockey players from Minnesota",
"Krefeld Pinguine players",
"Living people",
"Minnesota State Mavericks men's ice hockey players",
"Minnesota State University, Mankato alumni",
"People from Osseo, Minnesota",
"Trenton Titans players"
] |
Andy Hedlund (born May 16, 1978, in Osseo, Minnesota) is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman. He played for the Trenton Titans, Binghamton Senators, Hershey Bears, Krefeld Pinguine, Adler Mannheim, DEG Metro Stars and EHC Black Wings Linz in his career.
Hedlund began his career playing for the Fargo-Moorhead Ice Sharks of the United States Hockey League before moving onto Minnesota State University, Mankato, for college. Playing in three years for Minnesota State–Mankato, he totaled 15 goals and 18 assists in 111 games. Following college he was signed by the Ottawa Senators and was assigned to the Trenton Titans. He played in 15 games for the Titans for parts of two seasons, recording one goal and an assist before being called up to the Binghamton Senators. Hedlund played three seasons in Binghamton, recording seven goals and 39 assists in 214 games. After going unsigned by an NHL team, Hedlund signed with the Krefeld Penguins of Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL) in Germany. He spent one season with the Penguins, playing in 52 games and scoring a career-high 12 goals and 22 assists. In June 2006, Hedlund re-signed with Ottawa and played 56 games with Binghamton scoring six goals, adding 21 assists. Ottawa traded Hedlund to the Washington Capitals midway through the season where he joined the Capitals affiliate. He left the Capitals organization following the season and went back to Germany, playing two seasons for the DEG Metro Stars.
## Playing career
### College
Hedlund played collegiately at Minnesota State–Mankato. His first career goal came on February 28, 1999, during his sophomore season. He ended that season with four goals, two assists and 58 penalty minutes in 36 games. At the start of his junior season, Hedlund was elevated to first line. Head coach Troy Jutting said of him, "He had a good freshman and sophomore season for us, where maybe he wasn't counted on to be one of the top two, three guys. This year, he will be and I think he's ready for that." In his junior season, Hedlund played in 38 games, scoring six goals with six assists and 64 penalty minutes. As a senior in the 2001–02 season, he scored five goals with 10 assists and 48 penalty minutes while playing in 37 games.
### Professional
2001–2004
After graduating, Hedlund signed with the Trenton Titans of the East Coast Hockey League for the final games of the 2001–02 season. He played in two games as a rookie and did not record a stat during the regular season, but in six playoff games he spent six minutes in the penalty box. In the 2002–03 season, he played in 13 games for Trenton recording a goal and two assists before he was called up to the American Hockey League's Binghamton Senators. In Binghamton, he played in 59 games scoring one goal and adding seven assists. On January 16, 2004, against the Albany River Rats, Hedlund broke a 17-game streak in which he had gone scoreless after he recorded his first career overtime goal and his second career game-winner. His previous goal was a game-winning shot against Syracuse. He ended the 2003–04 season with four goals and 19 assists in 80 games. Before the 2004–05 season, Hedlund spent time in training camp with the Ottawa Senators before he was reassigned to Binghamton. The NHL season would eventually be locked out which saw players such as goaltender Dominik Hašek join the AHL. When Hasek began working out with Binghamton, Hedlund commented, "He's just one of the guys when he's here, he just wants to put in his time and get some good work in, and make sure he's ready to go, so you just got to appreciate a guy like that being here and doing that kind of work, so its pretty fun." A season preview produced by the website Hockey's Future commented about Hedlund saying that, "A fan-favorite, Hedlund gives it everything he has despite limited talent." Against the Manitoba Moose on October 31, Hedlund scored a goal from the blue line that tied the game, however the Senators ended up losing 5–3. Following the season, he and Philadelphia Phantoms player Ben Stafford were named the AHL's Men of the Year. During the season he played in 75 games, scoring two goals with 13 assists. In the playoffs, he played in six games recording two assists.
2005–2007
To begin the 2005 season, Hedlund joined the U. S. Men's National Select Team. After his stint with Team USA, Hedlund left the Senators organization and joined the Krefeld Penguins in Germany. In only one season with Krefeld, Hedlund played in 52 games scoring 12 goals and 22 assists, both career-highs. He also played in five playoff games, recording two assists.
Hedlund re-signed with Ottawa on June 20, 2006. However, he was waived on October 2. He cleared waivers a day later and was assigned to Binghamton. Against Syracuse on January 15, Hedlund helped Binghamton rally to a 3–2 lead with a goal in the third period. However, the Senators ended up losing the game in a shootout. In one of his final games for the Senators on February 23, Hedlund scored a goal against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Before being traded, Hedlund recorded six goals and 21 assists in 56 games.
The Washington Capitals traded for Hedlund and a sixth-round draft pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft on February 26, 2007, sending Lawrence Nycholat to Ottawa. Hedlund recorded eight assists in 21 games for the Bears. He left the team after the season, opting to return to Germany.
2007–2014
Hedlund joined the DEG Metro Stars of the DEL but before joining the team, he rejoined Team USA. Hedlund scored a goal for the team on November 8 that helped the USA defeat Germany, 3–2. He ended the 2007–08 season with 12 goals and 23 assists in 55 games for the Metro Stars. In the 2008–09 season, Hedlund scored nine goals with 19 assists in 52 games with DEG. Following the season, he left DEG and joined Adler Mannheim. During his two seasons with the Metro Stars, he was a DEL All-Star.
Hedlund spent the 2009–10 season with Adler Mannheim, scoring six goals with nine assists in 54 games. He returned to DEG after the season. In his final season with the Metro Stars in 2011–12, Hedlund led the DEL with 14 goals amongst defensemen.
On May 10, 2012, Hedlund left the DEL to sign a one-year contract with EHC Black Wings Linz of the Austrian Hockey League. At the conclusion of his second season with Linz in 2013–14 season, Hedlund announced his retirement from professional hockey after 13 seasons.
## Personal
In July 2008, Hedlund returned to Minnesota State–Mankato to help out at a hockey camp in which he taught players one-time shooting and passing. Hedlund's mother works as a special needs teacher, and his sister is a social worker.
## Career statistics
### Regular season and playoffs
## Awards
|
33,773,909 |
Russian cruiser Admiral Makarov
| 1,062,193,112 |
Russian Bayan-class cruiser
|
[
"1906 ships",
"Bayan-class cruisers",
"Ships built in France",
"World War I cruisers of Russia"
] |
Admiral Makarov was the second of the four Bayan-class armoured cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy during the mid-1900s. While initially assigned to the Baltic Fleet, the ship was detached to the Mediterranean several times before the start of World War I in 1914. She was modified to lay mines shortly after the war began. Admiral Makarov laid mines herself during the war and provided cover for other ships laying minefields. The ship fought several inconclusive battles with German ships during the war, including the Battle of Åland Islands in mid–1915. She also defended Moon Sound during the German invasion of the Estonian islands in late 1917. Admiral Makarov was decommissioned in 1918 and sold for scrap in 1922.
## Design and description
Admiral Makarov was 449.6 feet (137.0 m) long overall. She had a maximum beam of 57.5 feet (17.5 m), a draught of 22 feet (6.7 m) and displaced 7,750 long tons (7,870 t). The ship had a crew of 568 officers and men. Admiral Makarov was named in honour of Admiral Stepan Makarov.
The ship had two vertical triple-expansion steam engines with a designed total of 16,500 indicated horsepower (12,304 kW) intended to propel the cruiser at 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). However, during sea trials, they developed 19,320 indicated horsepower (14,410 kW) and drove the ship to a maximum speed of 22.55 knots (41.76 km/h; 25.95 mph). Steam for the engines was provided by 26 Belleville boilers. She could carry a maximum of 1,100 long tons (1,118 t) of coal, although her range is unknown.
Admiral Makarov's main armament consisted of two 8-inch (203 mm) 45-calibre guns in single-gun turrets fore and aft. Her eight 6-inch (152 mm) guns were mounted in casemates on the sides of the ship's hull. Anti-torpedo boat defense was provided by twenty 75-millimetre (3.0 in) 50-calibre guns; eight of these were mounted in casemates on the side of the hull and in the superstructure. The remaining guns were located above the six-inch gun casemates in pivot mounts with gun shields. Admiral Makarov also mounted four 47-millimetre (1.9 in) Hotchkiss guns. The ship also had two submerged 18-inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes, one on each broadside.
The ship used Krupp armour throughout. Her waterline belt was 190 millimetres (7.5 in) thick over her machinery spaces. Fore and aft, it reduced to 90 millimetres (3.5 in). The upper belt and the casemates were 60 millimetres (2.4 in) thick. The armour deck was 50 millimetres (2 in) thick; over the central battery it was a single plate, but elsewhere it consisted of a 30-millimetre (1.2 in) plate over two 10-millimetre (0.39 in) plates. The gun turrets were protected by 132 millimetres (5.2 in) of armour and the conning tower had sides 136 millimetres (5.4 in) thick.
## Service
Admiral Makarov was built by Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée in La Seyne-sur-Mer, France. The ship was laid down in April 1905, and she was launched on 28 May 1906. Admiral Makarov was completed in April 1908. The ship sailed for the Baltic on 27 May and reached Tallinn, Estonia on 11 June where she was assigned to the Baltic Fleet. A few months later, she returned to the Mediterranean and provided assistance to the survivor of the Messina earthquake in December. The ship then rejoined the Baltic Fleet, but she was transferred back to Mediterranean in 1910 where she represented the Russian Empire, together with the battleship Tsesarevich, the armored cruiser Rurik, and the protected cruiser Bogatyr, at the coronation of Nicholas I of Montenegro in August 1910. Admiral Makarov was back in the Baltic during 1911 and she made a port visit to Copenhagen in 1912. The following year, the ship was one of a group of cruisers that visited Brest, France, the Isle of Portland in Great Britain, and Stavanger, Norway.
When World War I began, Admiral Makarov was assigned to the First Cruiser Brigade. On 17 August, the ship, together with the armored cruiser Gromoboi, encountered two German light cruisers and an auxiliary minelayer near the entrance to the Gulf of Finland en route to lay a minefield at the entrance. The Russian commander refused combat because he mistakenly thought that the Germans had two additional armored cruisers with them. Shortly afterward, Admiral Makarov was modified to carry mines. She laid her first mines in early December when she was one of a group of ships that mined the northern and western entrances to the Gulf of Danzig. The following month, she provided cover as other cruisers laid minefields in the western Baltic Sea, near Bornholm and Rügen Islands on the night of 12 January 1915. On 13 February, the ship was en route to cover another minelaying sortie in the Gulf of Danzig, when Rurik ran aground in fog off Fårö Island. She was pulled off despite taking 2,400 long tons (2,400 t) of water aboard, and Admiral Makarov escorted the damaged ship back home. Together with her sister Bayan and two protected cruisers, she fought a brief and inconclusive action with the light cruiser SMS München during the night of 6/7 May while covering a minelaying sortie off Libau.
On 2 July, the ship participated in the Battle of Åland Islands when intercepted and decoded wireless signals informed the Russians that a small German force was at sea to lay a minefield off Åland. Rear Admiral Mikhail Bakhirev was already at sea with Admiral Makarov, Bayan, Rurik, the protected cruisers Bogatyr and Oleg, and the destroyer Novik en route to bombard Memel. Rurik and Novik got separated from the others in fog, but the rest of the force encountered the light cruiser SMS Augsburg and a number of destroyers escorting the minelayer SMS Albatross. The Russians concentrated on Albatross, which was forced to run aground in Swedish territorial waters, while the faster Augsburg escaped to the south. The Russian cruisers were low on ammunition when they encountered two more German cruisers and broke off the action after exchanging fire.
When the German launched Operation Albion, the invasion of the Estonian islands of Saaremaa (Ösel), Hiiumaa (Dagö) and Muhu (Moon), on 11 October 1917, Admiral Makarov was in Finland, although she was assigned to the naval forces defending the Gulf of Riga. The ship arrived in Moon Sound on 14 October and engaged German destroyers attempting to enter the Sound from the west until ordered to withdraw on 19 October.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk required the Soviets to evacuate their base at Helsinki in March 1918 or have the ships based there interned by newly independent Finland even though the Gulf of Finland was still frozen over. Admiral Makarov was among the first group of ships that sailed on 25 March and reached Kronstadt five days later in what became known as the 'Ice Voyage'. She was paid off upon arrival and did not participate in the Russian Civil War. The ship was sold for scrap in 1922 and broken up in Stettin.
|
14,445,129 |
HMS Escort (H66)
| 1,066,125,731 |
British E-class destroyer
|
[
"1934 ships",
"E and F-class destroyers of the Royal Navy",
"Maritime incidents in July 1940",
"Ships built on the River Clyde",
"Ships sunk by Italian submarines",
"World War II destroyers of the United Kingdom",
"World War II shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea"
] |
HMS Escort was an E-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s. Although assigned to the Home Fleet upon completion, the ship was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1935–36, during the Abyssinia Crisis. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, she spent considerable time in Spanish waters, enforcing the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides of the conflict. Escort was assigned to convoy escort and anti-submarine patrol duties in the Western Approaches, when World War II began in September 1939. During the Norwegian Campaign, the ship escorted ships of the Home Fleet, although she did tow her sister HMS Eclipse after the latter ship had been badly damaged by German air attack. Escort was assigned to Force H in late June, and participated in the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir in early July. She was torpedoed a few days later by an Italian submarine, but was towed for three days towards Gibraltar before she foundered.
## Description
The E-class ships were slightly improved versions of the preceding D class. They displaced 1,405 long tons (1,428 t) at standard load and 1,940 long tons (1,970 t) at deep load. The ships had an overall length of 329 feet (100.3 m), a beam of 33 feet 3 inches (10.1 m) and a draught of 12 feet 6 inches (3.8 m). They were powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam provided by three Admiralty three-drum boilers. The turbines developed a total of 36,000 shaft horsepower (27,000 kW) and gave a maximum speed of 35.5 knots (65.7 km/h; 40.9 mph). Escort carried a maximum of 470 long tons (480 t) of fuel oil that gave her a range of 6,350 nautical miles (11,760 km; 7,310 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). The ships' complement was 145 officers and ratings.
The ships mounted four 45-calibre 4.7-inch (120 mm) Mark IX guns in single mounts. For anti-aircraft (AA) defence, they had two quadruple Mark I mounts for the 0.5 inch Vickers Mark III machine gun. The E class was fitted with two above-water quadruple torpedo tube mounts for 21-inch (533 mm) torpedoes. One depth charge rail and two throwers were fitted; 20 depth charges were originally carried, but this increased to 35 shortly after the war began.
## Service
Escort was ordered from Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, at Greenock, Scotland on 1 November 1932, under the 1931 Construction Programme. She was laid down on 30 March 1933, and launched on 29 March 1934. She was commissioned on 30 October 1934, at a total cost of £249,587, excluding government-furnished equipment like the armament. Upon commissioning the ship was assigned to the 5th Destroyer Flotilla of the Home Fleet, aside from a brief deployment in the West Indies between January and March 1935. Afterwards, she was refitted in Sheerness from 27 March to 30 April. Escort was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet from September 1935 to March 1936, during the Abyssinian Crisis. She struck a lock while at Sheerness and required seven weeks of repairs that were not completed until 5 September. The ship patrolled Spanish waters during the Spanish Civil War, enforcing the edicts of the Non-Intervention Committee until 24 March 1939, when she returned to the United Kingdom. Escort became tender to the light cruiser HMS Caledon of the Reserve Fleet upon her return, and was not recommissioned until 2 August, when she was assigned to the 12th Destroyer Flotilla.
On 3 September, Escort and her sister HMS Electra rescued some 300-odd survivors from the ocean liner SS Athenia, which had been torpedoed by the German submarine U-30. The ship was assigned to convoy escort and anti-submarine duties in the Western Approaches Command. She was transferred to Rosyth in December, for similar duties in the North Sea. Escort was refitted at Falmouth between 10 January and 12 February 1940, and resumed her duties afterwards. Together with the destroyers HMS Inglefield and HMS Imogen, she sank the on 25 February, after the German vessel had been spotted by the submarine HMS Narwhal some 90 miles (140 km) east of the Orkney Islands.
When the Norwegian Campaign began in early April, Escort was transferred to the Home Fleet, and was screening the capital ships when they sortied into the North Sea looking for the German ship on 9 April. After her sister Eclipse was damaged by air attack on 11 April, Escort towed her to Sullom Voe. The ship escorted the aircraft carriers HMS Glorious and HMS Ark Royal from 25 April, as their aircraft attacked German targets in Norway. She accompanied Glorious when that ship returned to Scapa Flow to refuel and replenish her aircraft on 27 April. The ship was slightly damaged in a collision with the Polish ocean liner Chrobry on 11 May. Escort was based in Scapa Flow as part of the Home Fleet until 26 June, when she sailed for Gibraltar to join Force H. It is uncertain if her rear set of torpedo tubes were replaced by a 3-inch (76.2 mm) (12-pounder) AA gun at this time. She arrived on 2 July, and joined Force H in attacking ships of the French Navy at Mers-el-Kébir the next day. During Operation MA 5, a planned air attack on Italian airfields in Sardinia, Escort was torpedoed by the Guglielmo Marconi on 11 July after the attack had been cancelled due to lack of surprise. The torpedo blew a hole 20 feet (6.1 m) wide between the two boiler rooms, but only killed two members of the crew. Later that morning she foundered.
|
197,107 |
1977 (Ash album)
| 1,170,401,474 | null |
[
"1996 debut albums",
"Albums produced by Owen Morris",
"Albums recorded at Rockfield Studios",
"Ash (band) albums",
"Infectious Records albums"
] |
1977 is the debut studio album by Northern Irish rock band Ash. It was released on 6 May 1996 by Home Grown and Infectious Records, with whom the band had signed following the release of several demo tapes. Ash released the mini-album Trailer in 1994, and followed it with three singles "Kung Fu", "Girl from Mars", and "Angel Interceptor", all of which would reappear on 1977. Ash recorded their debut album with producer Owen Morris at Rockfield Studios in Wales in early 1996. Described as a Britpop, power pop and garage rock album, 1977 drew comparisons to the Buzzcocks, Dinosaur Jr., and Sonic Youth.
Preceded by the album's fourth single "Goldfinger" in April 1996, the band embarked on tours of the United Kingdom and Europe. "Oh Yeah" was released as the fifth single in June 1996, followed by tours of the United States, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Ash ended the year with another US tour, as well as a US support slot for Weezer. They toured Europe and the UK, before their appearance at Glastonbury Festival.
1977 received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised the album's "catchy" nature. The album peaked at number one in the UK, as well as reaching the top 40 in Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland. "Kung Fu", "Girl from Mars", "Angel Interceptor", "Goldfinger", and "Oh Yeah" all charted on the UK Singles Chart, with "Goldfinger" reaching the highest position at number five. 1977 appeared on several UK publications' best-of-the-year album lists, by the likes of Kerrang!, NME, and Melody Maker, among others. The album would later be certified platinum in the UK.
## Background
In December 1989, schoolfriends Tim Wheeler and Mark Hamilton received instruments for Christmas, and decided to form a metal act they called Vietnam. The rest of the line-up consisted of vocalist Gareth Hutchinson, guitarist Malcolm King, and drummer Andy McLean, who would all leave by early 1992 citing a lack of interest in the band. After seeing a show by a local act, Lazer Gun Nun, Wheeler and Hamilton decided to move their sound away from metal and into Nirvana-leaning territory. Around this time, Wheeler was discovering the likes of ABBA and Paul McCartney and Wings. Vietnam ultimately disbanded, and Wheeler and Hamilton decided to form a punk band. Wheeler handled vocals and guitar, Hamilton the bass. They spent two weeks amassing original material in Wheeler's bedroom. Drummer Rick McMurray joined the pair in June 1992; Wheeler had approached him during a school play, and invited him to his house for a jam session.
With the line-up finalised, they christened themselves Ash after spotting the word in a dictionary. Over the course of a year, the band recorded four demos tapes: Solar Happy in June 1992, Shed in September, Home Demo in November, and Garage Girl in February 1993. A friend of the band had sent one of the demos to Paddy Davis of the public relations company, Bad Moon. He played it for four months, before passing it to Steve Tavener, who had plans to start a record label. Tavener and Davis subsequently went to Belfast to watch the band perform. Ash released their debut single, "Jack Names the Planets", through Tavener's La La Land Records in February 1994, by which point he had become their manager.
In April 1994, the band travelled to London to promote it. Several major labels approached them, before they signed with Infectious Records with an advance of £12,000 and a 50–50 share of the profits with the label. Ash set up the imprint Home Grown as part of Infectious with which they would put out their future releases. As Hamilton and Wheeler were 17 years old, their parents had to sign the contract on their behalf, as well as permission from their school headmaster Jack Ferris. Two more singles, "Petrol" and "Uncle Pat", preceded the release of the band's mini-album Trailer in October 1994. During this period, two-thirds of the band were focusing on their A-Levels, touring with Babes in Toyland and Elastica during their half-term holidays. In February 1995, Wheeler and McMurray flew to the United States to meet with potential labels, including Reprise and Interscope Records.
## Recording and production
In preparation for their debut album, the band met with a few producers, such as Phil Vinall, who had produced the Auteurs, while Wheeler wanted Marc Waterman to produce it, having known him for his work on Nowhere (1990) by Ride. Producer Owen Morris was working on A Northern Soul (1995) with the Verve at the end of 1994; Ash's manager and Infectious founder Korda Marshall suggested they record a few songs with him. Wheeler said they wanted a "cool, young" producer and selected him upon learning that Morris was influenced by acts they liked, such as David Bowie, T. Rex and Thin Lizzy. The band opted to record one song with him to see how their working relationship would unfold. They recorded "Kung Fu" and an unfinished version of "Angel Interceptor" over Christmas 1994 at Loco Studios in Usk Valley, Wales. "Girl from Mars" was recorded in Easter 1995 at Rockfield Studios in Rockfield, Monmouthshire, Wales.
Ash had to record some B-sides with Phil Thornalley in London, but as they were not working effectively, Thornalley walked out and Morris, who happened to be in the city, was drafted in; they then finished working on "Angel Interceptor". The band worked on pre-production with Morris in December 1995, with him visiting the band at their rehearsal space, running through all of the song ideas they had. After playing him everything they thought was worthwhile, including portions of "Lose Control" and "Oh Yeah", he inquired if they had anything else, they showed him "Goldfinger". Wheeler considered it a B-side, until Morris exclaimed, "you idiot, that's a single!". The band and Morris began recording their debut album on New Year's Day 1996, commencing with "Goldfinger". The rest of the material that would appear on the album was recorded at Rockfield Studios at a cost of £800 per day, with Morris and the band co-producing the album.
Though the process was planned to take only six weeks, it ended up lasting three months. Because they had toured incessantly since leaving school, the band did not have enough time to accumulate material for an album. Wheeler wrote nearly half of what would end up on the finished album in the studio. As Rockfield was a residential studio, according to Wheeler, the members became "very nocturnal and very crazy". He attributed this to Morris "gradually introducing us to drugs, so we were off our heads a lot of the time". Nick Brine, Sorrel Merchant and Neil Kiely acted as studio assistants. Morris later mixed the recordings at Orinoco in London, except for "Girl from Mars" (Thornalley) and "Angel Interceptor" (Mark "Spike" Stent). Thornalley mixed "Girl on Mars" as the band's label and manager felt the track was incomplete, much to the annoyance of Morris.
## Composition and lyrics
### Music and themes
Musically, the sound of 1977 has been described as Britpop, power pop, and garage rock, with elements of glam rock and grunge, drawing comparisons to the work of Buzzcocks and Sonic Youth, as well as the albums Bug (1988) by Dinosaur Jr., and Bandwagonesque (1991) by Teenage Fanclub. In a 2020 interview, Wheeler thought that the Britpop tag "felt a bit weird", as he explained that they were influenced more by American music than British music. He attributed the range of styles to the band's American label, Reprise Records, having sent him several CDs from their back catalogue. They had spent two months coming up with random titles: Ash – The Album, Child Abuse, A Tribute to Apache Indian, Owen's Angels, Tim, Mark and the Other and Corporate Record Company Bullshit Wank. When Morris eventually asked what it was going to be called, the band replied 1977.
1977 refers to the release year of Star Wars (1977) and the year Wheeler and Hamilton were born. Though some commenters said it alluded to the year punk rock and Sex Pistols achieved mainstream popularity, author Charlie Porter in his biography on the band Ash: 77–97 dismissed this. He said the genre's "vigour was extinguished by bitterness and internal cat-fights", de-evolving into a brand, "[s]o punk is not the reason this CD [...] is called 1977". He considered the name as "rather a blank name, a title that sounds sassy, but which means nothing. It leaves the music to be judge on its own merit".
Wheeler is credited with writing all of the album's tracks, except for "Lose Control" (which he co-wrote with Hamilton), "Innocent Smile" (written by Hamilton) and "Angel Interceptor" (co-written with McMurray). Wheeler estimated that Hamilton had written half of "Lose Control", while McMurray had helped him with the lyrics to "Angel Interceptor". When working on material, Wheeler wrote the music first, taking inspiration from other peoples' songs he heard.
Nick Ingman, Morris and Wheeler came up with string arrangements, which were done with a 30-piece orchestra; Ingman had worked on "History" (1995) from A Northern Soul and "Unfinished Sympathy" (1991) by Massive Attack. Wheeler referred to some of his lyrics as "a little too sickly sweet", explaining that he took inspiration from the work of the Beach Boys and Phil Spector-produced tracks. The album features a sample of a TIE fighter from Star Wars; Wheeler was unsure if the band got permission for it, but theorised the label was fine with it as they were owned by 20th Century Fox which had made Star Wars. A science fiction theme can be heard throughout the album, which Wheeler attributed to his sister having a David Bowie poster with the phrase "Life on Mars" written across it, coupled with Trompe le Monde (1991) by Pixies.
### Songs
The opening track "Lose Control" is a punk rock song that utilises a quiet-and-loud dynamic, recalling the work of Therapy? with its guitar solo. Wheeler's guitar riff consists of tremolo-enhanced octave picking in an ascending order, while the solo is affected by a wah-wah pedal and includes multiple bends. The song's protagonist pleads for a girl to cheat on her boyfriend. "Goldfinger" channels the sound of Teenage Fanclub. When they began writing it, the band borrowed an instrumental break section from what they believed was "Goldfinger" (1964) sung by Shirley Bassey, but turned out to be a song by John Barrie. Subsequent sections of the song were written around the world while touring to support Trailer. Wheeler said they kept the name "Goldfinger" as "it has a lot of mystery", while the lyrics detail a man wanting to buy drugs.
The opening ten bars of "Girl from Mars" are played acoustically, before erupting into a wall of guitars, reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr. member J Mascis. A family holiday in France, where Wheeler smoked and drank with some people on a beach, influenced the track's chorus section. The song was written around the time of Trailer but not included on it as their manager and label thought it would not be good for the band to have a hit single while still attending school. "I'd Give You Anything" is a harder, Stooges-esque track. It was the last track Wheeler had written while living at his parents' home. Initially uptempo, Morris suggested the band slow it down. Porter said the confident vocals and breezy guitarwork earned it a comparison to the sound of Oasis
Ash made two versions of "Gone the Dream": The final version ended up as an indie rock song that featured a string section and reminiscent of the Boo Radleys, while the other version was a Beatles-esque track made at Morris' insistence. "Kung Fu" is a tribute to Jackie Chan in the vein of the Ramones. Wheeler wrote it at home in three minutes before leaving to record with Morris in late 1994. Wheeler claimed that he binge-listened to the Ramones over the Christmas period, while discovering the words "kung fu", "Hong Kong", and "fu manchu", and watching a series of movies featuring Chan.
"Oh Yeah" is a nostalgic track about teenage romance, and features extra vocals by Lisa Moorish. Wheeler wrote it when he was 18 about his first romance at 15, when he experienced those emotions for the first time. "Let It Flow" was written in the studio, and originally featured an intro before the chorus section, which was later dropped. The song's original lyrics were scrapped, and re-written by Wheeler while the rest of the band were at a pub. Wheeler attributed its sound to the work of Teenage Fanclub and the Lemonheads. The lyrics describe how love can affect a person to the point they are unable to see their partner's influence over them.
Kayley Kravitz of Vanyaland said "Innocent Smile" was the "bratty younger sibling" of "Goldfinger" as "an atmospheric, lo-fi epic (by Ash standards) about criminal teenage kicks". it is indebted to Daydream Nation (1988)-era Sonic Youth with its slow build-up. "Angel Interceptor" is a mix of punk rock and doo-wop. Wheeler said he was "notoriously bad at finishing lyrics", which prompted Morris to tell him and McMurray to leave the studio to finish writing it. It discusses sex and sees Wheeler pondering as to when he will see his girlfriend again, despite seeing her a day prior. The title is a alludes to the jet girl characters from the Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons TV series, while the chorus references astronaut Yuri Gagarin and the Apollo space missions. Wheeler considered it a pseudo-sequel to "Girl from Mars". At the end of the recording, McMurray can be heard yelling "Whooo! Yeah, we’ve got it!", while he was on his first ecstasy trip.
"Lost in You" was by influenced by the Beach Boys, and written at the end of the recording process. Wheeler explained the band was stressed from pushing themselves, which he said came across in the song's performance. He wrote "Darkside Lightside" from the perspective of someone who had sex with another person's girlfriend; it opened with Iron Maiden-like riffs, and ended with guitar work reminiscent of Pink Floyd. 11 and a half minutes after "Darkside Lightside" ends the hidden track "Sick Party" plays, consisting of Hamilton and guitar tech Leif Bodnarchuk vomiting. It was planned initially to be part of the outtake "The Scream", which according to Wheeler was "built up [from] 48 tracks that started out like a murmur up to full on screaming". When it came time to mix the song, they were "too scared". Because the band felt "Sick Party" "turned out to be so funny", it became a standalone track.
## Release
"Kung Fu" was released as the lead single from 1977 on 20 March 1995, with "Day of the Triffids" and "Luther Ingo's Star Cruiser" as the B-sides. While Wheeler was studying the last six months of his A-Levels, he would be interrupted by having to do multiple interviews. "Girl from Mars" was released as the album's second single on 31 July 1995, with "Astral Coversations with Toulouse Lautrec" and a cover of "Cantina Band" by John Williams as the B-sides. The music video for "Girl from Mars", which was directed Peter Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle, was shot on the beach at Camber Sands following the band's debut tour in mainland Europe. The band promoted the song with an appearance on Top of the Pops. Around this, the band had finished school, which then allowed them to tour more and do promotional events, gigging until the end of the year. "Angel Interceptor" followed as the third single on 9 October 1995, with "5 a.m. Eternal" and a cover of "Gimme Some Truth" (1971) by John Lennon as the B-sides. The following month, the band went on a short US tour with China Drum.
"Goldfinger" was released as the fourth single from 1977 on 15 April 1996, with "I Need Somebody", "Sneaker", and a cover of the Smokey Robinson track "Get Ready" as the B-sides. In May, Ash went on a United Kingdom tour with 60ft Dolls, Bis, and Jocasta. Infectious and Home Grown released 1977 in the UK on 6 May, while the US release by Reprise appeared on 11 June 1996. The first 50,000 copies of the UK version included "Jack Names the Planets" and "Don't Know" as hidden tracks. Morris, who had taken an interest in various bands' artwork, suggested Ash collaborate with Brian Cannon of design company Microdot. Ed van der Elsken took the photograph that would appear on the front cover of 1977; Cannon said clearing the rights for the image nearly delayed the album's release as he had died, and the band were unable to contact his widow. The cassette edition was sold by the label at 1977 prices, £4.99.
Following the album's release, Ash embarked on a European tour, and appeared on Later... with Jools Holland. "Oh Yeah" was released as the album's fifth single on 24 June 1996, with "T. Rex", "Everywhere Is All Around", and the ABBA cover "Does Your Mother Know" as the B-sides. The "Oh Yeah" music video sees Hamilton making out with an actress, interspersed with footage of the band performing at a carnival. In July and August 1996, the band toured the US with Muzzle and performed at the Reading Festival. Around this time, their label discussed releasing "Lost in You" as a single; however, the band felt they had released enough tracks from it by this point. In September and October 1996, Ash toured Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, before returning to the US with Stabbing Westward, I Mother Earth and Drill in October and November.
During the US leg of the tour, Ash met with the head programmer at MTV, to discuss getting coverage on the channel, however, Wheeler turned up late and drunk. The following day, the band had an interview on the channel; Wheeler arrived late again and vomited during it. The band's label was angry with them, and Wheeler later theorised that these incidents cost the band any major success in the US. One show of this leg, namely in Boulder, Colorado, had low ticket sales; as an incentive, Ash opted to perform 1977 in its entirety. They then supported Weezer on their US headlining tour through to December, before returning to Ireland for a one-off show to close the year.
Ash released their first live album, Live at the Wireless, in February 1997. Recorded in Australia, it was sold in the UK and mainland Europe. Some European copies of 1977 were then packaged with Live at the Wireless as a second disc in collaboration between Home Grown, Infectious, Death Star, and Facedown Records. In the same month, the band embarked on a European tour with 60 ft Dolls and Seesaw, leading up to five consecutive shows at the London Astoria. Fan club members attending the Astoria shows were given a free 7" vinyl, which consisted of "I Only Want to Be with You", "Devil's Haircut", and a live version of "Kung Fu". In June 1997, the band played a handful of UK shows with Silver Sun, before appearing at Glastonbury Festival.
### Reissues and related releases
"Goldfinger", "Girl from Mars", "Kung Fu", "Oh Yeah" and "Angel Interceptor" were included on the band's three compilation albums, Intergalactic Sonic 7′′s (2003), The Best of Ash (2011), and Teenage Wildlife: 25 Years of Ash (2020), and released on 7" vinyl as part of 94–'04 The 7" Singles Box Set (2014). In 2008, a three-disc deluxe edition of 1977 was released, featuring Trailer, Live at the Wireless, B-sides, unreleased demos and live recordings. BMG bought the band's back catalogue and reissued the album on CD in 2018 and vinyl in 2022; for the latter, Wheeler was sent various mixes and had to point out the correct versions to the label. The band have played the album in its entirety on several tours throughout 2008, 2013 and 2016, as well as a one-off livestream in 2021. Recordings from the Astoria shows were later compiled, and released as the live album Live on Mars – London Astoria 1997 (2016).
## Critical reception
1977 was met with generally positive reviews from music critics. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that, by "sticking to the rigid rules of American punk-pop", Ash opted for a "cinematic approach to their songs", resulting in 1977 being a "melting pot of pop styles". He added their use of "loud guitars" offers a "distinctive, melodic, and energetic sound that's equal parts heavy grunge and light pop". Ox-Fanzine's Joachim Hiller wrote that if the listener was "the missing link between Oasis and Elastica, [they] should find it here," adding that the band's "mixture of girl seductive sugar pop and evil grater guitars with seventies rock quotes" is everywhere, and is "very catchy and somehow as tasty as French fries". Porter said that while it was not a "perfect album, by any means, [... it was] more intelligent, more alive than the slightly condescending tone of the reviews suggest".
Mark Jenkins of The Washington Post wrote that if he were to "judge only from the guitar squall" opening the album, it would appear that "the band prefers noise to melody" as previously shown on Trailer; however, he felt the "balance has shifted on this disc", with it showcasing "classic tunefulness over raw aggression". Q reviewer Andrew Collins said the album "benefits from having its raw power harnessed" by Morris and was "pulled off with 100 per cent enthusiasm; hey, these boys make pointless distorted introductions [to some songs] sound like fun." NME's Johnny Cigarettes wrote that with "a single listen", he was certain the band had "cured themselves" of becoming generic, as he had noted with their early singles. He added that "[w]hat invariably saves them from mature-rock-band hell, just as it has saved them from generic-indie-band hell are those simple, honest, priceless standbys - top-hole tunes".
Tim Hulsizer of Consumable Online wrote that 1977 was "every bit as fun and catchy" as Trailer, going on to call it a "very cohesive, fluid album". MTV writer Michael Krugman said that the album saw the band "teetering on the brink of maturity--only they're plainly fighting it by throwing their weight in the other direction". He mentions the album "occasionally trips over its own giant steps", noting a couple of generic and underdeveloped tracks, before citing the album's "real flaw...lies in the hands of someone who should have known better", criticising Morris' "excessively noisy and often quite murky" production, stating the "punk rock gets muddied, while experimental bits...are strangely obscured". Victoria Segal of Melody Maker was dismissive of the album, stating that it "never aspires to be anything beyond My Guy indie, boys-next-door making music for girls-next-door".
### Retrospective reviews
Drowned in Sound reviewer Joss Albert called 1977 an "album by the young for the young". He said that while it wasn't "perfect or complete, the severe hooks of the best of the Brut smothered tunes will always get 1977's name mentioned". Spectrum Culture contributor John L. Murphy noted that in spite of the "clear influences and the passage of time, 1977 still sounds fresh", with "fast pop dominat[ing]" after the initial listen. Only "repeated airings reveal craft in softer songs", their "cinematic" scope, and "sentimental" lyrics. BBC Music's Mike Diver wrote that the album was likely "remembered by those who shared in its sentiments – written by a trio of teenagers, for an audience of the same, it preoccupied itself with chugging alcohol, chasing after girls and messing about with martial arts".
The Irish Times writer Brian Boyd said the band "come racing out of the traps with a giddy pop sound", though he was "not sure why the band feel the need to release [a triple disc edition] ... as this will surely only appeal to their fanbase. But maybe's that the point." Record Collector reviewer Emmy Watts described the album as a "grungy slice of Britpop" that "has not aged well". She noted that at the time, the "rough spontaneity" of Wheeler's "flat vocals" and McMurray's "muffled drumming" aided their inexperience, however, "the original format just highlights the recording's poor quality". "Sick Party" was included on Pitchfork's 2010 list of "ten unusual CD-era gimmicks".
## Commercial performance and accolades
1977 peaked at number one in the UK; while Porter said it sold 165,000 copies in its first week, Bowler and Dray estimated the opening sales to be around 122,000 copies. It became the first album from an Irish group to debut at number one in the UK. It also reached number five in Scotland, number 14 in New Zealand, number 18 in Australia, number 26 in Finland and Norway, number 40 in Switzerland, number 44 in Sweden, number 65 in Germany, and number 75 in the Netherlands. The album was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry in the UK.
"Kung Fu" charted at number 57 in the UK. "Girl from Mars" charted at number 11 in the UK. "Angel Interceptor" charted at number 14 in the UK, and "Goldfinger" charted at number five in the UK, and number 50 in Australia. "Oh Yeah" charted at number six in the UK.
1977 is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die; it is ranked at 417 on the NME poll of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
## Track listing
Writing credits per booklet. All recordings produced by Owen Morris and Ash.
## Personnel
Personnel per deluxe booklet.
Ash
- Mark Hamilton – bass
- Rick McMurray – drums
- Tim Wheeler – guitar, vocals, string arrangements
Additional musicians
- Nick Ingman – string arrangements
- Lisa Moorish – extra vocals (track 7)
Production
- Owen Morris – producer, string arrangements
- Ash – producer, interior photography
- Nick Brine – studio assistant
- Sorrel Merchant – studio assistant
- Neil Kiely – studio assistant
- Phil Thornalley – mixing (track 3)
- Mark "Spike" Stent – mixing (track 10)
Design
- Brian Cannon – design, sleeve director, interior photography
- Mark Hamilton – artwork assistant
- Ed van der Eisken – cover photography
- Ash – interior photography
- Rolant Dafis – interior photography
## Charts and certifications
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
### Certifications
|
28,311,080 |
Andriamanelo
| 1,173,616,891 |
King of Alasora, founder of the Imerina Kingdom (fl. 1540–1575)
|
[
"Date of birth unknown",
"Founding monarchs",
"History of Madagascar",
"Malagasy monarchs",
"Monarchs in Africa",
"Year of birth unknown"
] |
Andriamanelo (fl. 1540–1575) was king of Alasora in the central highlands region of Madagascar. He is generally considered by historians to be the founder of the Kingdom of Imerina and originator of the Merina royal line that, by the 19th century, had extended its rule over virtually all of Madagascar. The son of a Vazimba mother and a man of the newly arrived Hova people originating in southeast Madagascar, Andriamanelo ultimately led a series of military campaigns against the Vazimba, beginning a several-decade process to drive them from the Highlands. The conflict that defined his reign also produced many lasting innovations, including the development of fortified villages in the highlands and the use of iron weapons. Oral tradition furthermore credits Andriamanelo with establishing a ruling class of nobles (andriana) and defining the rules of succession. Numerous cultural traditions, including the ritual of circumcision, the wedding custom of vodiondry and the art of Malagasy astrology (sikidy) are likewise associated with this king.
## Early life
Andriamanelo was the oldest son of the reigning Vazimba queen (alternately given in the oral histories as Rafohy or Rangita) and her Hova husband Manelobe, who may have had origins in the Zafiraminia people of Anosy. At the time of the marriage between Rafohy and Manelobe, the Hova were a minority clan who had recently moved into the Vazimba-dominated highlands from their ancestral homeland in the southeast. The marriage produced two sons, Andriamanelo and his younger brother Andriamananitany, as well as a sister named Rafotsindrindramanjaka. In a bid to counteract further fracturing of their kingdom, Rafohy and Rangita decided that while the Vazimba had historically been ruled by queens, Andriamanelo would inherit the crown upon his mother's death and would be succeeded not by his own child but by his younger brother. This system of succession, ordered by the queens to be followed for all time, was called fanjakana arindra ("organized government") and applied to families as well: in any instance where there was an elder child and a younger one, the parents would designate an elder child to assume authority within the family upon their death, and that authority would be handed to the designated younger child in the event of the death of the elder child. The queen gave the village of Alasora to Andriamanelo to rule as his territory while she still lived, while Andriamananitany was given the village of Ambohitrandriananahary.
## Reign
Among the distinguishing features of Andriamanelo's reign was the expansion of his territory around the sacred hill of Alasora through a military campaign against the Vazimba to push these legendary, primitive first settlers of Madagascar toward the west of the island. After Andriamanelo had successfully expanded his kingdom to include Alasora to the south and Merimanjaka to the north, the continued presence of a Vazimba stronghold at Analamanga (located between the two halves of his realm and effectively separating them) posed too great a threat to the unity of his kingdom to allow the situation to stand. He resolved to capture Analamanga and drive the Vazimba from his territory, an ambition partially realized during his reign. Popular legend attributes Andriamanelo's military successes to several innovations, including the discovery of iron smelting and propagation of the iron-tipped spear against the Vazimba who fought with weapons of clay. He also fortified his capital at Alasora by creating hadivory (dry moats), hadifetsy (defensive trenches) and vavahady (town gates protected by a large rolled stone disc acting as a barrier), thereby rendering the town more resistant to Vazimba attacks. However, his attempt to establish Merina dominance in the central Highlands was thwarted when he proved unable to seize Analamanga; this Vazimba stronghold would not fall until at last conquered by Andriamanelo's grandson, Andrianjaka.
Warfare was not the only strategy by which Andriamanelo sought to expand the territory under his control. Several years into his reign (after the death of his younger brother) Andriamanelo married a maternal cousin named Ramaitsoanala ("Green Forest") who was a princess through her astrologer father, King Rabiby (for whom his capital, the village of Ambohidrabiby, is named), and her mother Ivorombe who is described in legends as a Vazimba water goddess. Through this union Andriamanelo ensured he would become master of the lands around Ambohidrabiby upon the death of his wife's father. Ramaitsoanala took the name Randapavola upon her marriage and then became known as Queen Rasolobe upon the birth of the couple's seventh and final son, Ralambo—the only one of Andriamanelo's children to survive to adulthood. Six earlier pregnancies ended in stillbirth or the death of the child in infancy.
Andriamanelo is typically portrayed as a civilizing king in contrast to the primitive Vazimba against whom he waged war. As such, oral history credits him with discovering such diverse arts as silversmithing and astrology (sikidy) in addition to iron working. He reputedly introduced knowledge about the construction and use of pirogues, and was the first in the highlands to transform lowland swamps into irrigated rice paddies through the construction of dikes in the valleys around Alasora. The Merina rite of circumcision, described by Bloch (1986) in great detail, continued to be practiced by the Merina monarchy through the end of the 19th century in precisely the way first established by Andriamanelo generations before. Many elements of these rituals continue to form part of the circumcision traditions of Merina families in the 21st century.
Many of the innovations attributed to Andriamanelo were not his personal invention. Rather, their origins can be traced back to the southeastern part of the island that the Hova had left behind as they migrated into the central highlands. Astrology, for instance, had been introduced early to the island by way of trade contacts between coastal Malagasy communities and Arab seafarers. Similarly, archaeological evidence proves the existence of iron implements in Madagascar at least four centuries prior to the war between Andriamanelo and the Vazimba, suggesting that while the technology was not discovered during his reign, Andriamanelo may have been among the first sovereigns in Imerina to make wide-scale use of it in military campaigns.
### Rules of succession
Andriamanelo's antecedents, Rafohy and Rangita, had jointly decreed a system of social order whereby the designated heir should have a younger sibling who would succeed him. However, this decree proved challenging upon the first instance of its application. According to oral tradition, upon Rafohy's designation of elder son Andriamanelo as her successor, her younger son Andriamananitany initially claimed to accept her decree. However, Andriamananitany soon began building a new village immodestly named Ambohitrandriamanitra ("Village of God") and copied the system of fortifications introduced by his older brother at Alasora, reportedly constructing them even faster than Andriamanelo. Word spread that Andriamananitany wished to undermine his older brother's rule. Upon learning of Andriamanelo's consequent wrath, Andriamananitany promptly abandoned his "Village of God" and sought permission from his brother to build a village called Ambohimanoa ("Village of Submission") where, according to one version of the oral history, he may have imprudently attempted to construct another defensive trench. Due to this provocative behavior, Andriamanantany was murdered by a group of Hova, possibly at Andriamanelo's command.
Consumed with remorse, the king sought to rectify the situation by arranging a marriage between his brother's orphaned son and Andriamanelo's own sister (the orphan's aunt), Rafotsindrindramanjaka. He declared that the child from this union would, if female, be wed to his own son Ralambo; if male, he would become Ralambo's successor. A girl was born, and she was promised to Ralambo as his future wife with the stipulation that the child born of their union would rule after Ralambo. In this way Andriamanelo established a tradition of succession that indirectly respected the queens' decree by ensuring that a child of his brother's line (and his own) would rule after him. Because of this decree, Ralambo's first son by his second wife was passed over in the line of succession in favor of Andrianjaka, Ralambo's son by Rafotsindrindramanjaka. Andriamanelo was also reportedly the first to formally establish the andriana as a caste of Merina nobles, thereby laying the foundation for a stratified and structured society. From this point forward, the term Hova was used to refer only to the non-noble free people of the society which would later be renamed Merina by Andriamanelo's son Ralambo.
### Vodiondry
The marriage tradition of the vodiondry, still practiced to this day throughout the Highlands, is said to have originated with Andriamanelo. According to oral history, after the sovereign had successfully contracted a marriage with Ramaitsoanala, sole daughter of Vazimba King Rabiby, Andriamanelo sent her a variety of gifts including vodiondry—meat from the hindquarters of a sheep—which he believed to be the tastiest portion. The value placed on this cut of meat was reaffirmed by Ralambo who, upon discovering the edibility of zebu meat, declared the hindquarters of every slaughtered zebu throughout the kingdom to be his royal due. From the time of Andriamanelo forward, it became a marriage tradition for the groom to offer vodiondry to the bride's family. Over time the customary offerings of meat have been increasingly replaced by a symbolic piastre, sums of money and other gifts.
## Death and succession
Andriamanelo ruled until his death at an advanced age around 1575 and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Ralambo. He was buried in Alasora in an earthen ditch. According to oral tradition, the placement of his tomb may have been to the south-east of the royal compound rather than to the north as was customary. This anomaly may have been intended to symbolically indicate Andriamanelo's "otherness" as a man of mixed ethnic background. A similar tomb to the north of the Alasora compound may have been that of Andriamanelo's mother. These two earthen tombs are considered the oldest known royal-style tombs in Imerina.
|
1,677,616 |
Interstate 215 (Utah)
| 1,137,240,079 |
Interstate Highway in Utah
|
[
"Auxiliary Interstate Highways",
"Interstate 15",
"Interstate Highways in Utah",
"Transportation in Davis County, Utah",
"Transportation in Salt Lake County, Utah"
] |
Interstate 215 (I-215), also known locally as the Belt Route, is an auxiliary Interstate in the U.S. state of Utah that forms a three-quarters loop around Salt Lake City and many of its suburbs. The route begins at the mouth of Parley's Canyon at a junction with I-80 east of the city center, and heads south through the edge of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area's eastern suburbs of Millcreek, Holladay, and Cottonwood Heights. It continues west through Murray before turning north again, passing through the city's first-ring western suburbs of Taylorsville and West Valley City. It then enters North Salt Lake and Davis County for a short distance before reaching I-15 northwest of the city center.
The Interstate was proposed in the mid-1950s, along with I-15 and I-80 through Salt Lake City. At the time, only the western portion of the belt route was assigned as I-215. The eastern portion of the belt route was designated Interstate 415. However, the I-415 designation was scrapped to provide a single route number for the entire route in 1969, with the I-215 designation covering the complete belt route. The freeway was constructed in segments, the first of which opened in 1963 between Redwood Road in North Salt Lake and 2100 North near the airport. I-215 was originally planned to be complete in the mid-1970s, but the last section, between 6200 South and 4500 South in Holladay, was not completed until 1989 because of challenges from citizens' groups over environmental impact statements.
## Route description
I-215 begins at an interchange at the mouth of Parley's Canyon in Millcreek near the southeast corner of Salt Lake City that connects I-80, Foothill Drive (State Route 186, or SR-186) and Parleys Way. At this point, I-215 splits into three legs, connecting I-80 toward Salt Lake City, Foothill Drive, and Parleys Way, and I-80 through Parley's Canyon. From here, the freeway travels southeast along the Salt Lake Valley's east bench with three lanes in each direction. The route enters a residential area of East Millcreek and turns south. Then, the first exit appears, an incomplete diamond interchange with 3300 South (SR-171) that lacks an offramp from northbound I-215. Past this interchange, an onramp connects 3800 South to northbound I-215. A block further south is a partial interchange lacking an offramp from northbound I-215 onto 3900 South. Entering Holladay, I-215 is heading south but soon turns southwest. An offramp here allows northbound motorists to connect to Wasatch Boulevard. However, this exit is signed as 3900 South and 3300 South because of the incomplete interchanges on both roads. Past an interchange at 4500 South (SR-266) that serves southbound I-215, the road turns south again and begins descending toward Knudsen's Corner and Cottonwood Heights. At this point, the southbound lanes are lower than the parallel northbound lanes. The belt route flattens out upon reaching an interchange at 6200 South at Knudsen's Corner.
As the freeway enters Cottonwood Heights, it turns west and becomes a sunken freeway. Then it reaches an interchange at Highland Drive, signed as 2000 East (SR-152). This interchange features a grade-separated ramp from northbound 2000 East to eastbound I-215. Past this junction, another interchange at Union Park Avenue appears. Another grade-separated ramp from Union Park Avenue is present. The freeway enters Murray as an interchange serving westbound motorists connects to 280 East and State Street (U.S. Route 89, or US-89). Eastbound travelers connect to State Street further west at a separate exit. The road turns northwest for a short time to approach a junction at I-15 (often called the South Interchange). Approaching the interchange, the route gains two lanes and reverts to a ground-level freeway. The freeway crosses I-15 and loses one lane as it enters Taylorsville and curves to the northwest, crossing the Jordan River in the process. Right before a partial cloverleaf interchange at Redwood Road (SR-68) the route turns west one final time before turning north after the interchange. The freeway continues north and has another partial cloverleaf interchange at 4700 South (SR-266). The route enters West Valley City and encounters 3500 South (SR-171), where its eastbound lanes have a grade-separated ramp to northbound I-215. The road turns northeast and enters an industrial area of western Salt Lake City. After reaching a cloverleaf interchange at SR-201, the route turns north again. Beyond a single-point urban interchange at California Avenue, the freeway continues north.
A partial stack interchange involving I-80, Redwood Road, and the access road to Salt Lake City International Airport is next. The freeway loses one lane in each direction as the Interstate passes the airport to the east. Two diamond interchanges at 700 North and 2100 North occur as the freeway approaches Davis County. Past 2100 North, the freeway enters rural Davis County, and the road curves to the northwest. An interchange at Legacy Parkway gives northbound I-215 motorists and southbound Legacy Parkway motorists their respective connections. The road turns east and loses one lane in each direction. There is a diamond interchange at SR-68 before the highway merges into northbound I-15 in North Salt Lake.
## History
A belt route around Salt Lake City was first proposed in 1955, with the Utah Highway Department (the predecessor to the present-day Utah Department of Transportation) holding hearings concerning construction beginning in early 1958. The southeast quadrant of the route was originally placed from a junction at proposed I-15 in Murray northeasterly through Murray and Holladay, eventually reaching the east bench at 3900 South. From there, it would have run north toward the mouth of Parley's Canyon at proposed I-80 (at the time US-40). Almost immediately, this plan was met with opposition among local residents in the area. The proposed route would have bisected the primarily residential Holladay suburb, as well as the southern portion of Murray. After more than two years of hearings and widespread opposition from residents, the Highway Department released their proposed routing in June 1960, which placed the southeast quadrant where it runs today. While quelling criticism from some, others remained in opposition, saying the route was still too intrusive along residential areas. The western quadrant was also admonished for being placed to close to other major arterials. In November 1963, a small, two-lane portion of the northwest quadrant of the belt route opened from Redwood Road (SR-68) in Davis County west and south to 2100 North, north of the Salt Lake City International Airport. This portion of road was extended east to I-15 in North Salt Lake and upgraded to freeway standards by 1969.
Construction of the southeast quadrant from I-80 (at the time replacing US-40) at Parley's Canyon to 4600 South in Holladay began in mid-1965. This involved realigning Wasatch Boulevard to parallel the route and truncating that road at 3300 South. Prior to this, Wasatch Boulevard connected to US-40. The section from I-80 to 3300 South opened by January 1967, with the portion of roadway from 3300 South to 4500 South opening in November 1969.
By 1973, construction was progressing on the western quadrant between I-15 in Murray and SR-201 (at the time U.S. Route 40 Alternate (US-40A)/US-50A). Land acquisition was also taking place for the rest of the southeastern quadrant between 300 East in Murray and 4600 South in Holladay. However, a citizens' group named Cottonwood Inc. halted right-of-way acquirements due to the lack of an environmental impact statement (EIS). Also controversial was a proposed cloverleaf interchange at 2000 East. By mid-1975, an EIS was released with four main alternatives: a no-build alternative which would leave a gap in the southeast quadrant, building the road along the modern-day path (at about 6400 South), moving the southern portion southwest through Fort Union and Midvale to 7200 South, or extending the eastern portion further south to Sandy and then west along 9000 South. Cottonwood Inc. filed a lawsuit challenging the EIS. Meanwhile, I-215 from SR-201 in the western quadrant to 280 East in Murray opened in November 1976.
After 1976, gaps in the belt route were present from 2100 North near the airport to SR-201 and from State Street in Murray to 4600 South in Holladay. The first step in completing the gap was taken in June 1979, when construction of the Interstate from State Street to 700 East began. This was followed by the Cottonwood Inc. lawsuit being awarded in favor of UDOT in November 1979. In July 1985, the route from 280 East to Union Park Avenue was completed. At the time, this portion of road was the most expensive in the state in terms of cost per mile, due to the road being depressed below surrounding neighborhoods. The next section to open was from 2100 North south to I-80 in 1987. This was followed by a section between Union Park Avenue and 2000 East, opened in November 1987, which was also built as a sunken freeway. The western quadrant of the freeway was completed in October 1988, closing the gap between SR-201 and I-80 (however, the California Avenue interchange wasn't opened until mid-1989). In August 1989, the road from 2000 East to 6200 South was finished, and the belt route was completed with the opening of freeway between 4500 South and 6200 South in October 1989.
Since 1989, major modifications have occurred on the belt route, consisting of the rebuilding of the southern I-15 interchange in 2001, widening the freeway from six to eight lanes from 4700 South in Taylorsville to I-15 in Murray in 2004, and the addition of an interchange at Legacy Parkway in 2008. The 3300 South and 4500 South overpasses were rebuilt as well, in 2008 and 2007, respectively. In November 2017, a complete rebuild of the southwest quadrant from SR-201 to 4700 South in Taylorsville was completed. The \$105 million project replaced the concrete road surface, added auxiliary lanes between exits, resurfaced and widened several bridge decks, and replaced two major bridges over SR-201.
As part of the original proposal of a belt route through Salt Lake City, the southeastern quadrant received the designation of I-415. To maintain continuity in the belt route, the 415 number was replaced in favor of the I-215 designation covering the entire route in 1969.
## Exit list
|
42,518,975 |
Shinya Kogami
| 1,160,564,603 |
Fictional character from Psycho-Pass
|
[
"Comics characters introduced in 2012",
"Fictional Japanese police detectives",
"Fictional gunfighters in anime and manga",
"Fictional kickboxers",
"Fictional male martial artists",
"Male characters in anime and manga",
"Martial artist characters in anime and manga",
"Psycho-Pass"
] |
Shinya Kogami (Japanese: 狡噛 慎也, Hepburn: Kōgami Shin'ya) is the protagonist introduced in the 2012 anime series Psycho-Pass. A police officer in a cyberpunk dystopia, Kogami becomes obsessed with murdering Shogo Makishima, a criminal mastermind responsible for the death of one of Kogami's former allies. The character has also appeared in manga and novel adaptations of the series, a prequel manga series, a stage play and the films Psycho-Pass: The Movie (2015) and Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System Case.3 On the Other Side of Love and Hate (2019), which focuses on Kogami's life after the events of the first anime season. He reappears in the third television season, Psycho-Pass 3, as a supporting character. Additional novels and manga explore Kogami's work as an Inspector years before the start of the television series.
Kogami was created by the Production I.G. staff. Writer Gen Urobuchi created the character to contrast Akane Tsunemori, Kogami's police supervisor, whose personality and ideology are opposed to Kogami's. He was designed by mangaka Akira Amano, who wanted to give the character a strong sense of individualism in contrast to the scenario of the series. Kogami is voiced in Japanese by Tomokazu Seki and in English by Robert McCollum.
Critical reception of Kogami has been positive due to his interactions with Akane Tsunemori, and his return in the 2015 film was praised after his absence from the second Psycho-Pass anime season with the third anime season providing his return along with further depth in characterization. Kogami has been well received by fans, winning the "Mister Noitamina" award and placing in Newtype popularity polls on several occasions.
## Creation
### Development and influences
According to Psycho-Pass director Naoyoshi Shiotani, Production I.G. staff developed Kogami's character as a stark opposite to his enemy and rival Shogo Makishima, with Akane Tsunemori as the audience surrogate between them. Their first names indicate this opposition: Makishima's is Shogo (the time between midday and sunset), and Kogami's is Shinya (the time between midnight and sunrise). Writer Gen Urobuchi said that when he created Kogami and Tsunemori, he tried to balance their traits. Writer Tow Ubukata, who supervised the second anime series, called Kogami a "wild" character, the Japanese characters for his last name referring to his traits of loneliness and strength. The duo was further stated to resemble the lead characters from the Japanese police comedy-drama Bayside Shakedown, Sumire Onda and Shunsaku Aoshima. In the series' finale, Kogami disappears from society and is briefly seen in a boat reading the book In Search of Lost Time. This led to speculation that Kogami escaped to France with Urobuchi responding that while he might have travelled to different countries, he was unable to confirm his location when the series ended.
The concept of Tsunemori seeking out the renegade Kogami was influenced by the original video animation series Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team and the Western films Apocalypse Now and Saving Private Ryan. Tsunemori's search for Kogami was influenced by these films because the staff believed this scenario would appeal to both genders and different age groups. The non-romantic relationship between Tsunemori and Kogami emphasizes, instead, the trust they have in each other. The duo is stated to resemble Sumire Onda and Shunsaku Aoshima, the lead characters of the Japanese police comedy-drama Bayside Shakedown.
Since all Psycho-Pass were written from Akane Tsunemori's point of view, Shiotani wanted a new take on the franchise through to the trilogy Sinners of the System. Through this, Shiotani wanted to explore relationships not seen before like Kogami's and Ginoza's as well as introduce characters who would play a major role. In regards to the first film, Shiotani picked Nobuchika Ginoza and Mika Shimotsuki as the main characters due to their similarities to the protagonists from the first television series, Shinya Kogami and Akane Tsunemori, respectively. Nevertheless, he noted these duo employed a different dynamic from Kogami and Akane while noting how Ginoza has undergone a notable character arc across the previous projects related to Psycho-Pass mainly due to his relationship with Masaoka and Kogami.
### Design
Kogami's character was designed by manga artist Akira Amano. Amano said that she began with a black-haired man in a suit and, although she was limited in expressing his characteristics with his clothing, she was finally able to include some individuality in each of her characters. She made the main male lead's design distinctive with a simple police uniform. Yuki Kubota found the character muscular enough for him train in order to properly portray him in the stage adaptation.
Character designer Kyoji Asano emphasized contrast when illustrating Kogami and Tsunemori: Kogami wields a weapon freely with one hand while Tsunemori wields it with both hands indicative of her lack of experience. Asano further stated that Kogami was the easiest character to draw due to his tendency to express an angered reaction. As a lead character, Asano felt like she could care about him. Wanting the series to be "anti-moe", the production team avoided showing Tsunemori removing her clothes, and instead featured scenes where Kogami would remove his.
For the film Psycho-Pass: The Movie Kogami's visual appearance was sightly altered. In adapting Amano's design under Shiotani's direction, animator Naoyuki Onda was told to draw Kogami in order to make him look stronger. This was done not only through his physical appearance but also his facial expression and hair. However, he believes in the end stayed true to Amano's artworks. He used multiple designs based on real life in regards to military clothing as it was something he was not used to draw. As a result, the military clothing Kogami wears in the movie was made by designers he called Furukawa and Ishiwata. Due to Kogami being tortured by Rutaganda in the movie, Onda commented he made such damaged appearance more revised based on Shiotani's suggestions. Kana Hanazawa said that female viewers should look forward to Kogami's scenes where he does not wear a shirt, as the actress noted him to have a strong sex appeal.
### Voice actors
Shinya Kogami is voiced in Japanese by Tomokazu Seki who was cast by Katsuyuki Motohiro during auditions for the series. Seki had little knowledge about the series' premise and was originally cast in the role of Nobuchika Ginoza, but ended up as Kogami. Seki has stated that he enjoyed the role and the anime, believing that Kogami would be a second season protagonist strong enough to defeat the new antagonist, Kirito Kamui. However, Kogami only appears in the second season as Tsunemori's hallucination when she dwells upon dealing with Kirito Kamui. In said hallucination, Kogami is pleased with the impact his character has on the inspector.
Because production of the 2015 film did not begin until late in the second anime's production, cast members were concerned that Kogami had been killed off-screen. They were relieved to see Kogami appear as a major character in the movie.
Shiotani decided to have the foreigners speak English, in contrast with other films in which they typically speak Japanese. Seki and Kana Hanazawa (Tsunemori) were surprised at this proposal since they had multiple English lines in the end. The idea Shiotani wished to explore within the film was what happens when a confined society is expanded into other countries, bringing chaos rather than peace, which would make the audience further question this ideal. Seki says that Kogami is now less brooding than in the first season because he is no longer governed by revenge. The reunion of Kogami and Tsunemori is one of Seki's favorite scenes because their deep relationship is demonstrated when they wordlessly share a cigarette.
By the time Sinners of the System was released, Seki still appreciated Kogami's handling, but felt pressured by the character's popularity with fans. The handling of Kogami with the young Tenzing had a slightly Showa-like atmosphere and was interesting according to Seki.
Kogami is voiced in English by Robert McCollum, who said that Psycho-Pass is "always a favorite" for fans. "In terms of good guys, [it is] tough to get much more low-key than Kogami," he said, describing the character as calm.
## Characterization and themes
Kogami's personality was initially designed as aggressive but after several revisions, is depicted as a gentle, calm, taciturn man. Shiotani described Kogami as a "troublesome person" (when dealing with Makishima) and said that although he liked Kogami, he would rather have the talkative Makishima as a friend. The character has been compared with Charles Marlow in Joseph Conrad's 1899 novel, Heart of Darkness. Like Marlow, Kogami's obsessive hunt draws him close to his prey. After Kogami kills Makishima, he abandons his ideals and decides to flee Japan.
The character of Kogami was conceptualized as progressive hero by Shiotani due to how different is his first personality in contrast to his traits from the first television series. Through Sinners of the System, the director envisioned him as the main character who often interacts while showing the aftermath of his actions from Psycho-Pass: The Movie. In an official pamphlet, staff members share their view of both the similarities and differences between Kogami and Makisihima, much of it regarding Kogami's psychological growth. Fukami describes Kogami as the type of person who is happy to encounter those with bad intentions because "he just loves justice." Urobuchi, on the other hand, notes that Kogami lacks Makishima's panoramic vision and that he is "just a loser."
Seki kept noticing a theme within the movies that Kogami has killed several enemies despite still showing emotions that makes the character look like he is doing the right action. Furthermore, Seki looked forward to more interactions between Kogami and Ginoza due to their bond and similar philosophies in regards to the ideas of what makes a detective.
## Appearances
### Psycho-Pass
Shinya Kogami is introduced as one of several protagonists of the anime series, Psycho-Pass. Set in a dystopian future, the series focuses on the use of the Sibyl System: a bio-mechanical character that employs psychometric scanners that calculate the likelihood of a person committing a crime. Its results are known as a Crime Coefficient. Kogami is an Enforcer, a police officer who assists and protects the Inspectors sent to investigate crime scenes and to pursue individuals with high Crime Coefficient readings. Enforcers are themselves latent criminals with high Crime Coefficients who are monitored by Inspectors that are authorized to kill Enforcers, if necessary. Kogami is originally an Inspector who works with Mitsuru Sasayama, who is mutilated and killed by Shogo Makishima, after which Kogami becomes obsessed with solving the case leading to his Crime Coefficient rising and subsequent demotion.
With Tsunemori's assistance, Kogami learns that Makishima killed Sasayama. Kogami and Tsunemori arrest Makishima, whose goal is to disable the Sibyl System. Makishima escapes and Kogami leaves his team, an illegal act, to give chase and to kill the man on his own. With the help of his mentor, Joji Saiga, Kogami kills Makishima before the latter is able to commit an act of bio-terrorism, after which the Sibyl System orders Tsunemori to capture Makishima alive and for Kogami to be executed as a runaway criminal. Kogami escapes and is last seen in a ship reading a book. In the After Stories audio drama, Kogami contacts Tsunemori, telling her that he is withdrawing from society in order to avoid detection.
### Psycho-Pass: The Movie
In the 2015 film, Psycho-Pass: The Movie, Kogami lives in the Southeast Asia Union, a superstate which has begun to import the Sibyl System technology, using the city known as Shambala Float as its testing ground. Kogami leads a guerilla resistance to the system's implementation. When Tsunemori goes to Shambala Float to confront him, they end up collaborating to uncover the identity of the union's upcoming president. Attacked by mercenaries, they are rescued by Tsunemori's team. Kogami and Ginoza reunite to defeat the mercenaries' leader, Desmond Rutaganda. They part after Rutaganda's death and Kogami remains with his new group in the hope of a more peaceful life.
### Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System
In the 2019 films Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System, Kogami first appears as an hallucination Ginoza has when being wounded in combat while recalling their bond. A younger Kogami appears in the second film, fighting against a droid that was programmed by a potential criminal. For the third film which takes place after Psycho-Pass: The Movie, Kogami is portrayed as the protagonist. The third and final film, Case.3 Onshuu no Kanata ni (On the Other Side of Love and Hate) focuses on Shinya Kogami as he travels the Tibet-Himalaya region as a free-lance mercenary. He meets the young part-Japanese girl Tenzing Wangchuk who asks him to teach her fighting skills so she can take revenge on the murderer of her parents. Kogami agrees but only for selfdefense, afraid that she will become like him after killing Makishima. He encounters Frederica Hanashiro of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ostensibly looking for kim, Japanese who have been stranded outside the country with the aim of returning them home if they have a good hue. During peace negotiations, Tenzing tracks her father's killer to a meeting with Garcia who is secretly sabotaging the negotiations. He badly wounds her, but she informs Kogami of Garcia's plan. Frederica assists Kogami on the condition he works with her, so after he kills Garcia, he returns with her to Japan.
### Psycho-Pass 3
In the 2019 series Psycho-Pass 3, Kogami returns to Tokyo, where he and fellow demoted Inspector Nobuchika Ginoza now work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Operations Department. They warn Inspectors Arata Shindo and Kei Mikhail Ignatov about the "foxes," individuals who should be arrested. He reappears in the finale where Unit One, headed by Chief Mika Shimotsuki, meets with the Suppressing Action Group of the MFA Operations Department to discuss the criminal organization called Bifrost. Bifrost is behind a series of societal manipulations and mass murders, their latest plot being to murder Karina Komiya, the governor of Tokyo. Kogami's last scene is with an imprisoned Tsunemori, the two agreeing to meet again to share what has happened in their lives since last they met. Kogami determines to save Tsunemori from imprisonment because he is aware it is Sybil who trapped her and vowed to himself not allowing Sybil controlling her. In the 2020 film, Psycho-Pass 3: First Inspector, Kogami continues his fight against Bifrost. Following its defeat, he invites a freed Tsunemori for a meal.
### Other appearances
Kogami appears in the manga, Inspector Akane Tsunemori, an adaptation of the first anime season, and is the title character of the prequel novel, Inspector Shinya Kogami, which follows the case that leads to Sasayama's death. Fukami also wrote a novel focusing on his actions and thoughts through the first anime season. Kogami also appears in the series' self-parody manga, Gakuen Psycho-Pass by Shiina Soga, and is a supporting character in the visual novel, Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness. In the butai-ban, Kogami is played by Yuki Kubota. The character also appears in Psycho-Pass branded merchandise.
## Reception
### Popularity
Kogami has been well received by fans and reviewers, evidenced by his receipt of the "Mister Noitamina" award in a poll ranking the popularity of characters on Fuji TV's Noitamina programming block. He was voted the sixth-best male character in Newtype's anime awards. In another poll by the same magazine, Kogami was voted the 24th-most-popular male anime character of the 2010s. Kogami and Tsunemori received two percent of a website poll regarding characters fans hoped would become a couple. His role in Sinners of the System gave him the top place in a 2019 Newtype poll. In a 2019 Anime! Anime! poll, Kogami was tied with Whitebeard from One Piece for eighth place as the character fans wanted to have as their boss.
### Critical response
Critical reception of Kogami has been positive. As the series' protagonist, his role was interesting due to his enigmatic qualities. He often interacts with Tsunemori, making him more likable in the process. According to David West of Neo, Kogami felt like the more leading character than Tsunemori. Meanwhile, the character was also compared him with the comic-book character Judge Dredd from the series 2000 AD, as well as Homura Akemi from Madoka Magica due to their enigmatic personalities from the first episodes and dynamic with the other protagonists from their respective series also written by the same person. Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku, however, called him a "static character" who lacked Tsunemori's development across the series. The two fights between Kogami and Makishima were generally well-received based on the handling of the setting and usage of weaponry. However, the idea that Kogami was close to becoming a corrupted person like Makishima was often felt forced.
In his review of Psycho-Pass: The Movie, Jacob Chapman enjoyed Kogami's interactions with Tsunemori, but criticized the hallucination scene in which he talks with the dead Makishima; however, he liked the character quoting writer Frantz Fanon. Anticipating the film, IGN writer Miranda Sanchez expected to see interactions between Kogami and Tsunemori which were absent from Psycho-Pass 2. Sanchez called Kogami's role primarily one of fan service, writing that the developers did not use the duo's bond to its full potential with the final fight focused on Kogami. Alexandria Hill of Otaku USA praised the first interactions between Kogami and Tsunemori as it contrasted with their dialogue early in the film. Anime UK News and Rice Digital called Robert McCollum and Kate Oxley the best English actors in the dub.
Robert Frazer of UK Anime Network praised Kogami's role in the prequel manga, Psycho-Pass: Inspector Shinya Kogami, due to his interactions with others, finding it more appealing than Tsunemori's role in the anime's sequel. Kogami was noted by critics to have a different characterization in the manga that distanced his cold personality from the first television series which helps to provide major depths to his character as his younger days are explored. In retrospect, Comic Bastard called Kogami as a breakout character based on his role in the first series comparing him to other popular characters as Dirty Harry and Wolverine among others and thus felt that his characterization in the manga was flat for removing the traits of the anime series that appealed to the audience.
An Anime News Network reviewer enjoyed the 2019 film's deeper characterization of Kogami, whose feelings about villain Makishima makes him "the franchise's breakout male lead and perhaps the series' most popular character." Medium claimed that the third movie had the most entertaining story for hidden depths and appealing nature give to Kogami when training Tenzing. The book, Law and Justice in Japanese Popular Culture: From Crime Fighting Robots to Duelling Pocket Monsters, notes that Kogami is surprised by Tsunemori's thoughts about the Sybil System—although she approves of the status quo, she does not value the system that monitors the series' world.
Piunikaweb noted while Kogami and Ginoza appear in the movie, their inclusion feels more as fanservice to returning fans as the narrative focuses more on Psycho-Pass 3 new cast alongside Kanamori most notably, as they have to face Asusawa and stop him from killing the governor.
|
5,959,107 |
New York State Route 37B
| 1,069,917,221 |
East–west state highway located in St. Lawrence County, New York
|
[
"State highways in New York (state)",
"Transportation in St. Lawrence County, New York"
] |
New York State Route 37B (NY 37B) is an east–west state highway located in St. Lawrence County, New York, in the United States. It serves as a business route of NY 37 through the village of Massena. While NY 37B enters the village, NY 37 bypasses it to the south. The western terminus of the route is at an intersection with NY 37 in the town of Louisville. Its eastern terminus is at a junction with NY 37 just east of the village limits in the town of Massena. NY 37B intersects North Main Street, a state-maintained northward extension of NY 420, in Massena's central district.
The origins of NY 37B date back to the early 20th century when the New York State Legislature created Route 32, an unsigned legislative route extending from North Lawrence to Ogdensburg via Massena. From Waddington to Massena, Route 32 followed River Road and Town Line Road. This portion of the route became part of NY 3 in 1924. In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, the Waddington–Massena segment of NY 3 became NY 37B. The route was extended east into Massena in the 1950s after NY 37 was realigned to follow a new bypass around the village.
Most of NY 37B west of Massena ran through a low-lying area along the St. Lawrence River. In 1958, this area was permanently indundated as part of the St. Lawrence Seaway's construction. As a result, NY 37B was rerouted to follow a new roadway along the fringe of Lake St. Lawrence to meet NY 37 in Louisville Corner. A connector between NY 37 and NY 37B in Louisville was designated as NY 131 by 1960. The alignments of NY 37B and NY 131 west of Massena were swapped c. 1962, placing NY 37B on its modern alignment.
## Route description
NY 37B begins at an intersection with its parent route, NY 37, in the town of Louisville. The route heads to the northeast, paralleling the Grasse River as it passes a small number of homes and businesses located in the otherwise rural town. There are small patches of forested areas along the way to the Massena village line (and the town's line of the same name), where it intersects with Town Line Road (County Route 43). Once in Massena, the amount of development along the highway begins to increase. NY 37B, now known as Maple Street, continues northeast through Massena for three blocks before veering eastward upon passing Massena Memorial Hospital.
In the center of Massena, NY 37B intersects North Main Street, which connects to NY 420 south of the village. The portion of Main Street between NY 420 and NY 37B is maintained by the New York State Department of Transportation as NY 970B, an unsigned reference route. Past North Main Street, NY 37B follows Maple Street southeast to Center Street. The route merges with Center Street and becomes a divided highway as it connects to Willow Street by way of an interchange and intersects an eastward extension of Center Street.
NY 37B turns south at the interchange, becoming Parker Avenue and crossing over the Grasse River to meet East Orvis Street on the southern riverbank. Here, the route turns east to follow East Orvis Street northeastward through the residential and commercial areas that comprise southeastern Massena. At the Massena village line, East Orvis Street becomes Highland Road, a name NY 37B retains for a short distance eastward to a junction with NY 37 (St. Regis Boulevard). Although Highland Road continues through the intersection, NY 37B ends at the junction.
## History
In 1908, the New York State Legislature created Route 32, an unsigned legislative route extending from North Lawrence to Ogdensburg via Winthrop and Massena. It entered Massena on what is now NY 420 and followed Main Street and Maple Street through the village. West of Massena, the highway was routed on Town Line Road and River Road to a junction east of Waddington, where Route 32 continued west on modern NY 37 to Waddington. When state highways in New York were first posted in 1924, the portion of Route 32 between Waddington and Massena became part of NY 3, a highway extending across the width of the state.
The segment of NY 3 east of Watertown was rerouted as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York to largely follow its modern alignment between Watertown and Plattsburgh. Most of NY 3's former alignment along the St. Lawrence River from Alexandria Bay to Hogansburg became part of the new NY 37; however, from Waddington to Massena, NY 37 used a more inland routing. As a result, the former routing of NY 3 between the two villages became NY 37B instead. In the mid-to-late 1950s, NY 37 was rerouted to follow a new bypass around the southern edge of Massena. Following its completion, NY 37B was extended eastward along NY 37's former routing on Maple Street, Parker Avenue, and Orvis Street to meet the bypass east of the village.
In the 1950s, construction began on the St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of canals and locks that would make the St. Lawrence River suitable for shipping. As part of the seaway's construction, a low-lying area in Ontario and New York between Waddington, New York, and Cornwall, Ontario, would be inundated with water in order to create a navigable channel through the Long Sault rapids and to allow hydroelectric stations to be established immediately upriver from Massena and Cornwall. Much of NY 37B was located within the flood-prone region due to its proximity to the river. On July 1, 1958, the intentional flooding was carried out via the destruction of a cofferdam upstream, creating what is now known as Lake St. Lawrence and inundating the majority of NY 37B west of Massena.
Following the destruction of the majority of NY 37B, the route was realigned west of Massena to follow a new riverside roadway to the hamlet of Louisville Corner, where it came to an end at NY 37. The remainder of NY 37B along the Massena–Louisville town line road and in Massena was unchanged. By 1960, a connector between NY 37 in Louisville and NY 37B and Massena utilizing NY 37's former routing west of the village was designated as NY 131. The alignments of NY 37B and NY 131 west of the Maple Street / Town Line Road intersection were flipped c. 1962, placing NY 131 on the riverside and town line roads and NY 37B on NY 37's former routing into Massena.
## Major intersections
## See also
|
50,047,586 |
Espanto II
| 1,109,319,977 |
Mexican professional wrestler
|
[
"1932 births",
"2010 deaths",
"20th-century professional wrestlers",
"Masked wrestlers",
"Mexican National Tag Team Champions",
"Mexican male professional wrestlers",
"People from Torreón",
"Professional wrestlers from Coahuila",
"Professional wrestling trainers"
] |
Fernando Cisneros Carrillo (August 25, 1932 – August 27, 2010), was a Mexican luchador or professional wrestler known under the ring name Espanto II ("Terror 2"). For most of his career he was closely associated with his tag team partner and close friend José Vázquez, better known as Espanto I as well as Miguel Vázquez known as Espanto III, with the three collectively known as Los Espantos
During his professional wrestling career Carillo held the Mexican National Tag Team Championship with Espanto I and the Northern Tag Team Championship with Espanto III. He lost his mask to Rubén Juárez in 1963 as a result a Lucha de Apuestas, or "bet match". In 2010 he was inducted into the Ciudad Juárez Lucha Libre Hall of Fame along with the other two Espantos. The team of Espanto I and Espanto II are considered among the best rudo (those that portray the bad guys) teams in the history of lucha libre.
## Early life
Fernando Cisneros Carrillo was born on August 25, 1932, son of Edgardo Cisneros Díaz Isabel Carrillo Iñiguez in the Lagunero town of Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico. While in school Cisneros met and befriended José Eusebio Vázquez Bernal, a friendship that was close that they considered each other's brothers. The friendship between the two was so strong that Cisneros' parents considered Vázquez as one of their own children. After leaving school they both went their separate ways, not seeing each other for two years, before they both ended up training at the same boxing gym where Cisnero met with some success as a Golden Gloves boxer. Cisnero was also an avid cyclist, having participated in the first ever Vuelta Coahuila bicycle race. Late in life he credited training as a boxer and cyclist for his stamina in the ring.
## Professional wrestling career
Initially he had been trained for Olympic style wrestling as well as Greco-Roman wrestling by a Torreó-based wrestler known as Machist. In 1952 Cisnero made his debut as a luchador in San Pedro, Coahuila after training with wrestler El Buitre. He began as an enmascarado, or masked wrestler known as "La Furia" ("the Fury"). In his debut he teamed up with La Hiena Emmascarada, wrestling the team of Pokarito Ramírez and Ventarrón. Cisnero earned five Mexican peso for the match. He would late adopt a different ring name, becoming known as "Toro" Cisnero. While working as "Toro" Cisnero he began teaming up with Torbellino Vázquez, his childhood friend Eusebio Vázquez who had become a luchador as well.
In the late 1950s Vázquez adopted a new ring character, the masked wrestler, character El Espanto ("the Terror" or "The Horror"). As El Espanto he would wear all black and white ring gear, including a black mask with a broad, white cross on the front of the mask. A few months later Cisnero was given the character "Espanto II" (with Vázquez becoming "Espanto I") and thus the team of Los Hermano Espantos ("The Terror brothers") or Los Espantos was created. Ramos recommended Espanto I to the Mexico City promoters of Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre ("Mexican Wrestling Enterprise"; EMLL) where he made his EMLL debut on December 16, 1959 in EMLL's Arena Coliseo. While Espanto I worked in Mexico City, Espanto II was gaining more experience locally before being called up to Mexico City as well. Los Hermanos Espanto made their debut as a team on January 24, 1961, winning a tag team tournament in their debut by defeating Tony López and Kiko Córcega in the finals. As a team they would remain undefeated for 34 weeks in a row on EMLL's regular Tuesday night show. Due to their success and fan reaction Los Espantos soon started working regularly on EMLL's Friday night Super Viernes show, EMLL's main show. During their run as a team they wrestled against Lou Thez, the visiting NWA World Heavyweight Champion, with Thez teaming up with Blue Demon on one occasion and Huracán Ramírez on another.
On June 12, 1962 Espanto II won his first ever Lucha de Apuestas, or "bet match", defeating Tomás Riande and thus forcing him to be shaved bald as a result. In lucha libre the Lucha de Apuesta victory is considered the highest "prize" that a wrestler can win, more so than championships. Two months later he won the hair of Álvaro Velazco in a match in Mexico City. Those two Apuesta matches were part of a buildup towards one of the feature matches of the 1st EMLL 30th Anniversary Show, held on September 6, 1963. At the show Rubén Juárez defeated Espanto II in a Lucha de Apuesta, forcing Espanto to unmask. After unmasking he gave his birth name as "Fernando Vázquez Cisneros", using a combination of his and his partners' paternal last names to maintain the story that the Espantos were brothers. A few weeks later Espanto I gained a measure of revenge for his team as he defeated Rubén Juárez as part of the 2nd EMLL 30th Anniversary Show. In November 1962 Espanto I and II were joined by Espanto III, Euseibo's younger brother Miguel, forming a regular trio. At the same time Espanto I and II also regularly teamed up with El Santo, often headlining EMLL shows across Mexico. Teaming with El Santo was part of a storyline where Espanto I and II would attack El Santo after a match, turning Santo to the tecnico side (those that portray the "good guys") in the process. On Jun 22, 1963, Espanto I, II and El Santo lost a match to Rito Romero, Rayo de Jalisco, and Henry Pilusso. Being disappointed with the loss Espanto II attacked El Santo, but ended up with his own mask torn up and his face covered in blood when El Santo fought back. In the buildup to the mask vs. mask match between Espanto I and El Santo, El Santo defeated Espanto II in a Lucha de Apuesta match in late 1963, forcing Espanto II to have all his hair shaved off. A couple of months later El Santo would unmask Espanto I, who also stated that his last name was "Vázquez Cisneros".
The Los Espantos trio got their biggest win when they defeated the "dream team" of Mexican tecnicos El Santo, Blue Demon and Mil Máscaras, sparking a long-running rivalry between the two trios. During that time period Los Espantos also formed a team with El Gladiador, often facing El Santo and various partners. One particularly heated match saw Los Espantos and El Gladiador fight their opponents, Ray Mendoza, René Guajardo, and Karloff Lagarde all the way back to the locker rooms in an era where such a thing was unheard of in Mexico. In June 1964 Blue Demon defeated Espanto II in a Lucha de Apuestas match, leaving him bald as a result. The following year Espanto II lost his hair to Blue Demon's long time tag team partner, Black Shadow. In 1966 Espanto I and II won the Mexican National Tag Team Championship from El Santo and Mil Máscaras, but would later lose the belts to El Santo and Mil Máscaras in a rematch.
On May 30, 1968, José Vázquez, as well as fellow wrestler Popeye Franco, were killed by the owner of a cantina during a bar fight. At the time of his death, Los Espantos were set to do a world tour with dates planned for Germany, France, Spain and Japan. The promoters offered Espanto II the opportunity to go alone or with Espanto III, but he declined due to the loss of his close friend. After the death of his brother, Miguel wrestled less regularly and by the early 1970s both Cisneros and Miguel Vázquez became semi-retired from wrestling, working only a limited schedule in Northern Mexico. As Espanto II and III, the duo held the Northern Tag Team Championship at one point in the 1970s before Espanto II retired in 1979.
## Retirement and death
Cisnero wrestled his last match in 1979, losing to Gran Hamada in Monterrey, Nuevo León and then retired from in-ring competition. He did remain involved with professional wrestling, training several local Torreón wrestlers including Stuka Jr. Cisnero gave two of his students permission to become Los Hijos del Espanto ("The Sons of Espanto"), using the name and masks. in 1998 Cisneros, as the last surviving Espanto endorse the Mini-Estrella El Espantito ("The Little Terror"), to use the name and mask after having trained him years earlier.
Cisnero was married to Paula Reyes Cisnero and together they had five sons and sixteen grandchildren. Late in life Cisnero suffered from heart problems and had undergone surgery days prior to August 27, 2010. In the morning of the 27th, he suffered a relapse and was brought back to the hospital, but died shortly after.
## Legacy
After the storyline with El Santo Los Espantos became one of the most reviled rudo trios in Lucha libre at the time. In 1999 the Mexican newspaper El Siglo de Torreón stated that the team of Espanto I and Espanto II was considered one of the best rudo teams in the history of lucha libre. The statement was echoed by Súper Luchas Magazine in 2010 when they wrote an obituary after Espanto II died. The Los Espantos trio influenced several subsequent teams and individual wrestlers to use the Espanto name, not just limited to his sons Espanto IV and V. In 1984 Vázquez and Cisneros allowed Jesús Andrade Salas to adopt the identify of "Espanto Jr.", who was presented as the son of Espanto I and wore the signature black and white mask of Los Espantos. Andrade would be succeeded by his son, who in 2012 also began working as Espanto Jr.
## Championships and accomplishments
- Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre
\*Mexican National Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Espanto I
- Chihuahua State wrestling
\*Northern Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Espanto III
\*Ciudad Juárez Lucha Libre Hall of Fame (2010)
## Luchas de Apuestas record
|
803,898 |
The Nomad Soul
| 1,169,608,810 |
1999 adventure game
|
[
"1999 video games",
"Action-adventure games",
"Adventure games",
"Cancelled PlayStation (console) games",
"Cancelled PlayStation 2 games",
"Cyberpunk video games",
"Dreamcast games",
"Dystopian video games",
"Eidos Interactive games",
"Fiction about memory erasure and alteration",
"Fictional populated places",
"Games with tank controls",
"Metafictional video games",
"Open-world video games",
"Quantic Dream",
"Science fantasy video games",
"Single-player video games",
"Video games about artificial intelligence",
"Video games about demons",
"Video games about police officers",
"Video games about spirit possession",
"Video games about video games",
"Video games based on musicians",
"Video games developed in France",
"Video games scored by David Bowie",
"Windows games"
] |
The Nomad Soul (known as Omikron: The Nomad Soul in North America) is an adventure game developed by Quantic Dream and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released for Microsoft Windows in 1999 and Dreamcast in 2000. The player can engage in unarmed and armed combat, explore the three-dimensional environment of Omikron City, and talk with non-player characters to progress the story. It follows an investigation into a case of serial killings, which unravels the supernatural truth behind the city's ancient history.
Director David Cage began writing the script in 1994 and signed a publishing deal with Eidos in 1997. David Bowie made the music with Reeves Gabrels, producing ten original songs. The game was finished after two-and-a-half years. Reviewers praised the graphics, soundtrack, story, character models, reincarnation mechanic, voice acting, and combat, but criticised the controls, loading times, and multiple gameplay styles. It was nominated for various awards and sold over 600,000 copies, with low sales in North America. A sequel was planned but cancelled.
## Gameplay
The Nomad Soul is an adventure game played from third-person and side-on perspectives in unarmed combat, and first-person view in armed fighting. The player may explore the three-dimensional environment of Omikron by walking, running, using vehicles known as Sliders, or taking elevators to reach apartments and offices. Combat, speed, dodging, and resistance to damage improve with practice. The fighting controls allow the player to strafe, jump, crouch, punch, and kick. Special moves can be performed through certain combinations. To cross bodies of water, swimming sequences can be triggered, which expends oxygen. Physical exertion depletes energy, which is repleted with Medikits, food, drinks, or special potions. In the event of death (and eventually at will), the player is reincarnated into the body of the first non-player character (NPC) that interacts with them; there are more than forty people to inhabit. Mana levels signify the ability to cast spells and are increased with potions.
Reading messages, talking to NPCs, and collecting items is crucial for the player to progress. They are provided with a computer terminal known as SNEAK, which is mostly used to access character information, call Sliders, open the inventory, and retrieve facts that are vital to story progression. Objects can be used, examined, and stored in the inventory. Magic rings allow the player to save the game at special points and buy advice for key information about NPCs to advance the story. Seteks, Omikronian currency, can be spent on things like consumables, better weapons, and advice. If the SNEAK inventory is full, items can be transferred or deposited into the Multiplan Virtual Locker, a larger inventory.
## Synopsis
### Setting
The Nomad Soul is set in a futuristic city known as Omikron, which is a densely populated metropolis on the world of Phaenon. Omikron exists beneath an enormous crystal dome, which was constructed to protect against the ice age that Phaenon entered into after its sun's extinction. The city is split into different sectors: Anekbah, Qalisar, Jaunpur, Jahangir, and Lahoreh. Because it is forbidden for the inhabitants to leave their respective sectors, each area has developed independently, which is reflected by the divergent lifestyles and architecture.
### Plot
At the start of the game, the player is asked by an Omikronian police officer named Kay'l 669 to leave their dimension and enter Omikron within his body. After doing so, the player continues with the investigation of serial killings that Kay'l and his partner were originally working on. The player begins the investigation in the Anekbah sector, where they uncover information that suggests the serial killer they are looking for is not human, but actually a demon. Members of an apparent underground, anti-government movement contact the player and confirm their suspicions. The investigation deepens and uncovers further information; one of Omikron's chief police commanders, Commandant Gandhar, is a demon pretending to be human and luring human souls into Omikron from other dimensions by way of The Nomad Soul. Kay'l 669 asking the player to help him turned out to be a trap: supposedly, if the in-game character dies, the real human playing the video game will lose their soul forever. Despite many assassination attempts on the protagonist's life by other demons working behind the scenes, the player destroys Gandhar with supernatural weaponry.
After this brief victory, the anti-government movement is revealed to be named "The Awakened", who invite the player to join them. They work in tandem with an ancient religious order led by Boz, a mystical being that exists in purely electronic form on the computer networks of Omikron. The Awakened refer to the protagonist as the "Nomad Soul", since they have the ability to change bodies at will. The Nomad Soul learns afterwards that what is going on in Omikron is merely an extension of an old battle between mankind and demons spearheaded by the powerful Astaroth. Astaroth, who was banished to the depths of Omikron long ago, is slowly regenerating power while using demons to both collect souls and impersonate high members of the government. The Nomad Soul harnesses ancient, magical technology in order to destroy Astaroth. They return to their own dimension, and prevent their soul from being captured by demons.
## Development and release
Director David Cage, having grown tired of his 15-year-long career as a composer, started writing The Nomad Soul in 1994. The script resulted in a 200-page document, which was distributed to his contacts in the music business, who said the idea was "technically impossible". In an act of defiance, Cage hired a team of friends with development experience and turned one of his isolation booths into an office. They had a deadline of six months until the money ran out, by which time the goal was to have a game engine and prototype. In the last week, Cage travelled to London and called Eidos Interactive, who invited him for a meeting. Eidos was so impressed with the demonstration and script that the publishing deal was signed by noon the next day. The Nomad Soul entered full production one month later. Two months after that, a prototype was displayed at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
With The Nomad Soul, Cage wanted to create "a movie-like experience - with total immersion" and mix multiple genres. He was initially hesitant to introduce a first-person perspective as it gave him headaches, but implemented it at Eidos' request. Cage had written down names of artists he wanted to work with, including Björk, Massive Attack, Archive, and David Bowie. At the behest of Eidos' senior designer Philip Campbell, Bowie was ultimately solicited for the music, which was done with assistance from guitarist Reeves Gabrels. Bowie produced ten original songs and spent two weeks in Paris for design sessions. He portrayed a character named Boz and the lead singer of an in-game band playing gigs around Omikron City; Gabrels and musician Gail Ann Dorsey also lent their likenesses. Cage spent thirty hours doing motion capture for each concert. Bowie's priority was to imbue the game with "emotional subtext" and regarded this as a success. Fashion model Iman, Bowie's wife, played a character the player can reincarnate into. Xavier Despas composed ambient and additional tracks. The game took two-and-a-half years to complete.
The Nomad Soul was renamed Omikron: The Nomad Soul in North America. It was released for Microsoft Windows on 31 October 1999 in Europe; North America received it on 5 November. The game was ported for the Dreamcast, with release dates reported for 22 June (NA) and 23 June 2000 (EU). It sold more than 600,000 copies, between 400,000 and 500,000 of which came from Europe. Cage blamed the low sales in North America on Eidos' lack of support in that market. A PlayStation version, planned for May 2000, was cancelled after seventy percent of it had been completed. The game was also cancelled for PlayStation 2. After Bowie's death in 2016, The Nomad Soul was made available at no cost for one week.
## Reception
The Nomad Soul was nominated as the best personal computer adventure game of 1999 by CNET Gamecenter, The Electric Playground, and GameSpot, losing variously to Gabriel Knight 3, Spy Fox 2, and Outcast. It was also nominated for "Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development" during the 3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in 2000, losing to Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings and Thief: The Dark Project (both of which tied for the award).
Reviewing the Dreamcast version, Glenn Wigmore of AllGame held the game to be "unique", writing that the execution of its real-time graphics was done well and that, ultimately, "the game looks solid and creates the atmosphere of a giant, dark, and tangible world". He enjoyed the characters' varied, fleshed out demeanour, and good voice acting. The combat also appealed to Wigmore, who called it "fun". AllGame's Chris Couper said in his PC review that The Nomad Soul was "by leaps, bounds and great units of measurement, [his] favorite game of 1999". He regarded the story as "fascinating", the graphics as "amazing", and the soundtrack as "breathtaking". The most innovative part of the game, according to Couper, was that it allowed the player to reincarnate into other characters' bodies. Eurogamer was impressed with Omikron's atmospheric, "futuristic cityscape", thinking well of the general story. Game Revolution declared The Nomad Soul the first game to approach total immersion, thus calling it the "best single player gaming experience" of 1999. Game Revolution termed the story "deeply engaging", the ability to solve individual problems through multiple paths "refreshing", the graphical effects "simply gorgeous", the character models "striking", and sound effects and voice acting "generally excellent". The in-game movie sequences were similarly praised. Like Couper, Game Revolution liked the musical score, dubbing it "atmospheric". GamePro, evaluating it on the Dreamcast, was pleased with the setting and music. Having played the PC version, GamePro's Nash Werner observed that, at its best, the game was "a fresh approach to a neglected adventure-gaming genre". He likened the graphics to Blade Runner and Tim Burton's art style, deemed the score to be "incredible" and key to the atmosphere, and considered the gameplay "smooth". Ryan Mac Donald, writing the Dreamcast review for GameSpot, found the story good enough to maintain the player's interest throughout. He saw the controls as "adequate" and agreed that the game boasted "impressive" graphics as well as a "wonderful" soundtrack. Greg Kasavin's PC review, also for GameSpot, admired the character models, their realistic portrayal of emotion, and voice acting. Kasavin additionally liked the graphics engine for its high-quality rendering of enemies, weapon effects, and architecture in first-person view. IGN's Jeremy Dunham reviewed the Dreamcast version, which he noted as a "unique experience", saying the graphics looked better than on the PC. He praised the soundtrack, calling it like "something out of a modern-day cyber punk flick". He also echoed Couper's view that the reincarnation mechanic was one of the game's most innovative features. Vincent Lopez's PC review at IGN lauded the "fun, but simple" first-person mode, preferring unarmed combat for its combos and animation. What impressed him the most was the adult manner in which he felt the story was handled. He too saw the graphics as "incredible"; the soundtrack was similarly commended. Greg Vederman of PC Gamer thought the gameplay was fun, especially the third-person exploration.
Conversely, Wigmore noted that some details were "a tad rough", while also faulting the "low" colour palette. He blamed the character's lack of agility on "sluggish" controls and deducted the game for its lengthy loading times. Eurogamer criticised the uniformity of the NPCs, vehicles, and artificial intelligence. Like Wigmore, Eurogamer disliked the controls, which were found to worsen the first-person sequences. Also subject to reproval were the save game system, "pretentious silliness" in the narrative, reincarnation mechanic, substandard graphics, and "blocky and often poorly animated" character models. Despite lauding the story, Game Revolution admitted it was "a little clichéd", while also decrying armed and unarmed combat as "noticeably low on flash" compared to other games. GamePro disparaged the execution of the game modes, agreeing with others on the "universally awkward" controls. Loading "hiccups" were also disapproved of. Werner stated that, at its worst, The Nomad Soul was "your typical puzzle hunt with non-player characters that can often be annoying". He thought the models were "blocky" and their textures "murky" or "blurry". Donald noted that Quantic Dream's incorporation of various styles was a failure and became disillusioned with the promise of an immersive world, judging it instead as "little more than a polygonal prop". The action sequences were criticised for their repetitiveness. Kasavin took the same view as Donald on the implementation of multiple gameplay styles, calling them "ineffective". He questioned the originality of the world, considered the character animations "stilted and unrealistic", dismissed the unarmed combat as "silly" compared to other fighting games, and diverged from others on the soundtrack, saying it lacked variety. Dunham wrote that The Nomad Soul was best described as "Messiah and Shenmue's illegitimate child", disregarding the Dreamcast version as an "obviously rushed" port. Though initially impressed with the reincarnation mechanic, he grew tired of it near the end. Lopez mentioned the frame rate as one "serious problem" he encountered, especially in first-person mode. Vederman stated that the first-person and side-on segments looked and played "rather poorly".
## Sequel
By January 2000, a sequel was in the early stages of development, then scheduled to be released by 2001. It went under the titles Nomad Soul: Exodus and Omikron 2: Karma and was planned for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. After the release of Fahrenheit, the project was still in discussion, but ultimately scrapped in favour of Heavy Rain.
## Legacy
In December 2021, shortly after the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, a cutscene featuring David Bowie's character encouraging a government uprising went viral on Twitter, leading to a resurgence in popularity thanks to the game's North America title, themes, and storyline. Misinformation on Bill Gates' being involved in the game began to spread in an attempt to connect it with conspiracy theories that he was responsible for the virus.
|
61,357,635 |
People (The 1975 song)
| 1,170,608,512 | null |
[
"2019 singles",
"2019 songs",
"Anarcho-punk",
"British punk rock songs",
"Dirty Hit singles",
"Environmental songs",
"Music videos directed by Warren Fu",
"Polydor Records singles",
"Screamo songs",
"Songs by Matty Healy",
"The 1975 songs"
] |
"People" is a song by English band the 1975 from their fourth studio album, Notes on a Conditional Form (2020). The song was released on 22 August 2019, through Dirty Hit and Polydor Records as the lead single from the album. It was written by band members Matty Healy, George Daniel, Adam Hann and Ross MacDonald. Production of the song was handled by Daniel and Healy alongside Jonathan Gilmore. An anarcho-punk and screamo song, it features an intense, heavy rock instrumentation consisting of desert-rock guitar riffs, straightforward chords, breakneck drums and "renegade" percussion. Lyrically, it is a protest song that calls for change and rebellion to deal with global, political and environmental turmoil, and deals with themes of desperation, urgency and anxiety.
Upon release, "People" received positive reviews from contemporary music critics, although fan reaction was generally mixed. Reviewers praised the heavier rock-indebted sound, Healy's vocal delivery and the sonic departure from the band's third studio album, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships (2018). Commercially, the song achieved moderate success on worldwide music charts. In the 1975's native United Kingdom, the song peaked at number 54 on the UK Singles Chart, number 59 in Scotland and topped the UK Rock & Metal chart. Internationally, the song reached number 15 on the US Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, number 36 in New Zealand and number 68 in Ireland. A music video for the song was released on 22 August 2019. It features the band performing inside of a cube composed of LED screens and was compared to Marilyn Manson and the Joker.
## Background and recording
Healy told Dan Stubbs of NME that "People" was influenced by Converge, Minor Threat and Gorilla Biscuits—bands he grew up listening to. He wrote the song with the goal of performing it at Reading. The singer revealed the song's origins stemmed from an experience in June 2019 at the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. At the festival, Healy spoke about Alabama's controversial ban on abortions, saying:
> "The reason I'm so angry is I don't believe it's about the preservation of life, it's about controlling women [...] It's not about that — you can hide behind that as much as you want and push your Christian narrative that sex is something to be ashamed of and therefore forcing women to have birth is some kind of — I don't know — some good punishment for their moral indiscretion. You are a disgrace! You are not men of god! You are simply misogynistic wankers."
Several audience members in the crowd became visibly upset during his speech, booing and throwing objects at the 1975. Healy responded to the hecklers by saying: "Boo me? Fucking shoot me, I don't give a fuck". The 1975 were advised to consider quickly leaving Alabama, having been notified of a higher threat level due to it being an open carry state. Healy was furious and wrote "People" immediately after the event on their tour bus while travelling through Texas. On 24 July 2019, the band released the opening song on Notes on a Conditional Form, "The 1975". Featuring a speech from Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg, the track calls for civil disobedience and rebellion to achieve a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly one month later, the 1975 released "People" as the first official single from Notes on a Conditional Form on 22 August 2019.
## Music and lyrics
Musically, "People" is an anarcho-punk and screamo song with a length of two minutes and 40 seconds (2:40). The track incorporates elements of industrial music, alternative rock, industrial rock and punk rock subgenres such as dance-punk and glam punk. It has an intense, heavy rock instrumentation built upon desert-rock guitar riffs, straightforward chords, breakneck drums and "renegade" percussion. Chris DeVille of Stereogum compared the song's aggressive, "serrated noise-punk onslaught" to Liars, LCD Soundsystem, Death from Above and Metz. Thomas Smith of NME called it the band's "heaviest" and most confrontational song released to date, commenting that its use of punk-rock was evocative of Queens of the Stone Age and saying the song's use of "pop sensibilities" were similar to Elastica. Sarah Jamieson of DIY called the track "deliciously divisive ... dirty and deranged", and viewed it as a melting pot of musical influences from Death from Above, Refused and Primal Scream.
Lyrically, "People" is a protest song that calls for change and rebellion. It describes the emotions of the millennial generation living through global, political and environmental upheaval—including desperation, urgency and anxiety. Healy's vocal delivery on the track was described by Quinn Moreland of Pitchfork as "barking, shrieking, and snarling". The song begins with a screaming call in which he demands people wake up: "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! It's Monday morning!" Healy condemns both personal and systemic inaction ("Stop fucking with the kids"), appeals for the younger generation to create change ("We are appalling and we need to stop just watching shit in bed / And I know it sounds boring and we like things that are funny / But we need to get this in our fucking heads") and highlights the imminent danger of the global climate crisis ("It's Monday morning and we've only got a thousand of them left"). Lindsey Smith of iHeartRadio commented that "People" embraces the angst and political themes common in punk music, while Samantha Small of Consequence of Sound felt the song's purpose is to: "[tell] listeners to pay attention to the debilitating stasis of the world".
## Reception
"People" was met with positive reviews from contemporary music critics, although the response from the 1975's fanbase was more mixed. Andrew Magnotta of iHeartRadio deemed the song a musical departure from the band's regular sound, saying Healy sounds like "he's screaming himself hoarse with a diatribe against willful ignorance, laziness and the anxiety that comes with it". Brittany Spanos of Rolling Stone called the song a sonic departure and noted a continuation of the political undertones present in "The 1975". Dylan Haas of Euphoria saw the former as a radical departure from the 1975's typical music, but thematically connected it to "The 1975", saying: People' is hardcore. It's angry. It's the kind of tune you want to shout at the top of your lungs whilst moshing or breaking a skateboard." Similarly, Marissa Lorusso of NPR felt the song shares the same political sentiment of "The 1975" and said it has an "unmatched level of gut-churning urgency".
Derrick Rossignol of Uproxx praised the use of rock music in "People", highlighting its instrumentation and Healy's passionate vocal performance. In his review of the song for Pitchfork, Moreland lauded the track for Healy's vocal performance and themes, saying: "If there's still any question about whether or not the 1975 is a rock band, rather than an '80s-indebted pop act, 'People' will put that debate to rest." Shahlin Graves of Coup de Main deemed the song a "must-listen". Cerys Kenneally from The Line of Best Fit called the song "punchy" and "definitely a heavier listen compared to their previous album". Andrew Sacher of BrooklynVegan called the song "pretty awesome". In his review of the song for NME, Smith said it is, "A push-back to the naysayers and the critics who dismiss them throwaway pop music, and an act of self-vandalisation to rip it up and start again. They want to start a revolution, man."
In the 1975's native country of the United Kingdom, the song topped the UK Rock & Metal chart while also reaching number 54 on the UK Singles Chart and number 59 in Scotland. Commercially, "People" performed modestly on worldwide music charts. Internationally, the song peaked at number 15 on the US Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, number 36 in New Zealand and number 68 in Ireland.
## Music video
A music video for "People" was released on 22 August 2019. The video was directed by Healy, Warren Fu and Ben Ditto. Stylist Patricia Villirillo drew inspiration from Frankenstein's monster, punk comic books and anime. The band's suits were meant to reference the music video for "Give Yourself a Try" (2018). Yusuke Morioka, the hairstylist for the video, designed the 1975's hair using a mixture of metal, hardcore, punk and heavy rock influences. To make Healy look real and "a bit toxic", Morioka added a wet texture to his hair, while makeup artist Anne Sophie Costa used gray eye shadow and blue lip gloss. Jon Emmony and Aaron Jablonski of Exit Simulation created several AR filters that are used in the video, with them being meant to represent different aspects of surveillance systems. The first filter has glowing yellow data points, while the second is shown scanning the band members in a "ghostly" way, and the third moved their eyes and mouth to different locations in an effort to avoid recognition. The filters were later made available to download on Instagram.
Beginning with an epilepsy trigger warning, the music video features the 1975 performing inside of a cube with LED walls and musical instruments. The inside of the cube is filled with bright lights, while the screens display internet images and lyrics from the song, mimicking the sensory overload of the online experience. Healy is shown with pale white skin, red-stained lips and long black hair, while several AR filters are superimposed over his face. Throughout the video, he is shown hanging upside down and twitching in irritation. The remaining band members are dressed in matching black and yellow suits; Kirsten Sprunch of Billboard said the band went "full goth". DeVille compared Healy's look to the Joker and Marilyn Manson, with the latter sentiment being shared by Samuel Turner of Dazed. Koltan Greenwood of Alternative Press called the video futuristic. Moreland compared Healy's look in the video to Manson and Gerard Way, saying the visual "has absorbed all the danger and turned it into an anthem".
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from Notes on a Conditional Form album liner notes.
- Matthew Healy – composer, producer, guitar, vocals
- George Daniel – composer, producer, programming, drums, keyboards, synthesizer
- Adam Hann – composer, guitar
- Ross MacDonald – composer, bass
- Jonathan Gilmore – producer, recording engineer
- Robin Schmidt – mastering engineer
- Mike Crossey – mixer
## Charts
## See also
- The 1975 discography
- List of songs by Matty Healy
|
48,324,769 |
When We Were Young (Adele song)
| 1,159,736,864 |
2015 single by Adele
|
[
"2010s ballads",
"2015 songs",
"2016 singles",
"Adele songs",
"Columbia Records singles",
"Pop ballads",
"Song recordings produced by Ariel Rechtshaid",
"Songs about nostalgia",
"Songs about old age",
"Songs written by Adele",
"Songs written by Tobias Jesso Jr.",
"Soul ballads",
"Torch songs",
"UK Independent Singles Chart number-one singles",
"XL Recordings singles"
] |
"When We Were Young" is a song by English singer Adele from her third studio album, 25 (2015). Adele and Tobias Jesso Jr. wrote the song, and Ariel Rechtshaid produced it. The song was written within three days in Los Angeles, after Adele struggled with writer's block during unfruitful early sessions for the album. XL Recordings released it as the album's second single on 22 January 2016. A soul ballad, the song has piano instrumentation that places emphasis on Adele's vocals. Inspired by the vision of meeting acquaintances at a party at an older age, it explores the fear of getting older and the loss of one's youth.
"When We Were Young" received acclaim from music critics, with praise directed towards its production and emotional lyrics. The song reached the top 10 in 11 countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Scotland. It received a 5× Platinum certification in Canada, a 3× Platinum certification in the UK, and a 2× Platinum certification in Denmark and Norway. A performance filmed at The Church Studios in London was released on Vevo. Adele performed the song during her television specials, and at Saturday Night Live, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and the Brit Awards 2016.
## Background and release
Adele announced in February 2013 that she was holding various meetings related to her third studio album. Initial recording sessions for the album were unfruitful, she recounted: "I felt like I was never going to finish this record. It was a long process. I wanted to give up a lot because I couldn't do it. I thought I'd run out of ideas and I'd lost my ability to write a song." Adele struggled with writer's block and her manager, who was also unsure about the material, asked Rick Rubin, a producer of many songs on her sophomore studio album 21 (2011). Rubin claimed he didn't believe in the songs. Adele, too, admitted she felt it was a little rushed. In early 2015, she flew to Los Angeles to work with new songwriters and producers for two months, including Canadian musician Tobias Jesso Jr., after discovering his song "Hollywood". Their managers talked about the collaboration, and they spent about three days writing, conceiving "When We Were Young". The song was written in a house in Los Angeles, at Philip Glass' piano that Jesso had inherited. They started the song from scratch, as Jesso "would play chords while Adele improvised melodies and lyrics". As Jesso recounted, "There was no studio, just a piano and us, and we wrote a lot. I mean a lot lot."
American record producer Ariel Rechtshaid heard rumours that Adele and Jesso wanted to work with him. He flew to London and produced two songs for her. After Adele told him that she loved the track, but had a lot of ballads on the album already, he returned to Los Angeles and started creating a rhythm track for it. Rechtshaid recalled struggling not to make it "over-the-top dramatic, kind of epic". He thought the song had "an old soul vibe", and desired to have it "a little bit more modern". Rechtshaid told The Fader that it only took two takes to record the song, and during the middle eight, he pushed Adele beyond her means, since he "felt that it needed to have a little bit more cry to it".
On 16 November 2015, Australian TV program 60 Minutes broadcast a preview of "When We Were Young". A day later, the song's performance at the Church Studios in London was uploaded to Vevo. On 26 November 2015, Billboard wrote an article questioning what would be 25's next single, indicating either "When We Were Young" or "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)" would be their pick. On 12 December 2015, the magazine confirmed "When We Were Young" as the album's second single, through a source at Columbia Records. It was released for radio airplay in Italy on 22 January 2016, and for digital download in various countries on 29 January 2016. The official artwork features "a throwback picture of her younger self". Lindsay Sullivan of Billboard called it "adorable", while Lewis Corner of Digital Spy wondered, "How much more cute can you get than a primary school Adele, grinning from ear to ear with her two front teeth missing?"
## Composition and lyrical interpretation
Adele and Jesso wrote "When We Were Young", and Rechtshaid produced it. The latter engineered the song and plays the organ, glockenspiel, synthesizer, and percussion. Jesso plays the piano and provided background vocals with Rechtshaid. The song incorporates bass, drums, and guitar in its instrumentation, was recorded at Dean Street Studios in London, and mixed at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles and Electric Lady Studios in New York City.
Musically, "When We Were Young" is a reflective soul ballad. Hattie Collins of i-D considered the song "a 70s styled shimmery disco ballad". It is built around "somber piano chords", which according to Pitchfork's Jeremy Gordon, are "designed to show off [Adele's] staggering, empathic voice". He said her vocals switch "between husky crackle to a soaring delivery before eventually climaxing with a come-to-Jesus money note". Adele described the song as "a very '70s singer-songwriter vibe". Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone found it similar to the work of Elton John, and Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were" (1973). Bruce Handy of Vanity Fair also compared it to Streisand. The song reminded The Fader's Owen Myers of Gladys Knight.
Lyrically, "When We Were Young" deals with the fear of getting older, a recurring theme on 25. The song "finds [Adele] reconnecting with [an] old acquaintance years after their adolescence, which prompts her to revisit those memories and to wish she could stop time". As noted by Maeve McDermott of USA Today, during the reunion, "Adele wistfully begins mourning before it's even over". During the song, she "watches as her youth slips away in real time", singing: "Let me photograph you in this light, in case it is the last time that we might be exactly like we were, before we realized we were sad of getting old." In the last chorus, Adele cries about "the inevitability of separation", singing: "I'm so mad I'm getting old, it makes me reckless." Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic stated that the first verse "is about her working up the courage to approach an old flame who 'everybody loves'". He added that the song "is another version of the revisitation narrative of 'Someone Like You' but this time, there's no 'never mind, I'll find someone else' portion. There's only her begging for a photo, because she's worried the future won't ever be as good as the past was."
In an interview with Sirius XM, Adele said the song "was based on us being older, and being at a party at this house, and seeing everyone that you've ever fallen out with, everyone that you've ever loved, everyone that you've never loved". In a song by song analysis by The New York Times, she recounted having "a vision of my best friend putting makeup on me for the first time when I was 17" while performing the song during rehearsals, which she appreciated: "Every time a new memory comes back in one of my songs for myself, I love it. It's like remembering your life through song." When interviewed by Nick Grimshaw on BBC Radio 1, Adele said that "When We Were Young" was her favourite track off 25.
## Critical reception
"When We Were Young" was met with acclaim from music critics. Gordon named it "Best New Track" and praised Adele's vocal performance and how she was "capable of elevating maudlin sentiment into high art". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic selected the song as one of the album's highlights, noting that she took a risk enlisting Retchshaid to produce the track. Leah Greenblatt from Entertainment Weekly considered it one of the three best tracks of the album, noting that she was sincere with the nostalgic theme. Steven Arroyo of Consequence of Sound selected the song as one of the essential tracks on 25. Rob Garratt from The National was positive about Adele's writing skills, and praised her "fragilely affecting, but ultimately affirming" performance. Writing for Inquirer, Joseph R. Atilano remarked, "A single like this further showcases how lyrically intelligent she is as a composer as well as one of the greatest pure singers alive today." Matt Bagwell of The Huffington Post called it "stunning", and named it "the album's 'Someone Like You' – in other words, the 'big ballad'".
Corner noted that the lyrics "will squeeze your heart and give you a minor midlife crisis. That won't stop you from playing it over and over, though." Corbin Reiff from The A.V. Club praised Adele's "incredible, gritty sultriness on the verses". Justin Charity of Complex was also positive about her vocals, calling it "the wildest blossom of Adele's voice". Jon Dolan from Rolling Stone labelled the song a "mature [...] torchy ballad", while T. Cole Rachel of Spin defined it as "the kind of mawkish, overcooked melodrama that one imagines Adele could perform in her sleep". Chris Gerard from PopMatters was praiseful, naming the song "a bittersweet epic", and adding, "'When We Were Young' is breathtaking, an example of how great Adele can be when all the stars align. This slow-burning ballad which builds to a powerful climax should have been the first single. It's more complex than 'Hello', has more emotional depth, and Adele's vocals are good enough to bring tears to the eyes. 25 is worth picking up for this song alone."
Time named "When We Were Young" the seventh-best song of 2015. Several music critics have placed the song in their lists of Adele's best songs. Rolling Stone listed it as Adele's fifth-best, and Larisha Paul elaborated that "she spins the existential crisis-inducing topics of time and aging into what feels like a snapshot of our own past, present, and future". Billboard's Chuck Arnold placed "When We Were Young" at number 11 in a ranking of her discography, and noted that it "gets you all up in your feelings" and "longing for 'someone [you] used to know". Parade and American Songwriter each ranked the song number two on their lists of Adele's greatest songs. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian named it as Adele's 18th best song.
## Commercial performance
"When We Were Young" peaked at number nine on the UK Singles Chart and received a 3× Platinum certification in the United Kingdom from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). On 14 December 2015, Billboard reported that the song had sold 150,000 downloads in the United States, the second-most from 25. The song reached number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and the Recording Industry Association of America certified it Platinum. "When We Were Young" charted at number nine on the Canadian Hot 100, and earned a 5× Platinum certification in Canada from Music Canada.
In Australia, "When We Were Young" peaked at number 13 on the ARIA Top 50 Singles Chart and the Australian Recording Industry Association certified it Platinum. The song reached number 23 on the Top 40 Singles Chart in New Zealand, and received a Gold certification in New Zealand from Recorded Music NZ. Elsewhere, it charted within the top 10, at number three in Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Slovakia, number five in Switzerland, number six in Belgium, the Czech Republic, number eight in South Africa, and number 10 in Portugal. "When We Were Young" earned a 2× Platinum certification in Denmark, Norway, Platinum in Italy, Portugal, Mexico, and Gold in Belgium.
## Live performances
Adele performed "When We Were Young" live with numerous backup singers, afront large speakers, at The Church Studios in London, which was filmed and uploaded to Vevo on 17 November 2015. She reprised the song live during her BBC One special Adele at the BBC, recorded at The London Studios on 2 November 2015. Adele sang it on Saturday Night Live on 21 November 2015; MTV News' Renan Borelli commented that she "absolute[ly] crushed [it]". She performed "When We Were Young" during her NBC special Adele Live in New York City, recorded at Radio City Music Hall on 17 November 2015.
On 17 February 2016, Adele reprised the song at The Ellen DeGeneres Show. She sang it as the closing song at the Brit Awards 2016 on 24 February. Adele included "When We Were Young" on the encore of her set list for the Glastonbury Festival 2016, and her 2016 concert tour. She sang the song during her CBS special Adele One Night Only, ITV special An Audience with Adele (2021), and her British Summer Time concerts on 1 and 2 July 2022.
## Cover versions
American singer Demi Lovato covered "When We Were Young" at the Future Now Tour on 2 September 2016. Rolling Stone's Daniel Kreps wrote that "Lovato delivered a faithful, slightly sped-up take on the 25 single, which Lovato used as another vessel to showcase her powerful vocals". Colin Stutz of Billboard stated she "put her vocal chops on full display" and justified her place on the list "of the best singers in pop music". According to Digital Spy, Lovato "did justice" to the song and delivered "a performance that will blow you away". MTV News' Hilary Hughes commended her confidence for attempting to cover an Adele song and thought she "utterly nailed" it, adding, "[she] showcas[ed] her range and reach[ed] the rafters with high notes that just wouldn't quit".
## Credits and personnel
Credits are adapted from the liner notes of 25.
Recording
- Recorded at Dean Street Studios, London
- Mixed at Capitol Studios, Los Angeles, and Electric Lady Studios, New York City
Personnel
- Adele – songwriting, vocals
- Tobias Jesso Jr. – songwriting, backing vocals, piano
- Ariel Rechtshaid – production, backing vocals, programming, engineering, organ, glockenspiel, synthesizer, percussion
- Gus Seyffert – bass
- Joey Waronker – drums
- Benji Lysaght – guitar
- Nico Muhly – prepared piano, harmonium
- Roger Manning Jr. – optigan, B3
- Austen Jux Chandler – engineering
- Chris Kaysch – engineering
- David Schiffman – engineering
- Nick Rowe – additional engineering
- Aaron Ahmad – assistant engineer
- Christopher Cerullo – assistant engineer
- John DeBold – assistant engineer
- Michael Harris – assistant engineer
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications
## Radio and release history
## See also
- List of Billboard Dance Club Songs number ones of 2016
- List of UK Independent Singles Chart number ones of 2016
|
36,531,538 |
European Nucleotide Archive
| 1,049,303,199 |
Online database from the EBI on Nucleotides
|
[
"Genetics databases",
"Genetics in the United Kingdom",
"Genome databases",
"Genomics organizations",
"Information technology organizations based in Europe",
"Research institutes in Cambridgeshire",
"South Cambridgeshire District"
] |
The European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) is a repository providing free and unrestricted access to annotated DNA and RNA sequences. It also stores complementary information such as experimental procedures, details of sequence assembly and other metadata related to sequencing projects. The archive is composed of three main databases: the Sequence Read Archive, the Trace Archive and the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (also known as EMBL-bank). The ENA is produced and maintained by the European Bioinformatics Institute and is a member of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) along with the DNA Data Bank of Japan and GenBank.
The ENA has grown out of the EMBL Data Library which was released in 1982 as the first internationally supported resource for nucleotide sequence data. As of early 2012, the ENA and other INSDC member databases each contained complete genomes of 5,682 organisms and sequence data for almost 700,000. Moreover, the volume of data is increasing exponentially with a doubling time of approximately 10 months.
## History
The European Nucleotide Archive originated from separate databases, the earliest of which was the EMBL Data Library, established in October 1980 at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg. The first release of this database was made in April 1982 and contained a total of 568 separate entries consisting of around 500,000 base pairs. In 1984, referring to the EMBL Data Library, Kneale and Kennard remarked that "it was clear some years ago that a large computerized database of sequences would be essential for research in Molecular Biology".
Despite the primary distribution method at the time being via magnetic tape, by 1987, the EMBL Data Library was being used by an estimated 10,000 scientists internationally. The same year, the EMBL File Server was introduced to serve database records over BITNET, EARN and the early Internet. In May 1988 the journal Nucleic Acids Research introduced a policy stating that "manuscripts submitted to [Nucleic Acids Research] and containing or discussing sequence data must be accompanied by evidence that the data have been deposited with the EMBL Data Library."
During the 1990s the EMBL Data Library was renamed the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database and was formally relocated to the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) from Heidelberg. In 2003, the Nucleotide Sequence Database was extended with the addition of the Sequence Version Archive (SVA), which maintains records of all current and previous entries in the database. A year later in June 2004, limits on the maximum sequence length for each record (then 350 kilobases) were removed, allowing entire genome sequences to be stored as a single database entry.
Following the uptake of Sanger sequencing, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (then known as The Sanger Centre) had begun cataloguing sequence reads along with quality information in a database called The Trace Archive. The Trace Archive grew substantially with the commercialisation of high-throughput parallel sequencing technologies by companies such as Roche and Illumina. In 2008, the EBI combined the Trace Archive, EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (now also known as EMBL-Bank) and a newly developed Sequence (or Short) Read Archive (SRA) to make up the ENA, aimed at providing a comprehensive nucleotide sequence archive. As a member of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, the ENA exchanges data submissions each day with both the DNA Data Bank of Japan and GenBank.
## EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database
The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (also known as EMBL-Bank) is the section of the ENA which contains high-level genome assembly details, as well as assembled sequences and their functional annotation. EMBL-Bank is contributed to by direct submission from genome consortia and smaller research groups as well as by the retrieval of sequence data associated with patent applications.
As of release 114 (December 2012), the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database contains approximately 5×10<sup>11</sup> nucleotides with an uncompressed filesize of 1.6 terabytes.
### Data classes
The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database supports a variety of data derived from different sources including, but not limited to:
- Expressed sequence tags with their associated sample data.
- Nucleotide sequence being generated from whole genome sequencing projects at varying stages of assembly, including complete contigs and annotated, fully assembled sequence.
- Data relating to transcriptomics, such as complementary DNA, with optional annotation.
- Novel or extended annotations of existing coding sequences, for example new sequence versions with corrected start or stop codons.
### EMBL-Bank format
The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database uses a flat file plaintext format to represent and store data which is typically referred to as EMBL-Bank format. EMBL-Bank format uses a different syntax to the records in DDBJ and GenBank, though each format uses certain standardised nomenclature, such as taxonomies as defined by the NCBI Taxon database. Each line of an EMBL-format file begins with a two-letter code, such as `AC` to label the accession number and `KW` for a list of keywords relevant to the record; each record ends with `//`.
## Sequence Read Archive
The ENA operates an instance of the Sequence Read Archive (SRA), an archival repository of sequence reads and analyses which are intended for public release. Originally called the Short Read Archive, the name was changed in anticipation of future sequencing technologies being able to produce longer sequence reads. Currently, the archive accepts sequence reads generated by next-generation sequencing platforms such as the Illumina Genome Analyzer and ABI SOLiD as well as some corresponding analyses and alignments. The SRA operates under the guidance of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) and is the fastest-growing repository in the ENA.
In 2010 the Sequence Read Archive made up approximately 95% of the base pair data available through the ENA, encompassing over 500,000,000,000 sequence reads made up of over 60 trillion (6×10<sup>13</sup>) base pairs. Almost half of this data was deposited in relation to the 1000 Genomes Project wherein the researchers published their sequence data to the SRA in real-time. In total, as of September 2010, 65% of the Sequence Read Archive was human genomic sequence, with another 16% relating to human metagenome sequence reads.
The preferred data format for files submitted to the SRA is the BAM format, which is capable of storing both aligned and unaligned reads. Internally the SRA relies on the NCBI SRA Toolkit, used at all three INSDC member databases, to provide flexible data compression, API access and conversion to other formats such as FASTQ.
## Data access
The data contained in the ENA can be accessed manually or programmatically via REST URL through the ENA browser. Initially limited to the Sequence Read Archive, the ENA browser now also provides access to the Trace Archive and EMBL-Bank, allowing file retrieval in a range of formats including XML, HTML, FASTA and FASTQ. Individual records can be accessed using their accession numbers and other text queries are enabled through the EB-eye search engine. Additionally, sequence similarity-based searches implemented using De Bruijn graphs offer another method of retrieving records from the ENA.
The ENA is accessible via the EBI SOAP and REST APIs, which also offer access to other databases hosted at the EBI, such as Ensembl and InterPro.
## Storage
The European Nucleotide Archive handles large volumes of data which pose a significant storage challenge. As of 2012, the ENA's storage requirements continue to grow exponentially, with a doubling time of approximately 10 months. To manage this increase, the ENA selectively discards less-valuable sequencing platform data and implements advanced compression strategies. The CRAM reference-based compression toolkit was developed to help reduce ENA storage requirements.
## Funding
Currently the ENA is funded jointly by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, the European Commission and the Wellcome Trust. The emerging ELIXIR framework, coordinated by EBI director Janet Thornton, aims to secure a sustainable European funding infrastructure to support the continued availability of life science databases such as the ENA.
## See also
- DNA Data Bank of Japan
- ENCODE
- Ensembl Genomes
- GenBank
- RefSeq
- UniGene
|
53,647,280 |
Charmayne James
| 1,163,724,501 |
American barrel racer
|
[
"1970 births",
"21st-century American women",
"American barrel racers",
"American female equestrians",
"Cowgirl Hall of Fame inductees",
"Living people",
"People from Boerne, Texas",
"People from Union County, New Mexico",
"ProRodeo Hall of Fame inductees",
"Sportspeople from Greater San Antonio"
] |
Charmayne James (born June 23, 1970) is an American former professional rodeo cowgirl who specialized in barrel racing. In her career, She won 11 Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) barrel racing world championships, the most in history. She won ten consecutive world championships from 1984 to 1993, and then a final one in 2002. She qualified for the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) 19 times and also won seven NFR barrel racing average titles in 1984, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1993, and 2002. James retired her horse, Gills Bay Boy, nicknamed Scamper, whom she won the bulk of her titles with, in 1993 after winning her tenth world championship. James herself would retire from barrel racing in 2002 after winning her 11th world championship.
Scamper was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1996. James was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 1992 and the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2017. The August 2017 induction ceremony was ProRodeo's 38th annual event, and marked the first time in the event's history that the class of inductees included barrel racers from the WPRA.
## Early history
Charmayne James, born June 23, 1970, in Boerne, Texas, was raised in Clayton, New Mexico. She was three years old when she first started riding horses, and by age six she was running barrels. Her recollection of barrel racing is that it was the only thing she ever wanted to do. She began her rodeo career at a young age when she joined the Rabbit Ear 4-H Club. Prior to 2019, barrel racing was the only event women competed in at Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) events, and is second only to bull riding as the most popular event.
As a young girl, James rode Bardo in barrel racing competition. They had competed in amateur rodeos for about two years before Bardo shattered a bone in his leg, and had to be euthanized. James considered Bardo her best friend, which made finding a replacement for him difficult. She eventually set her sights on Gills Bay Boy, an American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) registered gelding her father had purchased as a four-year-old for \$1,100 to sort feedlot cattle. In the beginning, James encountered some behavioral issues with the horse, but over time, she was able to train him for barrel racing competition. He became widely known as Scamper, a nickname originating from a comment her father made while watching them run barrels: "He sure wants to scamper around those barrels."
## ProRodeo career
By the end of 1983, James and Scamper had competed on the amateur circuit for approximately three years, and advanced to the pro circuit. James filled her permit for the WPRA following a win at a competition in Dodge City, Kansas. "Filling a permit" is when a contestant fulfills the requirements to become a WPRA card holder, which includes purchasing a permit and earning a minimum dollar amount at sanctioned rodeos. As a card holder, a contestant is allowed to compete in finals events and gain official ranking.
In 1984, the pair began their first season competing at the professional level, and by season's end, James had won \$53,499.00 and two championship titles, including 1984 WPRA World Champion Barrel Racer and NFR Barrel Racing Average Champion. She was also named 1984 WPRA Rookie of the Year.
In 1985, the pair earned \$93,847 and their 2nd WPRA world championship title. They did it again in 1986, winning their 3rd WPRA world championship title and NFR Average with total earnings of \$151,969, achieving professional rodeo's highest earnings ever in a single-event season. Another first came in 1987 at the NFR where the team won their 4th world championship with earnings exceeding \$120,000. That same year, James became the first woman ever to wear the No. 1 back number in a National Finals Rodeo. The back number indicates a contestant's ranking in money earnings at the end of the regular season. In 1988, the pair won their 5th world championship with earnings of \$130,540—the most money earned that year by anyone in professional rodeo competition, exceeding the earnings won by the men's all-around world champion.
In 1989, Scamper sustained a cut to his coronet band at the beginning of the NFR. James recalled how the wound forced her to change Scamper's normal conditioning routine, which cost the pair a few wins in the go-rounds but they still won the world championship title with \$96,651 in season earnings. In 1993, the pair qualified again for the NFR, with James having her sights set on a tenth WPRA world championship title. She recalled how anxious she felt under such pressure, and that she wanted to win so she could retire Scamper undefeated while he was still in his prime. The pair won both the 1993 NFR and WPRA world championship titles, securing Scamper's place in barrel racing history. In 1992, James was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, honoring not only her multiple consecutive wins, but also topping the men in earnings.
James returned to barrel racing in 1992 riding her new horse Cruising on Six, nicknamed Cruiser, and won her 11th WPRA World Barrel Racing Championship title. Guy Clifton, sports writer for the Reno Gazette-Journal and ESPN.com remarked: "Anybody that doubted her abilities, she just proved her abilities by winning with another horse."
### The bridleless win
In 1985, James and Scamper qualified for the NFR and won five go-rounds at the event. James recalled that it was Friday the 13th during the 7th go-round of the barrel racing competition when Scamper's bridle fell off his head during the run.
As James and Scamper came in, Scamper caught his bridle on the gate, dislodging the Chicago screws that secure the bit and reins to the headstall. With no screws to keep the bridle intact, the headstall fell off the horse's head after rounding the first barrel, and was hanging from the horse's mouth as they ran toward the second barrel. James did what she could to keep the bit in his mouth, but had to turn his head loose as they approached the third barrel. Rounding the third barrel, Scamper spit the bit out of his mouth causing the bridle to drop to his chest, but he was intensely focused on the home stretch and kept running. All James had to control him was a single rein around his neck. The pair crossed the timer clocking in at 14.4 seconds, winning the round and the 1985 World Barrel Racing Championship.
## Retirement
James retired Scamper in 1993, except for an occasional race, and he died on July 4, 2012, at age 35. Scamper received the 1992 AQHA Silver Spur Award which is "the equine world's equivalent of the Academy Award". James announced her retirement from competition in 2003 after winning a record 11 WPRA World Championships. She began hosting barrel racing clinics. She also has trained horses for cutting and team roping as well as barrel racing.
On December 6, 2004, James got married in the small town of Athens, Texas, which is about 1+1⁄2 hours outside Dallas. The groom was her long-time friend and business manager, Tony Garritano. The couple has two sons together. When James is not traveling to teach in her barrel racing clinics, she spends her time at home in Boerne, Texas. She splits her time between raising her sons or working with her colts.
She came out of retirement to compete in RFD-TV's The American, referred to as the "world's richest one day rodeo", whose inaugural event was held in 2014. The event is held every year in February at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and televised nationally on RFD-TV. In 2016, she again stepped out of retirement as a member of Elite Rodeo Athletes (ERA) to compete in "the inaugural ERA Premier Tour against 87 other world-class athletes that represent 135 world championship titles", held May 20–21 at Tingley Coliseum in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
## Clayton
Since breeding Scamper was not an option for genetic inheritability, James spent several years researching the possibility of cloning. She chose ViaGen, an animal genetics corporation based in Austin, Texas, to perform the cloning procedure for \$150,000. James registered the resulting colt born in 2006 with the American DNA Registry under the name Clayton, who is an identical genetic match to Scamper. James chose a surrogate mare to be the dam of the colt and receive the cloned embryo. At age two, James started Clayton as a breeding stallion. She offered his services to the public at a fee of \$4,000. Clayton sired healthy progeny, many of whom have inherited Scamper's genetics. Of special note, the AQHA does not register cloned horses; however, breed registration is not required to compete in barrel racing or other PRCA and WPRA sanctioned rodeo events.
## Career earnings
The NFR takes place on 10 consecutive days. At the end of the NFR, there are two barrel racing champions: the World Champion, who completed the year by earning the most money during the season and the finals combined; and the Average champion, who won the NFR by having the best aggregate time. It is possible the two champions may be the same person.
The WPRA has recorded the following earnings for James:
- 1984 – \$53,499
- 1985 – \$93,847
- 1986 – \$151,969
- 1986 – Leading money earner in professional rodeo
- 1987 – 1987 – \$120,002
- 1988 – \$130,540
- 1989 – \$96,651
- 1990 – \$130,328
- 1990 – Charmayne crosses the million-dollar milestone
- 1991 – \$92,403
- 1992 – \$110,867
- 1993 – \$103,609
- 1995 – \$50,345
- 1996 – \$49,995
- 1997 – \$54,442
- 1998 – \$116,325
- 1999 – \$88,520
- 2000 – \$146,000
- 2001 – \$129,270
- 2002 – \$186,405
## Honors
- 2017 ProRodeo Hall of Fame
- 2016 New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame
- 2011 Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame
- 2002 Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame
- 1999 St. Paul Rodeo Hall of Fame
- 1996 "Scamper" inducted into ProRodeo Hall of Fame
- 1992 National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame
- 1988 Ellensburg Rodeo Hall of Fame
- 1986 Panhandle Sports Hall of Fame, Amarillo, Texas
|
66,760,928 |
129 (barge)
| 1,151,683,828 |
American whaleback barge (1891–1902)
|
[
"1893 ships",
"Maritime incidents in 1902",
"Merchant ships of the United States",
"Ships built in Superior, Wisconsin",
"Shipwrecks of Lake Superior",
"Shipwrecks of the Michigan coast",
"Whaleback ships"
] |
129 (also known as Barge 129, or No.129) was an American whaleback barge in service between 1893 and 1902. Built between December 1892 and May 1893, in Superior, Wisconsin, (or West Superior, Wisconsin), by Alexander McDougall's American Steel Barge Company, for McDougall's fleet of the same name, based in Buffalo, New York. She was one of a class of distinctive and experimental ships designed and built by McDougall. The whalebacks were designed to be more stable in high seas. They had rounded decks, and lacked the normal straight sides seen on traditional lake freighters. 129 entered service on May 22, hauling wheat from Superior. She was sold to the Bessemer Steamship Company of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1900. In 1901, she became owned by the Pittsburgh Steamship Company of Duluth, Minnesota, when the Bessemer fleet merged into it.
On October 13, 1902, 129 was downbound, loaded with iron ore, in tow of the bulk freighter Maunaloa. The two vessels encountered rough seas while about 30 miles (48.3 km) northwest of Vermilion Point. 129 broke away, Maunaloa turned around, and attempted to retrieve 129. However, the heavy seas pushed Maunaloa against 129; her port anchor sliced into 129's starboard side. 129 took on water and sank fast. All of her crew were rescued by Maunaloa.
In October 2022, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society announced the discovery of 129's wreck, which was found in 35 miles (56.3 km) off Vermilion Point in 650 feet (198.1 m) of water.
## History
### Background
129 was a whaleback, an innovative but unpopular ship design of the late 1880s, designed by Alexander McDougall. A Scottish immigrant, Great Lakes captain, inventor and entrepreneur, McDougall developed the idea of the whaleback as a way to improve the ability of barges to follow a towing vessel in heavy seas. Whalebacks were characterized by distinctive hull shapes with rounded tops, lacking conventional vertical sides, and conoidal ends. Their rounded hulls enabled water to easily slide off their decks, minimising friction, and letting them sail quickly and smoothly through the water. Their superstructure was located on turrets mounted on the main deck. The rounded contours of whalebacks gave them an unconventional appearance, and McDougall's ship and barge designs were received with considerable skepticism, resistance, and derision. As they had porcine-looking snouts for bows, some observers called them "pig boats".
After McDougall was unable to persuade existing shipbuilders to try his designs, he founded the American Steel Barge Company in Superior, Wisconsin in 1888 and built them himself. McDougall actively promoted his design and company by sending the steamer Charles W. Wetmore to London and starting another shipyard in Everett, Washington, which built the steamer City of Everett. Despite McDougall's further efforts to promote the design with the excursion liner Christopher Columbus, whalebacks never caught on, with only 44 of them being built.
### Design and construction
129 (also known as Barge 129 or No.129) was constructed between 1892 and 1893 in Superior, Wisconsin, (or West Superior, Wisconsin), by the American Steel Barge Company. Her first hull frames were laid down on December 5, 1892. She was launched on May 13, 1893. 129 was the first of six identical whaleback barges launched in spring and summer of 1893. 129 and her sister ships (130, 131, 132, 133 and 134) were the only whalebacks built by the American Steel Barge Company in 1893. She had an overall length 306 feet (93.3 m) (292 feet (89.0 m) between perpendiculars), a beam of 36 feet (11.0 m) and a depth of 22 feet (6.7 m). She had a gross tonnage of 1,310 (or 1,311) tons and a net tonnage of 1,265 (or 1,266) tons. She was an unrigged barge and was towed by a steam-powered ship.
### Service history
129 was built by the American Steel Barge Company for the fleet of the same name based in Buffalo, New York. She was given a temporary enrollment in Marquette, Michigan on May 12, 1893, and was given the US official number 53276. She received a permanent enrollment on June 3 in Buffalo, her home port. 129 entered service on May 22, carrying wheat from Superior, Wisconsin.
129 had no recountable incidents during her career. In 1895, management of the American Steel Barge Company fleet was taken over by Pickands Mather & Company of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1900, 129 and the entire American Steel Barge Company fleet was sold to the Bessemer Steamship Company of Cleveland. When sold, 129's home port was changed to Duluth, Minnesota. 129 and the Bessemer Steamship Company fleet merged into the Pittsburgh Steamship Company of Duluth, managed by Augustus B. Wolvin.
### Final voyage
On October 13, 1902, while in tow of the 452 feet (137.8 m) steel bulk freighter Maunaloa, 129 was downbound, with 2,300 tons of iron ore in her cargo hold. Maunaloa and 129 encountered rough seas while about 30 miles (48.3 km) northwest of Vermilion Point on Lake Superior. In the gale, the towline between 129 and Maunaloa was severed. Maunaloa turned around and attempted to retrieve 129. However, the heavy seas pushed Maunaloa against 129; her port anchor sliced into 129's starboard side. 129 took on water quickly and rapidly sank. There was no loss of life, as Captain Bailey and his crew were picked up by Maunaloa. Maunaloa sustained no major damage in the collision. 129 was a total loss, being valued at \$60,000, while her cargo was valued at \$10,000. Her enrollment surrendered on March 25, 1903, in Duluth, Minnesota. She was the fourth whaleback to be lost on the Great Lakes.
## 129 wreck
On October 12, 2022 the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society announced that after a lengthy search, they had located 129's wreck 35 miles (56.3 km) off Vermilion Point in 650 feet (198.1 m) of water. 129, one of eight wrecks located in 2021 by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society using side-scan sonar, was positively identified in August 2022. She was the last whaleback lost on the Great Lakes to be located. The wreck is in four to five large pieces, with several smaller pieces of wreckage also scattered on the lake bottom. 129 hit the bottom with such force that her bow sheared off, while the rest of her hull folded in on itself in the middle. The tow line is still attached at the bow. Darryl Ertel Jr., director of marine operations at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society described her wreck: "It's totally destroyed on the bottom. It's nowhere near intact. It's at least four to five big pieces and thousands of little pieces. It's just disintegrated." 129's wreck was explored during the summer of 2022 using a remotely operated vehicle. Maritime historian and author Cris Kohl had previously described her as one of the "100 most hunted Great Lakes shipwrecks".
## See also
- Graveyard of the Great Lakes
|
1,594,851 |
Phantom Phorce
| 1,153,142,476 | null |
[
"2004 remix albums",
"Albums with cover art by Pete Fowler",
"Super Furry Animals albums"
] |
Phantom Phorce is a remix album of Super Furry Animals' 2003 record Phantom Power. The remixes had previously appeared on the DVD version of Phantom Power—they were re-released as Phantom Phorce on the band's own Placid Casual label as a way of ensuring the remixers would receive royalties for the tracks. The album features a commentary from the fictional 'Kurt Stern' who appears between songs to discuss the re-recording of Phantom Power under his guidance after being unhappy with the original. First editions of the album came packaged in a case that doubled as a paper model of a video game arcade cabinet, and included a bonus CD; the Slow Life EP. Critical reaction to Phantom Phorce was generally positive.
## Origins, concept and music
Phantom Phorce features remixes previously available on the DVD version of Phantom Power. According to drummer Dafydd Ieuan the band didn't have the money to pay the artists involved for these remixes so, in order to provide them with royalties, promised to release an album featuring the tracks on their own label.
The record features remixes of every track from 2003's Phantom Power presented in sequence, along with extra versions of "Valet Parking" and "Hello Sunshine" which appear at the end of the album. The remixes vary from radical reworkings such as Killa Kella's beatbox treatment of "Golden Retriever" and Wauvenfold's "unrecognisable" version of "Sex, War and Robots", to the likes of Mario Caldato Jr's take on "Liberty Belle" and High Llamas' "Valet Parking" which are merely "spruced up".
The remixes are interspersed with anecdotes from 'Kurt Stern' (actually the band's road manager) who supposedly made the decision to make these remixes after being unhappy with the original Phantom Power. According to bassist Guto Pryce this "running commentary is tongue in cheek, it's our road manager pretending to be a producer, and he ends up sounding like a... twat!" These anecdotes give the actual release a different track listing from that which appears on the back of the album.
## Release and reception
Initial copies of the album came bundled with the Slow Life EP in packaging which could be folded into the shape of a video game arcade cabinet, or "personal console" as described on the instructions section of the sleeve. The CDs themselves were housed in individual sleeves designed to look like 3.5" floppy disks. Zeth Lundy, reviewing the album for PopMatters, commented that he constructed the arcade cabinet with "sheer geeky delight" while CokeMachineGlow called the packaging "nostalgic but infuriating". Phantom Phorce was also issued on gold-coloured vinyl.
Critical reaction to Phantom Phorce was generally positive with Uncut stating that the album features an "inspired overhaul" of tracks from Phantom Power, the Western Mail describing the record as a "mind-bending collection that radically re-works each track from the original record to create something entirely different, but equally appealing" and musicOMH calling it "an innovative and thoroughly enjoyable set of remixes". Some reviews pointed out that the album compares favourably with other remix albums with The Guardian calling Phantom Phorce "stimulating and often rather beautiful, bucking the trend set by most other self-indulgent and pointless remix albums" and the NME stating that "hearing a rock band get the remix treatment is usually a mildly diverting experience rather than a life-changing one. So it's an extremely pleasant surprise to be faced with a whole album of the buggers ... and be thoroughly entertained." Q stated that the commentary by 'Kurt Stern' was one of the best features of the album and The Times expressed surprise that these "'amusing interludes' between tracks are actually funny", however Pitchfork Media found that 'Stern' "gets in the way more than he helps" and claimed that, by the time the listener had heard the full album he or she would "likely consider redubbing it without ['Stern's'] contributions". Reviewing Phantom Phorce for DiSCORDER magazine, Jordie Yow called it "good, but not exceptional" and claimed that the remixes simply made him want to listen to the original versions of the tracks while website Angry Ape was scathing, calling the album a "bland & uninspiring package to put you off remixes for life" and suggested that it was merely a "cash-in" by the band.
## Track listing
## Personnel
The following people contributed to Phantom Phorce:
### Band
- Gruff Rhys – Lead vocals, rhythm guitar
- Huw Bunford – Lead guitar, backing vocals
- Guto Pryce – Bass guitar
- Cian Ciaran – Keyboards, backing vocals
- Dafydd Ieuan – Drums, backing vocals
### Remixers
- Weevil
- Mario Caldato Jr.
- Killa Kela
- Wauvenfold
- Four Tet
- Massimo
- Boom Bip
- Bravecaptain
- Zan Lyons
- Minotaur Shock
- High Llamas
- Llwybr Llaethog
- Sir Doufous Styles
- Force Unknown
- Freiband
### Additional musicians
- Jonathan 'Catfish' Thomas – pedal steel guitar on tracks 4, 13
- Kris Jenkins – percussion on tracks 1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15
- Rachel Thomas – backing vocals on tracks 3, 4
- Gary Alsebrook – trumpet on tracks 6, 7
- Savio Pacini – trombone on tracks 6, 7
- Rico Rodriguez – trombone on track 13
- Eddie Thornton – trumpet on track 13
- Ray Carless – saxophone on track 13
- Marcus Holdway – cello on tracks 4, 7, 13, 14
- Sally Herbert – violin on tracks 4, 7, 14
- Brian G. Wright – violin on tracks 4, 7, 14
- Gill Morley – violin on tracks 4, 7, 14
- Ellen Blair – violin on tracks 4, 7, 14
- Pete Fowler – Kaoss flanges on track 14
- Neil McFarland – Kaoss flanges on track 14
### Artwork
- Pete Fowler – Illustration & design
- John Mark James – Illustration & design
|
49,210,572 |
A. L. Burt
| 1,161,189,291 |
Defunct New York book publisher
|
[
"Book publishing companies based in New York City"
] |
A. L. Burt (incorporated in 1902 as A. L. Burt Company) was a New York City-based book publishing house from 1883 until 1937. It was founded by Albert Levi Burt, a 40-year-old from Massachusetts who had come to recognize the demand for inexpensive reference works while working as a traveling salesman. The company began by reprinting home reference works and reprints of popular and classic fiction, before expanding into the field of children's works, particularly series books.
A. L. Burt published both reprints and first editions, and targeted both adult and juvenile audiences. At the same time that it published works aimed at adults by authors such as Zane Grey, Harold Bell Wright, and Joseph C. Lincoln, it targeted the juvenile market with works by such authors as Horatio Alger, James Otis, Harry Castlemon, and Edward S. Ellis. The company repeatedly adapted with the market; it entered a popular paperback market, refocused on hardcovers when the paperback market became saturated, and in 1911, in an effort to compete with the Stratemeyer Syndicate, began issuing inexpensive juvenile series books.
Albert Burt died in 1913 with a sizable estate, after which the business was continued by his three sons, who each took an equal share. They continued the newfound emphasis on series books, pursuing both reprints rights and new works. The company met particular success with series influenced by contemporaneous influences and trends; nearly two dozen books in The Boy Allies series centered around World War I, and upon the war's end the company's new offers explored topics such as aviation and wireless radio. Although sales and titles declined with the Great Depression, the company continued to issue popular works, including the Beverly Gray series by Clair Blank, and titles by Howard R. Garis. Eventually, with an eye towards retirement, Albert Burt's sons sold the company to Blue Ribbon Books in 1937. Two years later, Blue Ribbon Books itself sold its assets and reproduction rights to Doubleday.
## Albert Levi Burt
A. L. Burt Company was named after its founder, Albert Levi Burt. Burt was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts in 1843. He was one of fourteen children born to Vila Burt (née Randall) and Levi Burt, a utility man and musician, and the grandson of Reuben Burt, the last surviving veteran of the American Revolutionary War in Hampden County. He was also an eighth-generation New Englander from a prolific family, tracing his ancestry to Henry Burt's arrival in Massachusetts around 1638.
Burt grew up on a farm with limited resources and schooling. As a family genealogy put it, other than four months each winter at a small district school, "the rest of the year the farm itself was the alpha and omega of educational opportunities." Burt's father died on January 26, 1860, when Burt was seventeen. Burt moved to Amherst, where he worked as a clerk in a general store for fifty dollars a year along with his board; two years later he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, working for several years as a traveling salesman for a publishing house. During this time, according to the genealogy, Burt came to understand the market that existed for inexpensive artistic, literary, and household books, which many could not afford.
In his personal life, Burt married Sarah Prentice Burt in Gilead, Connecticut, in 1872. They had three sons: Harry Prentice Burt (born c. 1874), Frederick Andrew Burt (born c. 1876), and Edward Fuller Burt (born c. 1878). He was a Republican, and according to an obituary in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle had a "retiring disposition"; he was a member of only one organization, Plymouth Church, of which he served for years as a trustee. In 1891, having found publishing success in New York, he donated 100 volumes of his works to Belchertown's Clapp Memorial Library. He was also an authority on bass and trout fishing, and wrote on the subject. Burt eventually gave up his active work in May 1913—"much against his will," per the obituary. After a months-long illness he died in his home at 178 Brooklyn Avenue on 28 December 1913, and was buried in the Cemetery of the Evergreens. His estate was valued at \$191,605.71 ().
## History
### Early years, 1883–1902
Albert Levi Burt began his book-publishing efforts in 1883, even though A. L. Burt Company was not officially incorporated until 1902. In 1883 Albert Burt moved to New York City, and soon thereafter began using a small office at 105 John Street to publish books. He initially focused on home reference works. His first publication was a reprint of The National Standard Dictionary, which contained some 40,000 words and 700 illustrative woodcuts. According to the family genealogy, for this work he poured the entirety of his \$900 savings into typesetting—providing for paper, printing, and binding on credit—and within ten years had sold some 250,000 copies. Albert Burt followed the dictionary with The National Standard Encyclopedia and several works on household art and ladies' handicrafts, along with such titles as Law Without Lawyers, Household Recipes, Useful Knowledge, and The Family Physician. Late in the 1880s Albert Burt turned to inexpensive paperback fiction, which was then popular and would allow him to extend his reach, with his Manhattan Library line of books. He also wanted to publish so-called "good literature," and so at the same time began the Burt's Home Library line with 25 titles, eventually reaching 500.
In 1887, Albert Burt launched the Boys' Home Library line of juvenile paperbacks, with individual titles priced at 25 cents and a yearly subscription for \$2.50; these appear to have been published concurrently with \$1 hardcover editions of the same works. The titles, which included first editions as well as reprints, were by such authors as Horatio Alger, James Otis, Harry Castlemon, and Edward S. Ellis. The line comprised 24 titles, the first 19 issued monthly and the remaining quarterly. Seven were by Alger: Joe's Luck, Frank Fowler, the Cash Boy, Tom Temple's Career, Tom Thatcher's Fortune, The Errand Boy, Tom the Bootblack, and Tony the Hero. The first five of these were first editions, though all seven had earlier been serialized in New York Weekly. The final issue, Captured by Zulus by Otis—writing under the pen name Harry Prentice—was published in June 1890.
Albert Burt's business grew rapidly, and between 1883 and 1900 he moved into larger offices in lower Manhattan at least four times. He also began to focus on hardcover novels, a response to the saturation of the cheap paperback market; dime novels and other 10- and 15-cent publications were undercutting his own 25-cent titles.
### Incorporation and series books, 1902–1937
As A. L. Burt expanded, and after it incorporated in 1902, it began targeting both adult and juvenile markets. Zane Grey's second book, The Spirit of the Border, sold some 750,000 copies as an A. L. Burt first edition. Similar success was found with other adult authors, such as Harold Bell Wright and Joseph C. Lincoln. Meanwhile, the Chimney Corner Series began offering 50-cent juvenile hardcovers in 1905; 69 titles were issued under the series in slightly less than a decade, during which the price eventually rose to 60 cents. The company also issued a line of "illustrated cover" juvenile books between 1907 and 1911, with titles by authors such as Ellis, Otis, and Everett Tomlinson. With cheaper options readily available, the dollar books did not sell well; two first editions by Alger, In Search of Treasure and Wait and Win, are now scarce.
In 1911 A. L. Burt began issuing series books as part of an effort to compete with the Stratemeyer Syndicate, whose books were primarily published by Grosset & Dunlap and Cupples & Leon. An early effort simply repackaged four of the books from the dollar "illustrated cover" line: Wilmer M. Ely's books The Young Plume Hunters, The Boy Truckers, The Young Pearl Hunters, and The Young Treasure Seekers, originally published as standalone works between 1905 and 1911, became the Boy Chums Series, and sold for 40 cents each. They sold well, and were supplemented with four new titles. Albert Burt's sons, who were active in the company, continued with series books after their father's 1913 death; Harry Burt became president and treasurer, Fred Burt secretary, and Edward Burt assistant treasurer, with each receiving a third of their father's 510 shares in the company. They initially pursued reprint rights for existing works; series such as the Jack Lorimer Series, the Oakdale Series, the Boy Scouts Series, and the Border Boys Series were thus acquired and reprinted. New series were also introduced, such as the Bronco Rider Boys and the Big Five Motorcycle Boys under pseudonyms of St George Henry Rathborne. Particular success was had with World War I-themed series, such as The Boy Allies. The series—comprising 13 The Boy Allies of the Army books and 10 of The Boy Allies of the Navy—presents "the boy heroes practically winning the war single-handedly". The books were initially sold for 40 cents each, rising to 50, 60, and 75 cents over time. Other publications with similar themes included the Our Young Aeroplane Scouts Series by Horace Porter, and the postwar Boy Troopers Series, which was relatively unsuccessful.
After the war ended, A. L. Burt's series books adapted with the times. The Radio Boys Series, started in 1922, coincided with a popular interest in wireless radio—and with the Stratemeyer Syndicate's issuance of an identically titled series. Several series by Levi Parker Wyman also sold well, such as the ten-volume Golden Boys Series, the seven-volume Lakewood Boys Series. Wyman also wrote the eight-volume Hunniwell Boys Series, one of several series with an aviation theme. Major Henry H. Arnold, later to become General of the Army and General of the Air Force, contributed to the effort with the Bill Bruce Air Pilot Series.
As the Great Depression hit, A. L. Burt's sales, and line of publications, declined. The company still published a number of successful series, and even bought the printing plates and copyrights from George Sully and Company, which liquidated. The Beverly Gray mysteries, published from 1934 to 1937 by A. L. Burt, and later by Grosset & Dunlap, were the company's most successful series of the 1930s; The series was a veritable soap opera, with the many adventures of its protagonist including twenty-six kidnappings, seven attacks by wild animals, and three plane crashes. A. L. Burt also published the Rocket Rider Series by Howard R. Garis, who until Edward Stratemeyer's death had been a prolific author for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, writing many of the early Tom Swift books; the plots of the first two books, Rocket Riders Across the Ice and Rocket Riders Over the Desert, resemble plot outlines in the Syndicate's archives for unpublished Tom Swift books, and may have been intended as such before Garis left for A. L. Burt. The Rocket Riders Series was published in 1933–34, and during this time Garis's son Roger Garis also wrote for A. L. Burt, with the four-volume Outboard Boys Series. The company also published works by Van Powell, including the seven-volume Sky Scouts Series, and Capwell Wyckoff, including the ten-volume Mercer Boys Series and the four-volume Mystery Hunters Series.
Looking to retire, in 1933 Harry Burt began discussions about a sale with Blue Ribbon Books. In 1937 he finally sold; Blue Ribbon continued publishing some of A. L. Burt's titles, terming them "A Burt Book." In 1939, Blue Ribbon Books sold its assets and reproduction rights to Doubleday.
## Locations
A. L. Burt maintained at least six New York addresses, in addition to a Chicago office, during its history, progressively moving into larger spaces. The address listed in a book can is thus one manner of dating, within a range of years, a book's date of publication. Albert Burt remained at his small 105 John Street office from 1883 until at least November 1884, and by April 1885 had moved to 162 William Street. He remained there until moving to 56 Beekman Street, around June 1888, and staying until at least June 1890. In April 1899 he moved from 93–95 Reade Street to the Jones Building at 52–58 Duane Street, where he occupied the entire seventh floor. Burt remained there for some 15 years, before moving around 1914 to 114–120 East 23rd Street, where the company took up two floors and 35,000 square feet. Around this time the company also opened an office in Chicago, where it had long done business, at 506 South Wabash Avenue.
## Works published
A. L. Burt published more than 2,000 titles from 1883 to 1937, including as standalone works, as series of standalone works such as Burt's Home Library, and as series of related works such as The Adventure Girls. The following is a partial list of such works:
## See also
|
22,485,372 |
La Carcacha
| 1,158,211,819 |
1992 single by Selena
|
[
"1992 singles",
"1992 songs",
"Cumbia songs",
"EMI Latin singles",
"Selena songs",
"Song recordings produced by A. B. Quintanilla",
"Songs about cars",
"Songs written by A. B. Quintanilla",
"Songs written by Pete Astudillo",
"Spanish-language songs"
] |
"La Carcacha" (English: "The Jalopy") is a song recorded by American singer Selena for her third studio album, Entre a Mi Mundo (1992). The song was written by A.B. Quintanilla and Pete Astudillo. It was inspired by a dilapidated car and an experience in which A.B. observed a woman's willingness to court the owner of a luxury car. The song, characterized by its rhythmic melodies and satirical portrayal of life in the barrio, highlights the importance of love and genuine connection over material wealth. It is a Tejano cumbia song that is emblematic of Selena's typical style, while music critics found it to be musically similar to "Baila Esta Cumbia".
The song experienced considerable airplay and chart success, reaching the top spot on Radio & Records Tejano Singles chart. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has certified it triple platinum, denoting 180,000 units consisting of sales and on-demand streaming in the US. "La Carcacha" played a pivotal role in propelling Selena to prominence within the Tejano music industry, as well as facilitating her breakthrough in Mexico, and emerged as one of her signature songs. The song inspired a lowrider car show and was included in the Broadway musical, Selena Forever (2000). In 2005, Ana Bárbara performed the song at the Selena ¡Vive! benefit concert.
## Background and inspiration
In 1991, A.B. Quintanilla, Selena's brother, and the band's keyboardist Joe Ojeda walked from their hotel in Uvalde, Texas, to get food. While eating, A.B. observed a dilapidated vehicle and proclaimed his desire to compose a song inspired by it. He asked Ojeda for the Spanish translation of "broken-down car," which Ojeda provided as "carcacha". A.B. was initially uncertain about the thematic direction he would pursue with the composition.
A month later after his observation of the run-down car, A.B. bought a BMW and went to pick up food. At the restaurant, a worker kept asking about his car, much to his frustration, as he simply sought to retrieve his meal. Overhearing a nearby woman expressing her willingness to court the owner of the car, A.B. utilized this experience to forge "La Carcacha" in collaboration with backup dancer and vocalist Pete Astudillo. Astudillo learned about A.B.'s idea in Eagle Pass, Texas, after a friend of Selena poked fun at a couple arriving at a dance in their beat-up car. Astudillo aspired to craft lyrics centered around a woman devoid of materialistic inclinations, whose acquaintances may deride her and engage in mockery. However, she lacks concern over her partner's possession of a battered car, showing that the paramount sentiment is the significance of love.
## Music and lyrics
Musically, "La Carcacha" is primarily a Tejano cumbia song, incorporating elements of piano and synthesizers "woven into it", under a "tasty beat". It features the characteristic danceable tempo typically associated with cumbia recordings. "La Carcacha" contains a fusion of traditional cumbia, Tejano, and alternative rock melodies. The track is emblematic of Selena's cumbia style, with her exuberance discernible in her vocal delivery, as observed by Marysabel E. Huston-Crespo for CNN en Español. The track harbors a musical resemblance to "Baila Esta Cumbia" (1990). Gus Garcia, writing for the Del Rio News-Herald, referred to it as a "hypnotic cumbia". Ramiro Burr, in Billboard, noted that the song encompassed "danceable cumbias and polkas" sharing similarities with "Baila Esta Cumbia". Burr, in the San Antonio Express-News, praised the song's "memorable melodic hook", which he believed engaged listeners in whistling along. He also felt that Selena drew inspiration from the sax-cumbia singer Fito Olivares, culminating in the creation of "La Carcacha". The composition was characterized by Selena's distinctive style: rhythmic melodies that elicited dance while simultaneously providing a satirical portrayal of life in the barrio. Burr believed that A. B. demonstrated a marked progression in his songwriting abilities, cultivating a predilection for power-pop and synthesizer-infused cumbias. "La Carcacha" opens with an introduction by Luis "Bird" Rodriguez, a disc jockey for Laredo's Z-93 radio station, presenting the piece as Selena's latest single. Rodriguez first met the band on the side of the road after their tour bus broke down and offered assistance. Subsequent to this event, Rodriguez was often invited to tour with the group. On a specific occasion, Rodriguez boarded the tour bus while the ensemble was busy fine-tuning "La Carcacha". Rodriguez assisted the group by introducing "a radio rap" and A.B. was particularly impressed by Rodriguez's contribution, and he expressed a keen desire to include the new element in the song. The song begins with a countdown "uno, dos, tres, cuatro" and features the sound of car horns honking in the background.
"La Carcacha" employs a comical narrative intertwined with an underlying moral message. The lyrics of "La Carcacha" revolve around a poignant commentary on materialism and superficiality. The narrative explores the protagonist's experience with a rundown vehicle, known as a "carcacha" in Spanish. By juxtaposing the protagonist's humble means of transportation with a materialistic young woman's desire for luxurious possessions, the song emphasizes the importance of love and genuine connection over material wealth. In a 1992 interview at the Poteet Strawberry Saloon, Selena articulated her creative approach, stating that the music she and her band produced aimed to encapsulate the emotional experiences that people encounter throughout their lives. The songs they wrote, such as "La Carcacha", sought to connect with listeners by reflecting on common experiences. Selena explained that the song's focus on "a clunker car" resonated with many individuals who found themselves in similar situations. According to Jessica Roiz of Billboard, the lyrics of Selena's songs served as a vehicle for conveying valuable life lessons to listeners. In particular, Roiz noted that "La Carcacha" encourages individuals not to be ashamed of their possessions or lack thereof, championing the joys of embracing simplicity and deriving pleasure from the small things in life. Billboard summarized the lyrics as Selena being ridiculed because of her relationship with a partner who owns a broken-down car and defending her partner despite his vehicle's subpar condition. With billowing tailpipe smoke, rudimentary wheels, and a reversed engine, Selena extols her partner's virtues, emphasizing his loyalty and devotion to her.
Tejano music had often suffered from simplistic and generic lyrical content; however, A. B. and Astudillo overcame this stereotype by crafting songs that rendered vibrant depictions of life in the barrio. Chris Riemenschnieder, for the Austin American-Statesman, compared the song's playful nature to Madonna's "True Blue" (1986). Mariam M. Echevarría Báez of El Vocero has drawn a parallel between the comedic essence of "La Carcacha" and that of Selena's "Salta La Ranita" (1986). In her analysis, scholar Deborah Vargas characterized the music in "La Carcacha" as a fusion of high-tech auditory elements. Vargas opined that the sounds in "La Carcacha" create an auditory landscape that has the potential to strongly resonate with those who find themselves situated within economically disadvantaged communities. Selena's biographer Joe Nick Patoski, noted that the singer frequently recorded songs depicting experiences she had not personally encountered, such as "La Carcacha", which delves into themes of "barrio teen romance". Patoski described the composition as an exemplary piece of contemporary music, characterized by its dynamic cumbia rhythm accentuated by call-and-response chants, exuberant shouts, whistles, and Chris Pérez's guitar fills. The song showcases Selena's "mesmerizing snake-charmer vocals"; oscillating between exhilarating and impassioned growls, as she awaits her lover's arrival in his ramshackle vehicle. The narrative encapsulates a story of love amidst adversity, a theme with which A. B. "knew well". John Flores, writing for The Monitor, observed that the song's straightforward themes revolve around a woman's affection for a man, irrespective of his car's condition. "La Carcacha" ultimately portrays the image of a decrepit automobile falling apart, as interpreted by Suzanne Gamboa in the Austin-American Statesman.
## Reception
The song experienced "considerable airplay" in several cities throughout Texas. It debuted on local Tejano radio station charts during the week concluding on April 23, 1992. "La Carcacha" ascended to the top spot on Radio & Records Tejano Singles chart on the week ending May 30, 1992. It reached number 14 on Mexico's Grupera Songs chart on the week ending January 26, 1993. In the week ending April 9, 2015, which marked the 16th anniversary of Selena's death, the song reached its peak at number six on the Regional Mexican Digital Song Sales chart. The song peaked at number 16 on the US Latin Pop Digital Song Sales chart on the tracking week of December 16, 2020. It peaked at number 21 on the Latin Digital Song Sales chart on the tracking week of December 16, 2020. In 2017, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certificated "La Carcacha" triple platinum (Latin), denoting 180,000 units consisting of sales and on-demand streaming in the US.
During her 1993 Houston Astrodome concert, Selena's performance of "La Carcacha" led the audience to "[rise] to their feet", a phenomenon also observed at her San Antonio Alamodome that same year. Similarly, she won over people in Miami, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean with songs like "La Carcacha", which compelled them to dance, as noted by Ed Crowell in the Austin-American Statesman. The song served as the closing number for Selena's 1993 San Felipe Amphitheater concert, leaving attendees "wanting more". Selena performed "La Carcacha" with an arm-swaying and hip-shaking routine, which had listeners of all ages engaged throughout and emulating the dance moves, according to Roiz.
In May 1993, Selena released her Live! album, which was recorded during a free admissions concert in Corpus Christi, Texas that February. According to Tejano music columnist Rene Cabrera, "La Carcacha" and "La Llamada" (1993) overshadowed Selena's duet with Emilio Navaira on "Tu Robaste Mi Corazon" on the album. The live version allowed the Los Dinos band to excel, providing a show that "[rocked] the house with dynamics and production values equal to any contemporary act's in this part of the planet", according to Patoski. He observed that the live rendition did not necessitate language skills or familiarity with Latin culture for listeners to enjoy. Patoski also commended the keyboard lines, which were enhanced by Ricky Vela and David Lee Garza, and praised Garza's contribution of "street creditability and a touch of blues to his squeezebox instrumental break". Leila Cobo found "La Caracacha" as an example of what Selena did best.
"La Carcacha" was nominated for Single of the Year at the 1993 Tejano Music Awards, though it was dropped during preliminaries. Selena's first music video, shot in Monterrey, Mexico, was for "La Carcacha". This was a rarity for Tejano musicians, as it was unusual for Tejano artists to employ music videos as promotional tools. "La Carcacha" went on to win Video of the Year at the Tejano Music Awards, and was recognized as one of the award-winning songs at the first BMI Latin Awards in 1994. Selena's initial commercially successful singles in Mexico were "Baila Esta Cumbia" and "La Carcacha".
## Legacy and impact
"La Carcacha", along with "Como la Flor" (1992) and "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" (1994), played a pivotal role in propelling Selena to prominence within the Tejano music industry. The song helped increase Selena's fanbase in Mexico, where the singer captivated Mexican audiences during the 1990s with songs such as "Como la Flor" and "La Caracha", by integrating her Mexican-American roots with her American heritage. The latter played a pivotal role in facilitating Selena's breakthrough in Mexico, and emerged as one of her signature songs, that significantly boosted Tejano music sales. Selena's entrance into Mexico with "La Carcacha", "Como la Flor", and "Baila Esta Cumbia", garnered her recognition in the country, and compelled men to traverse extraordinary lengths to see her in concert. On February 26, 1995, Selena delivered a performance of "La Carcacha" at the Houston Astrodome, which became her final concert before she was shot and killed a month later. This concert was posthumously released in February 2001 under the title Live! The Last Concert. Michael Clark, of the Houston Chronicle, posited that tracks like "La Carcacha" and "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" exemplified Selena's lifelong efforts to elevate Tejano music into the American pop domain. Following the announcement of her death, "La Carcacha" and "Como la Flor" became the most-requested songs on Mexican radio stations. As the first anniversary of Selena's death approached on March 31, 1996, the former was the inaugural song played at the Apodaca casino. On the second anniversary of her death, the song continued to rank among the most requested by Mexican radio listeners. "Cumbia Medley", on the Selena movie soundtrack (1997) that includes "La Carcacha", was identified as a great offering for fans by Fernando Zamora in El Norte. According to scholar Deborah Vargas, "La Carcacha", alongside "Techno Cumbia" (1994) and "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom", serve as prime exemplars of an interwoven race and economic codes that permeate various genres. The lyrical and genre content of these songs inspired the Kumbia Kings, led by A. B., who aimed to emulate the transition from Selena's cumbias to a more urbanized soundscape.
The song served as the inspiration for a lowrider car show. A 1948 Chevrolet Fleetwood, adorned with a mural of Selena crafted by German artist Von Otto on its hood, was named after the song. This vehicle garnered accolades for "Best Bomb", "Best Mural", and "Best Engine" at the 1995 Dallas Low Rider Show and achieved runner-up status at the Los Angeles Car Show. It was awarded Bomb of the Year at the 1997 Lowrider magazine show, and subsequently hailed as "the world's most famous lowrider". The car was eventually incorporated into a Mexican museum collection. "La Carcacha" was included in the set list of the broadway musical Selena Forever (2000), featuring Veronica Vasquez as Selena. Vasquez admitted to struggling with enunciation while rehearsing the song. In their list of the 100 Greatest Car Songs of All-Time, Billboard ranked "La Carcacha" at number 66, writing that the song is emblematic of Selena's career that exemplified the singer and her band's innovative approach to Tejano music in the 1990s, which helped revolutionize the genre, deeming it the quintessential Latin pop car song.
In 2005, Ana Bárbara performed "La Carcacha" at the Selena ¡VIVE! benefit concert. Rogelio Olivas, writing for the Tucson Citizen, observed that Bárbara's rendition revealed a vulnerability in her vocal capabilities and commented on her revealing attire. Bárbara's version peaked at number eight on the Nicaragua Digital Song Sales chart in 2009. In July 2018, American singer-songwriter Cuco performed "La Carcacha" during the Solidarity for Sanctuary concert held at Lincoln Center in New York, citing his reasoning for covering the song was due to its upbeat and danceable nature. In December 2022, Mexican reggaeton artist Bellakath faced allegations of plagiarism for her song "Gatita" (2012), after it went viral on TikTok, as users identified similarities to "La Carcacha". Following accusations that Bellakath had misappropriated the track from another individual, "Gatita" was removed from several streaming platforms.
In Netflix's two-part limited drama, Selena: The Series (which aired from 2020 to 2021), Gabriel Chavarria portrayed A. B. opposite Ricardo Chavira who played Abraham. In the last episode of the first part titled "Qué Creías", Abraham and A.B. engage in a dialogue concerning the song selection for Selena's (Christian Serratos) next album. Abraham queries A.B. about any cumbia tunes that could appeal to their current fanbase, to which A.B. responds with "La Carcacha". Abraham, however, disparages it as a novelty song about a dilapidated car and expresses doubt that such a song could attain hit status. A.B. concurs and expresses his commitment to crafting a better composition. Abraham escalates the pressure on A.B. by emphasizing the record company's requirement for a platinum record as a precondition for Selena's crossover album. He underscores the need for a chart-topping track in order to achieve this objective.
## Credits and personnel
Credits are adapted from the liner notes of Entre a Mi Mundo.
- Selena – lead vocals
- A.B. Quintanilla – producer, songwriter, mixing, programming, background vocals
- Pete Astudillo – songwriter
- Ricky Vela – keyboard
- Joe Ojeda – keyboard
- Chris Pérez – guitar
- Brian "Red" Moore – music engineer
## Charts
## Certifications
|
7,753,536 |
M-136 (Michigan highway)
| 1,167,329,840 |
State highway in St. Clair County, Michigan, United States
|
[
"State highways in Michigan",
"Transportation in St. Clair County, Michigan"
] |
M-136 is a state trunkline highway in the US state of Michigan that runs from Brockway to Fort Gratiot in the lower part of The Thumb of the Lower Peninsula. The highway serves as a connector between M-19 on the west and M-25 northwest of Port Huron. In between, the highway runs through rural St. Clair County through farm fields and along a creek and river. The trunkline uses roads that were part of the state highway system in 1919. The M-136 designation was assigned in 1931 and extended to its current length in 1961.
## Route description
M-136 begins at a junction with M-19 just south of Brockway on the north side of Mill Creek. The highway heads eastward through farm fields on Metcalf Road for about two-thirds mile (1.1 km) before bending to the southeast on Beard Road, parallel to the creek. The road then turns eastward on Avoca Road near Tackaberry Airport and heads toward Avoca. The trunkline continues in this direction through farm fields and the community of Avoca before turning southward on Glyshaw Road near the Black River. M-136 turns east, returning to Beard Road, and running through a wooded area to cross the river. From here, it continues through farm fields again on a generally east-southeast track on North and Keewahdin roads as it heads towards Gardendale. The highway then branches southeastward on Pine Grove Avenue to connect with M-25 two miles (3.2 km) from Interstate 94 (I-94) and I-69 and their international border crossing on the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron.
Like other state highways in Michigan, M-136 is maintained by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). In 2011, the department's traffic surveys showed that on average, 6,070 vehicles used the highway daily on the eastern segment along Beard Road and 1,894 vehicles did so each day near the western terminus, the highest and lowest counts along the highway, respectively. No section of M-136 is listed on the National Highway System, a network of roads important to the country's economy, defense, and mobility.
## History
When the state highway system was initially signposted in 1919, the westernmost section of today's M-136 was designated as part of M-19. In 1927, that section of highway was redesignated as M-13 and extended through Avoca. During 1929, the trunkline was extended eastward to terminate at the contemporary M-51 near Gardendale.
M-136 was commissioned in 1931 to replace M-13 between what was M-19 and M-51. The highway was fully paved in 1940 as the last section of gravel road was hard-surfaced through Avoca that year. In 1961, M-136 was extended further east to replace the section of M-51 between Gardendale and Fort Gratiot on present day Pine Grove Avenue.
## Major intersections
## See also
|
70,954,693 |
Kelly Hecking
| 1,173,429,328 |
American swimmer
|
[
"1980 births",
"American female backstroke swimmers",
"American female freestyle swimmers",
"American sportswomen",
"Living people",
"Notre Dame Fighting Irish women's swimmers",
"Rutherford High School (New Jersey) alumni",
"Sportspeople from Rutherford, New Jersey",
"Swimmers from New Jersey"
] |
Kelly Hecking (born March 1980) is an American former backstroke and freestyle competition swimmer. She is the most successful Notre Dame Fighting Irish athlete in any sport at the Big East Conference Championships with 19 event conference championships (seven individual and twelve relay) and four team conference championships. Hecking set the Big East record for most career swimming conference championships. She was the only Notre Dame swimmer to win an individual event four times (1999–2002) at the Big East Championship. Hecking was an eight-time NCAA All-American honorable mention (twice in the 200 yard backstroke as well as various relays). She was a two-time high school All-American and two-time New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) 100 yard backstroke champion (1997 & 1998). She is also a 3-time YMCA Nationals backstroke champion (all in 1996) and 9-time YMCA Nationals backstroke medalist.
## Early life
Hecking's mother is named Diana. Hecking grew up with a pool in her backyard, and her mother signed her up for swim lessons as a precaution. Hecking was a standout swimmer by the age of six. At age 10, she joined the Montclair, NJ YMCA swim team and remained a member through high school. In high school, she also ran track and cross country.
In her 1994-95 Freshman season Hecking won the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic Swim League (NNJISL) 200 IM and 100 backstroke. Then at the NJSIAA championship, she finished 2nd to Tashy Bohm in the 100 backstroke by over a second 58.34 vs. 59.36. As a sophomore in 1996, Hecking won the NNJISL 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke and finished second in both at the NJSIAA championships (to Kate Slonaker and Bohm, respectively).
As a junior in 1997, she first made her mark in late January when she posted a 1:03.10 three weeks after in-state rival Jennelle Ritchie posted a national record 1:04.86 100 meter backstroke time, but her time was deemed unofficial because it was hand timed. This national public school short course record would later be surpassed by New Jersians Bohm and Lauren English in times slower than Hecking's disputed time. Prior to Ritchie, New Jersian Lisa Iori had held the record since 1980.
Hecking won the 100 and 200 yard freestyle events at the 1997 NNJISL. In the 1997 NJSIAA meet she eclipsed 3-time defending champion Bohm's 56.99 state record with a 55.94 in the prelims and then beat her with a 55.64 in the finals. Hecking also finished second in the March 1998 NJSIAA Meet of Champions (to Slonaker) in the 50 yard freestyle, and she won the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly in the 1998 NNJISL league championship meet. Hecking won in the NJSIAA 100 backstroke again as a senior in 1998 without bettering her record time.
During her high school career, she went undefeated in the 100 backstroke for Rutherford High School in NNJISL dual meet or league championship competition. Her 1997 state record time of 55.64 stood until English posted a 55.57 in 2005. She was a two-time high school All-American and two-time New Jersey state champion who chose University of Notre Dame over University of Arizona, Ohio State University and Penn State University because Notre Dame needed a backstroker. She accepted her nearly full scholarship from Notre Dame in March 1998 for the following fall. Hecking also set a NNJISL record in the 200 yard individual medley that was broken in 2000 by Erin Vanderberg.
Beyond scholastic competition, Hecking swept the 50-, 100- and 200-meter backstrokes at the 1996 National YMCA Long Course Swimming & Diving Championships in Buffalo, New York, but at the YMCA Short Course Nationals she placed without winning in the backstroke events: 1996 2nd 100 & 200, 1997 3rd 100 & 200, and 1998 2nd 100 & 200. Hecking had placed 4th, 12th and 11th, respectively, in the 50-, 100- and 200-meter backstrokes in the 1995 National YMCA Long course championship. Hecking had placed 14th and 19th at the 1995 short course YMCA Nationals. Hecking did not return to the YMCA Long Course Championship in 1997 in backstroke events, and Montclair was represented by Lisa Dolansky in the backstroke events in 1998.
As a junior, she was a 1997 All-American selection by the National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association (NISCA) in the 100 backstroke. As a senior, she repeated this NISCA All-American recognition with the fastest public high school time in the nation.
## College career
As a sophomore she went undefeated in the 100 and 200 backstroke in dual meets and swept them at the 2000 Big East championships. Hecking sometimes competed in individual freestyle events.
She became the eighth woman in the history of the Big East conference swimming and diving championship to win the same event four years in a row in 2002. Hecking was the only Notre Dame swimmer to win an individual event four times at the Big East Championship (3-meter diver Jenny Chiang '13 also achieved the feat). She is the most successful Notre Dame Fighting Irish athlete in any sport at the Big East Championships (Notre Dame swimming & diving competed in the original Big East Conference from 1996–2013 before leaving for the Atlantic Coast Conference). She earned 19 Big East Championships during her career (1999–2002): seven individual championships (4x-100 backstroke and 3x-200 backstroke) as well as a dozen relay championships (3x-200 free, 1x-400 free, 4x-200 medley, 4x-400 medley) as a member of 4 Big East Championship teams. She became the winningest swimmer in Big East Conference history after accumulating 14 career Big East Championships during her junior year. Hecking's 2001 100 yard backstroke time of 54.98 established a Big East Championships record.
Bohm's second 200 yard backstroke NCAA All-american honorable mention overlapped with Hecking's first, as Bohm finished 12th and Hecking 13th at the 2001 NCAA Championships. Hecking posted her career best time of 1:57.45 in the 200 yard backstroke at the 2002 National Collegiate Championships earning her a 12th place finish and her second individual All-American honorable mention. It stood as a Notre Dame 200 yard record until 2010 it was surpassed by Kim Holden in the 2010 Big East Championships. She also held the 100 yard Notre Dame record from 2001 until 2003 when Danielle Hulick surpassed it in the 2003 Big East Championships also breaking Hecking's Big East Championship record in the process. She qualified for the National Collegiate Athletic Association championships in both the 100- and 200-yard backstroke as well as several relays all four years of eligibility and was an 8-time NCAA All-American honorable mention: twice as an individual (200 backstroke—2001 & 2002) and six times as a relay participant (1x-400 free, 2x-200 medley, 3x-400 medley). She was named a Big East Academic All-star in both 2001 and 2002.
|
37,817 |
Möbius strip
| 1,173,044,154 |
Non-orientable surface with one edge
|
[
"Recreational mathematics",
"Surfaces",
"Topology"
] |
In mathematics, a Möbius strip, Möbius band, or Möbius loop is a surface that can be formed by attaching the ends of a strip of paper together with a half-twist. As a mathematical object, it was discovered by Johann Benedict Listing and August Ferdinand Möbius in 1858, but it had already appeared in Roman mosaics from the third century CE. The Möbius strip is a non-orientable surface, meaning that within it one cannot consistently distinguish clockwise from counterclockwise turns. Every non-orientable surface contains a Möbius strip.
As an abstract topological space, the Möbius strip can be embedded into three-dimensional Euclidean space in many different ways: a clockwise half-twist is different from a counterclockwise half-twist, and it can also be embedded with odd numbers of twists greater than one, or with a knotted centerline. Any two embeddings with the same knot for the centerline and the same number and direction of twists are topologically equivalent. All of these embeddings have only one side, but when embedded in other spaces, the Möbius strip may have two sides. It has only a single boundary curve.
Several geometric constructions of the Möbius strip provide it with additional structure. It can be swept as a ruled surface by a line segment rotating in a rotating plane, with or without self-crossings. A thin paper strip with its ends joined to form a Möbius strip can bend smoothly as a developable surface or be folded flat; the flattened Möbius strips include the trihexaflexagon. The Sudanese Möbius strip is a minimal surface in a hypersphere, and the Meeks Möbius strip is a self-intersecting minimal surface in ordinary Euclidean space. Both the Sudanese Möbius strip and another self-intersecting Möbius strip, the cross-cap, have a circular boundary. A Möbius strip without its boundary, called an open Möbius strip, can form surfaces of constant curvature. Certain highly-symmetric spaces whose points represent lines in the plane have the shape of a Möbius strip.
The many applications of Möbius strips include mechanical belts that wear evenly on both sides, dual-track roller coasters whose carriages alternate between the two tracks, and world maps printed so that antipodes appear opposite each other. Möbius strips appear in molecules and devices with novel electrical and electromechanical properties, and have been used to prove impossibility results in social choice theory. In popular culture, Möbius strips appear in artworks by M. C. Escher, Max Bill, and others, and in the design of the recycling symbol. Many architectural concepts have been inspired by the Möbius strip, including the building design for the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Performers including Harry Blackstone Sr. and Thomas Nelson Downs have based stage magic tricks on the properties of the Möbius strip. The canons of J. S. Bach have been analyzed using Möbius strips. Many works of speculative fiction feature Möbius strips; more generally, a plot structure based on the Möbius strip, of events that repeat with a twist, is common in fiction.
## History
The discovery of the Möbius strip as a mathematical object is attributed independently to the German mathematicians Johann Benedict Listing and August Ferdinand Möbius in 1858. However, it had been known long before, both as a physical object and in artistic depictions; in particular, it can be seen in several Roman mosaics from the third century CE. In many cases these merely depict coiled ribbons as boundaries. When the number of coils is odd, these ribbons are Möbius strips, but for an even number of coils they are topologically equivalent to untwisted rings. Therefore, whether the ribbon is a Möbius strip may be coincidental, rather than a deliberate choice. In at least one case, a ribbon with different colors on different sides was drawn with an odd number of coils, forcing its artist to make a clumsy fix at the point where the colors did not match up. Another mosaic from the town of Sentinum (depicted) shows the zodiac, held by the god Aion, as a band with only a single twist. There is no clear evidence that the one-sidedness of this visual representation of celestial time was intentional; it could have been chosen merely as a way to make all of the signs of the zodiac appear on the visible side of the strip. Some other ancient depictions of the ourobouros or of figure-eight-shaped decorations are also alleged to depict Möbius strips, but whether they were intended to depict flat strips of any type is unclear.
Independently of the mathematical tradition, machinists have long known that mechanical belts wear half as quickly when they form Möbius strips, because they use the entire surface of the belt rather than only the inner surface of an untwisted belt. Additionally, such a belt may be less prone to curling from side to side. An early written description of this technique dates to 1871, which is after the first mathematical publications regarding the Möbius strip. Much earlier, an image of a chain pump in a work of Ismail al-Jazari from 1206 depicts a Möbius strip configuration for its drive chain. Another use of this surface was made by seamstresses in Paris (at an unspecified date): they initiated novices by requiring them to stitch a Möbius strip as a collar onto a garment.
## Properties
The Möbius strip has several curious properties. It is a non-orientable surface: if an asymmetric two-dimensional object slides one time around the strip, it returns to its starting position as its mirror image. In particular, a curved arrow pointing clockwise (↻) would return as an arrow pointing counterclockwise (↺), implying that, within the Möbius strip, it is impossible to consistently define what it means to be clockwise or counterclockwise. It is the simplest non-orientable surface: any other surface is non-orientable if and only if it has a Möbius strip as a subset. Relatedly, when embedded into Euclidean space, the Möbius strip has only one side. A three-dimensional object that slides one time around the surface of the strip is not mirrored, but instead returns to the same point of the strip on what appears locally to be its other side, showing that both positions are really part of a single side. This behavior is different from familiar orientable surfaces in three dimensions such as those modeled by flat sheets of paper, cylindrical drinking straws, or hollow balls, for which one side of the surface is not connected to the other. However, this is a property of its embedding into space rather than an intrinsic property of the Möbius strip itself: there exist other topological spaces in which the Möbius strip can be embedded so that it has two sides. For instance, if the front and back faces of a cube are glued to each other with a left-right mirror reflection, the result is a three-dimensional topological space (the Cartesian product of a Möbius strip with an interval) in which the top and bottom halves of the cube can be separated from each other by a two-sided Möbius strip. In contrast to disks, spheres, and cylinders, for which it is possible to simultaneously embed an uncountable set of disjoint copies into three-dimensional space, only a countable number of Möbius strips can be simultaneously embedded.
A path along the edge of a Möbius strip, traced until it returns to its starting point on the edge, includes all boundary points of the Möbius strip in a single continuous curve. For a Möbius strip formed by gluing and twisting a rectangle, it has twice the length of the centerline of the strip. In this sense, the Möbius strip is different from an untwisted ring and like a circular disk in having only one boundary. A Möbius strip in Euclidean space cannot be moved or stretched into its mirror image; it is a chiral object with right- or left-handedness. Möbius strips with odd numbers of half-twists greater than one, or that are knotted before gluing, are distinct as embedded subsets of three-dimensional space, even though they are all equivalent as two-dimensional topological surfaces. More precisely, two Möbius strips are equivalently embedded in three-dimensional space when their centerlines determine the same knot and they have the same number of twists as each other. With an even number of twists, however, one obtains a different topological surface, called the annulus.
The Möbius strip can be continuously transformed into its centerline, by making it narrower while fixing the points on the centerline. This transformation is an example of a deformation retraction, and its existence means that the Möbius strip has many of the same properties as its centerline, which is topologically a circle. In particular, its fundamental group is the same as the fundamental group of a circle, an infinite cyclic group. Therefore, paths on the Möbius strip that start and end at the same point can be distinguished topologically (up to homotopy) only by the number of times they loop around the strip.
Cutting a Möbius strip along the centerline with a pair of scissors yields one long strip with four half-twists in it (relative to an untwisted annulus or cylinder) rather than two separate strips. Two of the half-twists come from the fact that this thinner strip goes two times through the half-twist in the original Möbius strip, and the other two come from the way the two halves of the thinner strip wrap around each other. The result is not a Möbius strip, but instead is topologically equivalent to a cylinder. Cutting this double-twisted strip again along its centerline produces two linked double-twisted strips. If, instead, a Möbius strip is cut lengthwise, a third of the way across its width, it produces two linked strips. One of the two is a central, thinner, Möbius strip, while the other has two half-twists. These interlinked shapes, formed by lengthwise slices of Möbius strips with varying widths, are sometimes called paradromic rings.
The Möbius strip can be cut into six mutually-adjacent regions, showing that maps on the surface of the Möbius strip can sometimes require six colors, in contrast to the four color theorem for the plane. Six colors are always enough. This result is part of the Ringel–Youngs theorem, which states how many colors each topological surface needs. The edges and vertices of these six regions form Tietze's graph, which is a dual graph on this surface for the six-vertex complete graph but cannot be drawn without crossings on a plane. Another family of graphs that can be embedded on the Möbius strip, but not on the plane, are the Möbius ladders, the boundaries of subdivisions of the Möbius strip into rectangles meeting end-to-end. These include the utility graph, a six-vertex complete bipartite graph whose embedding into the Möbius strip shows that, unlike in the plane, the three utilities problem can be solved on a transparent Möbius strip. The Euler characteristic of the Möbius strip is zero, meaning that for any subdivision of the strip by vertices and edges into regions, the numbers $V$, $E$, and $F$ of vertices, edges, and regions satisfy $V-E+F=0$. For instance, Tietze's graph has $12$ vertices, $18$ edges, and $6$ regions; $12-18+6=0$.
## Constructions
There are many different ways of defining geometric surfaces with the topology of the Möbius strip, yielding realizations with additional geometric properties.
### Sweeping a line segment
One way to embed the Möbius strip in three-dimensional Euclidean space is to sweep it out by a line segment rotating in a plane, which in turn rotates around one of its lines. For the swept surface to meet up with itself after a half-twist, the line segment should rotate around its center at half the angular velocity of the plane's rotation. This can be described as a parametric surface defined by equations for the Cartesian coordinates of its points, $\begin{align}
x(u,v)&= \left(1+\frac{v}{2} \cos \frac{u}{2}\right)\cos u\\
y(u,v)&= \left(1+\frac{v}{2} \cos\frac{u}{2}\right)\sin u\\
z(u,v)&= \frac{v}{2}\sin \frac{u}{2}\\
\end{align}$ for $0 \le u< 2\pi$ and $-1 \le v\le 1$, where one parameter $u$ describes the rotation angle of the plane around its central axis and the other parameter $v$ describes the position of a point along the rotating line segment. This produces a Möbius strip of width 1, whose center circle has radius 1, lies in the $xy$-plane and is centered at $(0, 0, 0)$. The same method can produce Möbius strips with any odd number of half-twists, by rotating the segment more quickly in its plane. The rotating segment sweeps out a circular disk in the plane that it rotates within, and the Möbius strip that it generates forms a slice through the solid torus swept out by this disk. Because of the one-sidedness of this slice, the sliced torus remains connected.
A line or line segment swept in a different motion, rotating in a horizontal plane around the origin as it moves up and down, forms Plücker's conoid or cylindroid, an algebraic ruled surface in the form of a self-crossing Möbius strip. It has applications in the design of gears.
### Polyhedral surfaces and flat foldings
A strip of paper can form a flattened Möbius strip in the plane by folding it at $60^\circ$ angles so that its center line lies along an equilateral triangle, and attaching the ends. The shortest strip for which this is possible consists of three equilateral triangles, folded at the edges where two triangles meet. Its aspect ratio – the ratio of the strip's length to its width – is $\sqrt 3\approx 1.73$, and the same folding method works for any larger aspect ratio. For a strip of nine equilateral triangles, the result is a trihexaflexagon, which can be flexed to reveal different parts of its surface. For strips too short to apply this method directly, one can first "accordion fold" the strip in its wide direction back and forth using an even number of folds. With two folds, for example, a $1\times 1$ strip would become a $1\times \tfrac{1}{3}$ folded strip whose cross section is in the shape of an 'N' and would remain an 'N' after a half-twist. The narrower accordion-folded strip can then be folded and joined in the same way that a longer strip would be.
The Möbius strip can also be embedded as a polyhedral surface in space or flat-folded in the plane, with only five triangular faces sharing five vertices. In this sense, it is simpler than the cylinder, which requires six triangles and six vertices, even when represented more abstractly as a simplicial complex. A five-triangle Möbius strip can be represented most symmetrically by five of the ten equilateral triangles of a four-dimensional regular simplex. This four-dimensional polyhedral Möbius strip is the only tight Möbius strip, one that is fully four-dimensional and for which all cuts by hyperplanes separate it into two parts that are topologically equivalent to disks or circles.
Other polyhedral embeddings of Möbius strips include one with four convex quadrilaterals as faces, another with three non-convex quadrilateral faces, and one using the vertices and center point of a regular octahedron, with a triangular boundary. Every abstract triangulation of the projective plane can be embedded into 3D as a polyhedral Möbius strip with a triangular boundary after removing one of its faces; an example is the six-vertex projective plane obtained by adding one vertex to the five-vertex Möbius strip, connected by triangles to each of its boundary edges. However, not every abstract triangulation of the Möbius strip can be represented geometrically, as a polyhedral surface. To be realizable, it is necessary and sufficient that there be no two disjoint non-contractible 3-cycles in the triangulation.
### Smoothly embedded rectangles
A rectangular Möbius strip, made by attaching the ends of a paper rectangle, can be embedded smoothly into three-dimensional space whenever its aspect ratio is greater than $\sqrt 3\approx 1.73$, the same ratio as for the flat-folded equilateral-triangle version of the Möbius strip. This flat triangular embedding can lift to a smooth embedding in three dimensions, in which the strip lies flat in three parallel planes between three cylindrical rollers, each tangent to two of the planes. Mathematically, a smoothly embedded sheet of paper can be modeled as a developable surface, that can bend but cannot stretch. As its aspect ratio decreases toward $\sqrt 3$, all smooth embeddings seem to approach the same triangular form.
The lengthwise folds of an accordion-folded flat Möbius strip prevent it from forming a three-dimensional embedding in which the layers are separated from each other and bend smoothly without crumpling or stretching away from the folds. Instead, unlike in the flat-folded case, there is a lower limit to the aspect ratio of smooth rectangular Möbius strips. Their aspect ratio cannot be less than $\pi/2\approx 1.57$, even if self-intersections are allowed. Self-intersecting smooth Möbius strips exist for any aspect ratio above this bound. Without self-intersections, the aspect ratio must be at least $\frac{2\sqrt{4-2\sqrt3}+4}{\sqrt{2\sqrt3}+2\sqrt{2\sqrt3-3}}\approx 1.695.$
For aspect ratios between this bound and $\sqrt 3$, it is unknown whether smooth embeddings, without self-intersection, exist. If the requirement of smoothness is relaxed to allow continuously differentiable surfaces, the Nash–Kuiper theorem implies that any two opposite edges of any rectangle can be glued to form an embedded Möbius strip, no matter how small the aspect ratio becomes. The limiting case, a surface obtained from an infinite strip of the plane between two parallel lines, glued with the opposite orientation to each other, is called the unbounded Möbius strip or the real tautological line bundle. Although it has no smooth closed embedding into three-dimensional space, it can be embedded smoothly as a closed subset of four-dimensional Euclidean space.
The minimum-energy shape of a smooth Möbius strip glued from a rectangle does not have a known analytic description, but can be calculated numerically, and has been the subject of much study in plate theory since the initial work on this subject in 1930 by Michael Sadowsky. It is also possible to find algebraic surfaces that contain rectangular developable Möbius strips.
### Making the boundary circular
The edge, or boundary, of a Möbius strip is topologically equivalent to a circle. In common forms of the Möbius strip, it has a different shape from a circle, but it is unknotted, and therefore the whole strip can be stretched without crossing itself to make the edge perfectly circular. One such example is based on the topology of the Klein bottle, a one-sided surface with no boundary that cannot be embedded into three-dimensional space, but can be immersed (allowing the surface to cross itself in certain restricted ways). A Klein bottle is the surface that results when two Möbius strips are glued together edge-to-edge, and – reversing that process – a Klein bottle can be sliced along a carefully chosen cut to produce two Möbius strips. For a form of the Klein bottle known as Lawson's Klein bottle, the curve along which it is sliced can be made circular, resulting in Möbius strips with circular edges.
Lawson's Klein bottle is a self-crossing minimal surface in the unit hypersphere of 4-dimensional space, the set of points of the form $(\cos\theta\cos\phi,\sin\theta\cos\phi,\cos2\theta\sin\phi,\sin2\theta\sin \phi)$ for $0\le\theta<\pi,0\le\phi<2\pi$. Half of this Klein bottle, the subset with $0\le\phi<\pi$, gives a Möbius strip embedded in the hypersphere as a minimal surface with a great circle as its boundary. This embedding is sometimes called the "Sudanese Möbius strip" after topologists Sue Goodman and Daniel Asimov, who discovered it in the 1970s. Geometrically Lawson's Klein bottle can be constructed by sweeping a great circle through a great-circular motion in the 3-sphere, and the Sudanese Möbius strip is obtained by sweeping a semicircle instead of a circle, or equivalently by slicing the Klein bottle along a circle that is perpendicular to all of the swept circles. Stereographic projection transforms this shape from a three-dimensional spherical space into three-dimensional Euclidean space, preserving the circularity of its boundary. The most symmetric projection is obtained by using a projection point that lies on that great circle that runs through the midpoint of each of the semicircles, but produces an unbounded embedding with the projection point removed from its centerline. Instead, leaving the Sudanese Möbius strip unprojected, in the 3-sphere, leaves it with an infinite group of symmetries isomorphic to the orthogonal group $\mathrm{O}(2)$, the group of symmetries of a circle.
The Sudanese Möbius strip extends on all sides of its boundary circle, unavoidably if the surface is to avoid crossing itself. Another form of the Möbius strip, called the cross-cap or crosscap, also has a circular boundary, but otherwise stays on only one side of the plane of this circle, making it more convenient for attaching onto circular holes in other surfaces. In order to do so, it crosses itself. It can be formed by removing a quadrilateral from the top of a hemisphere, orienting the edges of the quadrilateral in alternating directions, and then gluing opposite pairs of these edges consistently with this orientation. The two parts of the surface formed by the two glued pairs of edges cross each other with a pinch point like that of a Whitney umbrella at each end of the crossing segment, the same topological structure seen in Plücker's conoid.
### Surfaces of constant curvature
The open Möbius strip is the relative interior of a standard Möbius strip, formed by omitting the points on its boundary edge. It may be given a Riemannian geometry of constant positive, negative, or zero Gaussian curvature. The cases of negative and zero curvature form geodesically complete surfaces, which means that all geodesics ("straight lines" on the surface) may be extended indefinitely in either direction.
Zero curvature
An open strip with zero curvature may be constructed by gluing the opposite sides of a plane strip between two parallel lines, described above as the tautological line bundle. The resulting metric makes the open Möbius strip into a (geodesically) complete flat surface (i.e., having zero Gaussian curvature everywhere). This is the unique metric on the Möbius strip, up to uniform scaling, that is both flat and complete. It is the quotient space of a plane by a glide reflection, and (together with the plane, cylinder, torus, and Klein bottle) is one of only five two-dimensional complete flat manifolds.
Negative curvature
The open Möbius strip also admits complete metric of constant negative curvature. One way to see this is to begin with the upper half plane (Poincaré) model of the hyperbolic plane, a geometry of constant curvature whose lines are represented in the model by semicircles that meet the $x$-axis at right angles. Take the subset of the upper half-plane between any two nested semicircles, and identify the outer semicircle with the left-right reversal of the inner semicircle. The result is topologically a complete and non-compact Möbius strip with constant negative curvature. It is a "nonstandard" complete hyperbolic surface in the sense that it contains a complete hyperbolic half-plane (actually two, on opposite sides of the axis of glide-reflection), and is one of only 13 nonstandard surfaces. Again, this can be understood as the quotient of the hyperbolic plane by a glide reflection.
Positive curvature
A Möbius strip of constant positive curvature cannot be complete, since it is known that the only complete surfaces of constant positive curvature are the sphere and the projective plane. However, in a sense it is only one point away from being a complete surface, as the open Möbius strip is homeomorphic to the once-punctured projective plane, the surface obtained by removing any one point from the projective plane.
The minimal surfaces are described as having constant zero mean curvature instead of constant Gaussian curvature. The Sudanese Möbius strip was constructed as a minimal surface bounded by a great circle in a 3-sphere, but there is also a unique complete (boundaryless) minimal surface immersed in Euclidean space that has the topology of an open Möbius strip. It is called the Meeks Möbius strip, after its 1982 description by William Hamilton Meeks, III. Although globally unstable as a minimal surface, small patches of it, bounded by non-contractible curves within the surface, can form stable embedded Möbius strips as minimal surfaces. Both the Meeks Möbius strip, and every higher-dimensional minimal surface with the topology of the Möbius strip, can be constructed using solutions to the Björling problem, which defines a minimal surface uniquely from its boundary curve and tangent planes along this curve.
### Spaces of lines
The family of lines in the plane can be given the structure of a smooth space, with each line represented as a point in this space. The resulting space of lines is topologically equivalent to the open Möbius strip. One way to see this is to extend the Euclidean plane to the real projective plane by adding one more line, the line at infinity. By projective duality the space of lines in the projective plane is equivalent to its space of points, the projective plane itself. Removing the line at infinity, to produce the space of Euclidean lines, punctures this space of projective lines. Therefore, the space of Euclidean lines is a punctured projective plane, which is one of the forms of the open Möbius strip. The space of lines in the hyperbolic plane can be parameterized by unordered pairs of distinct points on a circle, the pairs of points at infinity of each line. This space, again, has the topology of an open Möbius strip.
These spaces of lines are highly symmetric. The symmetries of Euclidean lines include the affine transformations, and the symmetries of hyperbolic lines include the Möbius transformations. The affine transformations and Möbius transformations both form 6-dimensional Lie groups, topological spaces having a compatible algebraic structure describing the composition of symmetries. Because every line in the plane is symmetric to every other line, the open Möbius strip is a homogeneous space, a space with symmetries that take every point to every other point. Homogeneous spaces of Lie groups are called solvmanifolds, and the Möbius strip can be used as a counterexample, showing that not every solvmanifold is a nilmanifold, and that not every solvmanifold can be factored into a direct product of a compact solvmanifold with $\mathbb{R}^n$. These symmetries also provide another way to construct the Möbius strip itself, as a group model of these Lie groups. A group model consists of a Lie group and a stabilizer subgroup of its action; contracting the cosets of the subgroup to points produces a space with the same topology as the underlying homogenous space. In the case of the symmetries of Euclidean lines, the stabilizer of the $x$-axis consists of all symmetries that take the axis to itself. Each line $\ell$ corresponds to a coset, the set of symmetries that map $\ell$ to the $x$-axis. Therefore, the quotient space, a space that has one point per coset and inherits its topology from the space of symmetries, is the same as the space of lines, and is again an open Möbius strip.
## Applications
Beyond the already-discussed applications of Möbius strips to the design of mechanical belts that wear evenly on their entire surface, and of the Plücker conoid to the design of gears, other applications of Möbius strips include:
- Graphene ribbons twisted to form Möbius strips with new electronic characteristics including helical magnetism
- Möbius aromaticity, a property of organic chemicals whose molecular structure forms a cycle, with molecular orbitals aligned along the cycle in the pattern of a Möbius strip
- The Möbius resistor, a strip of conductive material covering the single side of a dielectric Möbius strip, in a way that cancels its own self-inductance
- Resonators with a compact design and a resonant frequency that is half that of identically constructed linear coils
- Polarization patterns in light emerging from a q-plate
- A proof of the impossibility of continuous, anonymous, and unanimous two-party aggregation rules in social choice theory
- Möbius loop roller coasters, a form of dual-tracked roller coaster in which the two tracks spiral around each other an odd number of times, so that the carriages return to the other track than the one they started on
- World maps projected onto a Möbius strip with the convenient properties that there are no east–west boundaries, and that the antipode of any point on the map can be found on the other printed side of the surface at the same point of the Möbius strip
Scientists have also studied the energetics of soap films shaped as Möbius strips, the chemical synthesis of molecules with a Möbius strip shape, and the formation of larger nanoscale Möbius strips using DNA origami.
## In popular culture
Two-dimensional artworks featuring the Möbius strip include an untitled 1947 painting by Corrado Cagli (memorialized in a poem by Charles Olson), and two prints by M. C. Escher: Möbius Band I (1961), depicting three folded flatfish biting each others' tails; and Möbius Band II (1963), depicting ants crawling around a lemniscate-shaped Möbius strip. It is also a popular subject of mathematical sculpture, including works by Max Bill (Endless Ribbon, 1953), José de Rivera (Infinity, 1967), and Sebastián. A trefoil-knotted Möbius strip was used in John Robinson's Immortality (1982). Charles O. Perry's Continuum (1976) is one of several pieces by Perry exploring variations of the Möbius strip.
Because of their easily recognized form, Möbius strips are a common element of graphic design. The familiar three-arrow logo for recycling, designed in 1970, is based on the smooth triangular form of the Möbius strip, as was the logo for the environmentally-themed Expo '74. Some variations of the recycling symbol use a different embedding with three half-twists instead of one, and the original version of the Google Drive logo used a flat-folded three-twist Möbius strip, as have other similar designs. The Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA) uses a stylized smooth Möbius strip as their logo, and has a matching large sculpture of a Möbius strip on display in their building. The Möbius strip has also featured in the artwork for postage stamps from countries including Brazil, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
Möbius strips have been a frequent inspiration for the architectural design of buildings and bridges. However, many of these are projects or conceptual designs rather than constructed objects, or stretch their interpretation of the Möbius strip beyond its recognizability as a mathematical form or a functional part of the architecture. An example is the National Library of Kazakhstan, for which a building was planned in the shape of a thickened Möbius strip but refinished with a different design after the original architects pulled out of the project. One notable building incorporating a Möbius strip is the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which is surrounded by a large twisted ribbon of stainless steel acting as a façade and canopy, and evoking the curved shapes of racing tracks. On a smaller scale, Moebius Chair (2006) by Pedro Reyes is a courting bench whose base and sides have the form of a Möbius strip. As a form of mathematics and fiber arts, scarves have been knit into Möbius strips since the work of Elizabeth Zimmermann in the early 1980s. In food styling, Möbius strips have been used for slicing bagels, making loops out of bacon, and creating new shapes for pasta.
Although mathematically the Möbius strip and the fourth dimension are both purely spatial concepts, they have often been invoked in speculative fiction as the basis for a time loop into which unwary victims may become trapped. Examples of this trope include Martin Gardner's "No-Sided Professor" (1946), Armin Joseph Deutsch's "A Subway Named Mobius" (1950) and the film Moebius (1996) based on it. An entire world shaped like a Möbius strip is the setting of Arthur C. Clarke's "The Wall of Darkness" (1946), while conventional Möbius strips are used as clever inventions in multiple stories of William Hazlett Upson from the 1940s. Other works of fiction have been analyzed as having a Möbius strip–like structure, in which elements of the plot repeat with a twist; these include Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1913–1927), Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946), John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse (1968), Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren (1975) and the film Donnie Darko (2001).
One of the musical canons by J. S. Bach, the fifth of 14 canons (BWV 1087) discovered in 1974 in Bach's copy of the Goldberg Variations, features a glide-reflect symmetry in which each voice in the canon repeats, with inverted notes, the same motif from two measures earlier. Because of this symmetry, this canon can be thought of as having its score written on a Möbius strip. In music theory, tones that differ by an octave are generally considered to be equivalent notes, and the space of possible notes forms a circle, the chromatic circle. Because the Möbius strip is the configuration space of two unordered points on a circle, the space of all two-note chords takes the shape of a Möbius strip. This conception, and generalizations to more points, is a significant application of orbifolds to music theory. Modern musical groups taking their name from the Möbius strip include American electronic rock trio Mobius Band and Norwegian progressive rock band Ring Van Möbius.
Möbius strips and their properties have been used in the design of stage magic. One such trick, known as the Afghan bands, uses the fact that the Möbius strip remains a single strip when cut lengthwise. It originated in the 1880s, and was very popular in the first half of the twentieth century. Many versions of this trick exist and have been performed by famous illusionists such as Harry Blackstone Sr. and Thomas Nelson Downs.
## See also
- Möbius counter, a shift register whose output bit is complemented before being fed back into the input bit
- Penrose triangle, an impossible figure whose boundary appears to wrap around it in a Möbius strip
- Ribbon theory, the mathematical theory of infinitesimally thin strips that follow knotted space curves
- Smale–Williams attractor, a fractal formed by repeatedly thickening a space curve to a Möbius strip and then replacing it with the boundary edge
- Umbilic torus, a three-dimensional shape with its boundary formed by a Möbius strip, glued to itself along its single edge
|
23,083,616 |
German aircraft carrier I (1915)
| 1,155,928,263 |
Cancelled aircraft carrier of the German Imperial Navy
|
[
"Abandoned military projects of Germany",
"Aircraft carriers of Germany",
"Proposed aircraft carriers",
"Proposed ships of Germany"
] |
The aircraft carrier I was the first planned aircraft carrier conversion project of the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) during World War I. The Imperial Navy had experimented previously with seaplane carriers, though these earlier conversions were too slow to operate with the High Seas Fleet and carried an insufficient number of aircraft. I was intended to carry between 23 and 30 aircraft, including fighters, bombers, and torpedo-bombers.
The ship was based on the incomplete hull of the Italian passenger ship Ausonia, which was being built in Hamburg. The conversion was proposed by the Air Department of the Reichs Navy Office, but it was abandoned after negotiations within the German Navy over a proposed moratorium on new ships at the end of the war. After World War I ended, high inflation in Germany added to the cost of the ship, and as a result, the Italian shipping company for whom the ship was originally built, declined to purchase her. The vessel was therefore sold to shipbreakers and dismantled in 1922.
## Design
Ausonia began her existence as a turbine-powered passenger steamer, ordered by Italian Sitmar in 1914. The ship was built in the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, under construction number 236. At the time, the only German seaplane carrier was the armored cruiser Friedrich Carl, which carried two planes. The leadership of the German Navy believed that zeppelins were much more effective than seaplanes, both for reconnaissance and attack. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the architect of the German Navy, was particularly unimpressed by the performance of fixed-wing aircraft. Nevertheless, the Navy developed several naval aircraft before and during the war, including a pair of seaplane fighters, the W.12 and the W.29, both built by Hansa-Brandenburg. Twin-engined torpedo-floatplanes were also designed.
Regardless of the preference toward airships, several small merchant vessels were converted into seaplane carriers during World War I; these included Santa Elena, Answald, Oswald, and Glyndwr. They carried only two to four aircraft each, however, and were too slow to operate with the High Seas Fleet. The light cruiser Stuttgart, which was fast enough to steam with the Fleet, was converted into a seaplane carrier in 1918. She too, though, only carried two seaplanes. It was decided to convert the liner Ausonia into a flight-deck carrier for wheeled aircraft as well as floatplanes. The plan for the conversion was drawn up by Leutnant zur See Jürgen Reimpell in 1918, an officer of the 1st Aviation Detachment.
### General characteristics
Once converted, it would have been 158 meters long overall and 149.6 m long between perpendiculars. The ship had a beam of 18.8 m and a draft of 7.43 m, and displaced 12,585 metric tons. The ship was powered by two sets of Blohm & Voss geared turbines that drove a pair of screws, the diameter of which is not known. The details of the boiler system and electrical power plant are unknown. The boilers would have been vented through a single large funnel that would have been placed on the starboard side of the top flight deck, along with a small island. The ship would have had a top speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph).
The ship was to have been equipped with two 82 m-long hangar decks for wheeled aircraft and a third 128 m-long hangar deck for seaplanes; all of the hangars were 18.5 m wide. The flight deck would have been 128.5 m long and 18.7 m wide. All three of the hangars and flight deck were intended to have been mounted above the main structural deck. The ship's designers intended to mount a take off deck on the bow, which would have been 30 m long and 10.5 m wide. According to naval historian Erich Gröner, the ship was designed to carry either 13 fixed-wing or 19 folding-wing seaplanes, along with around 10 wheeled aircraft. The historian Peter Schenk concurs, stating that ten wheeled fighter aircraft would have been kept on the deck, along with thirteen to nineteen floatplanes that would have been used for reconnaissance, torpedo attacks, and bombing. Rene Greger estimated the ship to carry eight to ten fighter aircraft and a combination of fifteen to twenty bombers and torpedo-floatplanes.
## Conversion
She was launched as the passenger ship Ausonia on 15 April 1915. While the ship was still being fitted out, the German navy decided to convert her into an aircraft carrier. The proposed design was completed by 1918, but by then, the majority of naval construction efforts were diverted to building new U-boats. The demands on labor and resources the war imposed on the German economy reduced the shipbuilding industry to barely being able to cover the maintenance and repair needs of the High Seas Fleet. What resources were left over were by 1918 funneled into U-boat production. As a result of the growing importance of U-boat construction and a moratorium on new surface ships imposed by the Reichsmarineamt (RMA—the Imperial Navy Office), the conversion project was abandoned.
The design influenced the planned conversion of the armored cruiser SMS Roon into a seaplane carrier. This plan too, however, was scrapped when the war ended in Germany's defeat. The Treaty of Versailles that ended the war prohibited Germany from maintaining any military aircraft, including naval aviation. In 1920, the Italian shipping company canceled its order for Ausonia because the post-war inflation in Germany substantially increased the price of the ship. As a result, she was sold to ship breakers in 1922 and broken up for scrap.
|
487,973 |
Finnish III Corps (Continuation War)
| 1,135,792,188 | null |
[
"Continuation War",
"Military units and formations of Finland in World War II"
] |
The III Corps (Finnish: III Armeijakunta, III AK) was a corps of the Finnish Army during the Continuation War, where Finland fought alongside Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. Formed from the peacetime V Corps and subordinated to the German Army High Command Norway, III Corps fought initially in northern Finland on the flank of the German XXXVI Corps, participating in the Finno-German Operation Arctic Fox. In February 1944, it was moved to the Karelian Isthmus just prior to the launch of the Soviet Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive. Following the Moscow Armistice, III Corps took overall command of the Finnish forces participating in the Lapland War, the removal of German forces from northern Finland.
## Mobilization and pre-war plans
While the exact details of the Finno-German planning preceding the Continuation War remain unclear, it is known that on 25 May 1941 Finnish officers participated in negotiations with the Germans in Salzburg regarding plans for a future war with the Soviet Union. According to the plans proposed by the Germans, the Finns would be in charge of operations in the southeast of Finland and east of Lake Ladoga, with overall command of both Finnish and German troops in the area falling under the Finnish commander-in-chief, Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. In turn, the Finns would subordinate the peacetime V Corps to the headquarters of the German Army of Norway. During follow-up negotiations in Berlin on 26 May, the Finnish general Erik Heinrichs stated that the Army of Norway could expect a Finnish contribution of two divisions, but emphasized that the Finnish forces concentrated in the Salla region would be needed in the south as soon as possible. Forward elements of the German troops began arriving in Finland on 1 June, and further talks followed in Helsinki over the period 3 to 6 June. The participants agreed that the southern border of the Army of Norway's area of operations would be on the line Oulu–Oulujärvi–Lentiira–Belomorsk.
The Finnish mobilization began on 10 June 1941 under the pretext of "additional exercises" (Finnish: ylimääräiset harjoitukset). The Military Districts of Perä-Pohjola and Pohjois-Pohjanmaa called up the 3rd and 6th Divisions, which concentrated in the area between Kajaani and Savukoski under the command of the peacetime V Corps. As arranged in the previous month's discussions, the corps, led by Major General Hjalmar Siilasvuo, was formally subordinated to the headquarters of the German Army of Norway on 15 June. On 18 June, the corps was re-designated as III Corps.
## In Northern Finland, 1941–1944
Before the start of the hostilities, the 6th Division was transferred from the III Corps to the German XXXVI Corps. The German plans called for the III Corps, now consisting only of the 3rd Division, to cover the right (southern) flank of the Army of Norway. It was to advance first to the Ukhta–Kestenga line and this movement was to be followed by a continued advance to the Murmansk railroad and Kem. III Corps would be to the south of the German XXXVI Corps, with the unit areas of responsibility defined by the line Kuusamo–Oulanka–Chupa. III Corps thus secured the southern flank of Operation Silver Fox, targeting the capture of Murmansk. Siilasvuo divided the remaining forces of the III Corps into two formations. Group F, consisting of the main body of the 3rd Division, attacked east from Suomussalmi; its initial objective was Voknavolok, from where it was expected to continue towards Ukhta. Group J, formed around one regiment from the 3rd Division, attacked towards Sohjana [fi], with a follow-on objective of Kestenga. III Corps was ordered to launch its attack on 1 July, at 02:30.
It soon become apparent that III Corps was the only corps-level unit of the Army of Norway making significant progress, and the corps was reinforced with parts of SS Division Nord on 21 July. On 30 July, Adolf Hitler approved a modification to the Germans plans: operations of the two German corps of the Army of Norway were largely halted, and German reinforcements were allocated to support the attack of the III Corps. The main objective of the III Corps was to be the Murmansk railroad in the area of Loukhi. By end of July, SS Division Nord had been subordinated to III Corps in totality. As Siilasvuo did not trust the German officers to lead Finnish forces following their failures in the Salla region, the bulk of the combat strength of SS Division Nord was subordinated to Group J, the Finnish force consisting of a single regiment while the staff of the Division was subordinated into the III Corps HQ. This resulted in tension between the various commanders, as the officers of SS Division Nord viewed the subordination as a humiliation.
By 2 August, Group F had reached the Soviet defensive lines north of Ukhta, but failed to take the town due to strong resistance by the Soviet 54th Division. Renewed attempts in September fared no better. Group J had taken up positions 8 miles (13 km) east of Kestenga after being pushed back by the Soviet 88th Division which had recently arrived in the area. General Siilasvuo reported to Generaloberst Nikolaus von Falkenhorst that III Corps was unable to reach Loukhi, with both sides settling for stationary warfare in the sector. On 14 August, Group J was renamed Division J and Group F as 3rd Division. On the same date, Hitler ordered the attack on Ukhta to be halted, and for Division J, including SS-Division Nord, to go on the defensive. Concurrently with these changes, SS Division Nord was de-subordinated from Division J and was given its own sector alongside Division J's as part of the III Corps's northern group.
By 6 October the situation at the front had improved to a point where von Falkenhorst and Siilasvuo discussed continuing the III Corps's advance towards Loukhi. Due to Hitler's August order, the plan was phrased as III Corp improving its positions. To this end, on 16 October, von Falkenhorst approved a plan to capture "a crossing of a railway and a highway 30 kilometres (19 mi) east of Kestenga", indicating the real purpose of the operation was to cut the Murmansk railroad. The Finnish high command was informed about the operation on 25 October, but nobody informed the German high command, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). The operation began on 30 October, with III Corps encircling a Soviet regiment in the first two days. On 9 October, the Army of Norway reported to OKW that two regiments of the Soviet 88th Rifle Division had been virtually destroyed, but Finnish intelligence indicated that Soviets were reinforcing the area with the 186th Rifle Division from Murmansk.
On 5 November, Siilasvuo was informed by the Finnish high command that the attack should be halted for political reasons, and that no additional Finnish reinforcements would be forthcoming despite Siilasvuo's wishes. The United States of America had given the Finnish government a note demanding the attack be stopped. This had caused Finnish President Risto Ryti to express his concern over the operation to Mannerheim. By 11 November, Siilasvuo was actively slowing down the attack by ordering construction of further field fortifications. On the same date, the headquarters of the German Army of Norway received a message from OKW, demanding an explanation for the III Corps's attack. The message also reiterated a previous order for the whole Army of Norway sector to go to a defensive posture. On 17 November, Siilasvuo gave a written order to halt the attack. By December, the fighting in the area had calmed down.
In early 1942, the German forces in northern Finland and Norway were reorganized with the creation of the German Lapland Army (soon renamed the 20th Mountain Army) which took over Army of Norway's responsibilities in northern Finland. As part of this reorganization, III Corps was transferred to the Lapland Army. On 4 July, III Corps was formally transferred back to Finnish command, where it was directly subordinated to the Finnish commander-in-chief Mannerheim, with the German XVIII Corps taking responsibility for the Kestenga area the previous day. The area of Ukhta remained a Finnish responsibility until 22 March 1944, when it was handed to the 20th Mountain Army.
## Karelian Isthmus, 1944
In March 1942, Finnish defenses had been reorganized under three large formations named Kannas Group, Maaselkä Group and Aunus Group. After the end of the siege of Leningrad in January 1944, the Finnish high command prepared for a Soviet offensive. As part of these preparations, the Kannas Group, responsible for the Karelian Isthmus (Finnish: Karjalankannas), was split into two corps-level formations on 4 March. The western side of the isthmus became the responsibility of the IV Corps, with the eastern side of the isthmus being handed to the III Corps, the headquarters of which was moved to the area from northern Finland. Following this reorganization, on 6 July, III Corps consisted of the 15th Division, the 19th Brigade and some assets from the 18th Division that mostly acted as part of the commander-in-chief's reserve. The 3rd Division, previously part of the III Corps and recently freed from its frontal duties in the Ukhta area, was subordinated directly to the commander-in-chief as reserve.
On 9 June 1944, the Soviet Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive started with a preparatory attack against the sector of the IV Corps. The main thrust of the offensive, on the Karelian Isthmus, hit the IV Corps sector on 10 June and quickly breached the Finnish main defensive line. By 11 June, IV Corps had been pushed sufficiently far back that the flank of III Corps was endangered. Even after IV Corps had reached the secondary VT-line on 12 June, III Corps was still holding to its part of the original main defensive line. On 13 June, to protect the flank of the corps, the 18th Division was released from the reserve and subordinated to III Corps. Concurrently, preparations were started for a future retreat to the VT-line. By 14 June, the situation of the 15th Division was becoming increasingly untenable, and III Corps was given permission to retreat to the VT-line. The retreat began on the night of 14–15 June, and the bulk of III Corps had reached the secondary defensive line by the end of June 15, with the exception of some forces on the left-most flank on the shore of Lake Ladoga.
The situation on the western Karelian Isthmus continued to deteriorate, and on 16 June Mannerheim ordered the 18th Division to be moved to the Vyborg region to act as his reserve as soon as possible. Given the rapid Soviet advance to the west, the III Corps continued to be in danger of being cut off. In the following days, the corps conducted a series of delaying actions, eventually taking defensive positions along Vuoksi, on the VKT-line. By 20 June, III Corps had created a defensive line consisting of two divisions and a brigade. The front stabilized along the Vuoksi for the rest of the war, and Soviet forces failed to break the VKT-line on the III Corps sector despite several attempts.
## After the Continuation War
A ceasefire was agreed in September 1944 between the Soviet Union and Finland, which led to the Moscow Armistice. One of the terms of the armistice required Finland to ensure to ensure the removal of any German forces remaining in Finland. In practice, this meant that unless the German 20th Mountain Army Corps voluntarily retreated from Finland by mid-September, Finnish forces would have to evict them by force. Initially, Germans fell back towards Norway in unofficial cooperation with the Finnish forces. However, following the failure of Operation Tanne Ost, where the German's attempted capture Gogland from Finnish defenders on 14–15 September, as well as a general cessation of any voluntary movement towards Norway, Finno-German cooperation completely broke down.
During the resulting Lapland War, III Corps was moved to northern Finland where it took overall command of all the Finnish forces participating in the fighting against the Germans. The resulting formation consisted of the 3rd, 6th, 11th, 15th divisions, the Armored Division and two brigades. Over the next months, the III Corps slowly pushed the Germans out of Lapland.
As the Finnish Army completed its demobilization by early December, as mandated by the Moscow Armistice, the forces under III Corps were reduced from a peak strength of 75,000 to approximately 12,000 men. On 5 December the corps was re-designated 1st Division, which remained under Siilasvuo's command. As the veterans of the Continuation War were demobilized and replaced by fresh conscripts, this latter part of the Lapland War became known in Finland as the "Children's Crusade". The final stages of the war saw the Germans only occupy a minor area of land in the Karesuvanto region, and the Finnish forces in the area were eventually reduced to a task force consisting of 700 men. The final German forces left Finland on 27 April 1945, signaling the end to the Lapland War.
## See also
- Finnish III Corps (Winter War)
- List of Finnish corps in the Continuation War
|
25,414,501 |
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
| 1,172,549,991 |
2010 video game
|
[
"2010 video games",
"Aspyr games",
"Cancelled PlayStation Portable games",
"Euphoria (software) games",
"Games for Windows",
"Gaming Corps Austin games",
"Hack and slash games",
"LucasArts games",
"Multiplayer and single-player video games",
"Nintendo DS games",
"PlayStation 3 games",
"Single-player video games",
"Star Wars video games",
"Video game sequels",
"Video games about cloning",
"Video games developed in the United States",
"Video games scored by Mark Griskey",
"Video games using Havok",
"Wii games",
"Windows games",
"Xbox 360 games"
] |
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is an action-adventure video game developed and published by LucasArts. It is the second installment of The Force Unleashed multimedia project, and the sequel to Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008). The game was released in the United States on October 26, 2010, in Australia on October 27, and throughout Europe on October 29 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii consoles, as well as Windows and the Nintendo DS and iOS portable devices.
The game takes place approximately six months after the events of the first game, and a year before the film A New Hope. The Force Unleashed II is described as the "dark entry" in the series, and a more personal story for the game's protagonist than the first game. Players control a clone of Starkiller, the first game's protagonist and Darth Vader's secret apprentice who sacrificed himself after helping to form the Rebel Alliance. Vader's attempts to breed a perfect apprentice from the original Starkiller's DNA leads to the creation of the clone who, possessing his predecessor's memories and realizing he will similarly be betrayed, escapes Vader. While on a quest across the galaxy to understand his identity and escape from Vader's influence, Starkiller becomes caught in the war between the Alliance and the Galactic Empire.
Production for The Force Unleashed II transpired over an approximate period of nine months; while it possesses some similarities to the previous game, producers modified several aspects such as the sound effects and gameplay. Sam Witwer again provides the voice and likeness for Starkiller, and several cast members return to voice and provide likeness to their respective roles.
The Force Unleashed II received mixed reviews from critics who praised the graphics and sound design, but criticized the repetitive gameplay, short length, and underwhelming story. During the first few weeks after its release it placed fifth or higher in sales for several regions. A sequel, entitled Star Wars: The Force Unleashed III, was planned, but it was ultimately scrapped following Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012. As a result of the acquisition, The Force Unleashed project became part of the non-canonical Star Wars Expanded Universe (also known as Star Wars Legends) and never received a proper conclusion.
## Gameplay
The Force Unleashed II is a third-person action game in which the player's character's weapons are the Force and a lightsaber. The game has a combo system for stringing lightsaber attacks and for combining lightsaber attacks with Force powers. Like the original Force Unleashed, experience points earned by killing enemies and finding artifacts can be used to increase Starkiller's powers and traits.
The Force Unleashed II refines gameplay elements from the first Force Unleashed, and adds more variety with such features as puzzle solving. Combat was modified to include the ability to wield dual lightsabers, which can dismember or decapitate enemies. The game also adds more Force powers, such as "Mind Trick" and "Force Rage".
### Platform-specific elements
According to lead producer Vinde Kudirka, the goal of the game across all platforms is to make the player feel like "a super-powerful Jedi". Executive producer Julio Torres said that while the story is consistent across platforms, gameplay decreases in style across platforms to reflect each platform's uniqueness and strengths. The Wii's control scheme is focused on being able to precisely control Starkiller's Force powers and saber combos. The Wii exclusive "Force rage" power puts the game's protagonist, Starkiller, into a bullet time mode exclusive to that platform; the Wii version also has a Force sight power not included on other platforms. The Wii version also has a multiplayer mode, inspired by The Outfoxies (best known for inspiring the Super Smash Bros. series of fighting games), in which four players can challenge each other in a fighting-style combat game. The Wii game also has an extra story-based level, on Dagobah, that is not present in the HD version of the game, making the plot of the Wii game slightly different from the HD version.
The PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 versions feature new Force powers, new skins for Force powers that appear in The Force Unleashed, an improved rendering system providing richer colors, and a new audio system. The gameplay also highlights the potential to "destroy" the game environment. Neither of the PC, PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 versions of the game include multiplayer. The Nintendo DS version features the same Force powers as the console versions, but was designed for shorter play sessions due to its mobile nature.
## Plot
At an Imperial facility on the planet Kamino, Darth Vader observes the training of a clone of his former apprentice Starkiller. The clone experiences various memories and visions of Starkiller's life, and is unable to strike down a droid impersonating Starkiller's love interest, Juno Eclipse. Vader labels the clone a failure in his quest to create a perfect apprentice, and the clone remembers Vader's betrayal of Starkiller; realizing Vader will try to have him killed as well, he makes his escape. Stealing Vader's TIE Fighter, the clone leaves in an attempt to understand his identity and escape Vader's influence. Meanwhile, Vader hires the bounty hunter Boba Fett to capture Juno to lure the clone back to him.
Starkiller arrives on the Imperial-controlled planet Cato Neimoidia to rescue Rahm Kota, the original Starkiller's blind Jedi mentor, who is being forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena by the planet's ruler, Baron Merillion Tarko. Tarko quickly becomes distrustful of Starkiller and orders his men to kill him. Starkiller fights his way through the Imperial forces to reach Kota, where Tarko unleashes a gargantuan beast, the Gorog, to kill both men. The Gorog escapes its restraints and destroys the arena, eating Tarko and grabbing Kota before falling off the platform. Starkiller kills the Gorog in free-fall and saves Kota, while the latter calls in the Rogue Shadow, the original Starkiller's ship, to rescue the pair.
Despite the clone's insistence that he is not the real Starkiller and wants nothing to do with the war, Kota asserts that Jedi can't be cloned and invites him to join the Rebel Alliance. Declining, Starkiller drops Kota off at the nearest spaceport and travels to Dagobah, where he meets Jedi Grand Master Yoda and enters a cave that is strong with the Dark Side. Starkiller sees a vision of Juno in peril aboard her medical frigate Salvation, and leaves to rescue her.
Starkiller boards the Salvation with Kota, who reveals that the Rebel Alliance has continued to grow in his absence but that its leadership has become reluctant to attack any major Imperial targets out of fear that their fleet will be destroyed and provides the General with information that could help the Alliance take Kamino. The ship soon comes under attack and both Jedi race to the bridge only to find Juno missing. The original Starkiller's training droid PROXY reveals that experimental Imperial forces led by Fett have infiltrated the ship and captured Juno. Starkiller locates Juno but is too late to stop Fett leaving with her and realizes Vader's plot to lure him back to Kamino.
After eliminating the Imperial forces aboard the Salvation, Starkiller convinces Kota to order an all-out assault of Kamino. The Rebels arrive at Kamino but are met by the Imperial fleet, who have activated a defensive shield around the planet. Starkiller tells Kota to order an evacuation and crashes the Salvation through the shield. While Kota and his men stage a ground assault, Starkiller confronts Vader, who reveals and commands numerous failed Starkiller clones. Starkiller eliminates the clones and battles Vader to a stalemate. Vader reveals a detained Juno, threatening her life to force Starkiller to surrender and orders him to kill the rebels. Juno attempts to attack Vader with Starkiller's discarded lightsaber, but Vader uses the Force to hurl her out a window onto the ground below, seemingly killing her. Enraged, Starkiller unleashes the full extent of his powers to defeat Vader, subduing him with force lightning just as Kota and his men arrive. Vader tries to goad Starkiller into killing him, but Kota reasons that they need him alive to reveal the Empire's secrets before he can be placed on trial and executed. At this point, the player is given the choice between sparing Vader (Light Side) or killing him (Dark Side).
- If the player chooses the Light Side, Starkiller spares Vader, who is arrested by the Rebel Alliance. Starkiller runs over to Juno, and mourns her apparent death, but is pleased when she unexpectedly revives and kisses him. Later, Princess Leia Organa makes contact with Juno and Kota and congratulates for their actions, claiming that Vader's capture marks an important victory for the Alliance. While imprisoned aboard the Rogue Shadow, Vader is confronted by Starkiller, who tells him that by making a choice of his own free will to spare him, he is free of the Dark Lord's influence. Vader responds that as long as Juno lives, he will always have control over Starkiller. The game ends with Starkiller and Juno preparing to travel into hyperspace to transport Vader to Dantooine, unaware of Fett following them. This is the canonical ending of the game, as confirmed by the novelization.
- If the player chooses the Dark Side, Starkiller attempts to kill Vader, but is suddenly impaled from behind by a shrouded figure. After pushing Kota, his men and PROXY into the ocean with the Force, the figure reveals itself as a dark Starkiller clone, while Vader explains to the dying Starkiller that he lied about not being able to perfect the cloning process. After gazing at Juno's corpse, Starkiller succumbs to his wounds and dies. Vader orders his apprentice to take Starkiller's ship and hunt down the leaders of the Rebel Alliance. The dark apprentice looks at Juno's corpse and moves on, uncaring. The game ends with the dark apprentice using the Rogue Shadow to enter hyperspace to follow his orders. In the novelization, this scenario briefly appears in a Force vision Starkiller has on the Salvation while contemplating revenge on Vader.
### Downloadable content
A downloadable content (DLC) level was released in December 2010, providing a continuation of the non-canonical Dark Side ending of the game, with the dark Starkiller clone depicted in said ending as the protagonist. The level is set in a different timeline from any other pieces of Star Wars media, including the first game's own dark alternate timeline depicted in its expansions.
The level takes place during an alternate depiction of Return of the Jedi, primarily the Battle of Endor, where the remnants of the Rebel Alliance lead a desperate attack on the Empire's new battle station, the Death Star II. Darth Vader's trusted apprentice, the dark Starkiller clone, arrives on Endor with special orders to eliminate the Alliance's remaining leaders. Slaughtering numerous Ewoks and Rebel soldiers in his path, he arrives at the shield generator protecting the Death Star, where he kills Han Solo and Chewbacca. The dark apprentice then confronts Princess Leia Organa, who has been training as a Jedi after her brother Luke Skywalker's death on Hoth to fulfill his failed destiny of restoring balance to the Force. Following a fierce duel, the dark apprentice slays Leia. Aboard the Death Star, the Emperor declares the Rebel Alliance defeated, then subdues Vader with Force lightning while chastising him for resurrecting his failed apprentice as a clone, claiming he knew of Vader's plans to overthrow him using the clone from their inception. Deeming the clone too powerful to be kept alive, the Emperor orders his forces to kill him. As the dark apprentice meditates near Leia's corpse, he senses Star Destroyers nearby.
## Development
Following the commercial success of its predecessor, a sequel was formally announced at the Spike Video Game Awards. The game was released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii consoles, as well as the Nintendo DS and iOS portable devices. A version was initially developed for the PlayStation Portable, but was cancelled for undisclosed reasons. The Force Unleashed II was released in North America on October 26, 2010, in Australia on October 27, 2010 and in Europe on October 29, 2010.
### Writing
Haden Blackman served as a writer for the sequel, and was only given a mere 3 weeks by Lucasarts to write the game's script. In crafting the dialogue of The Force Unleashed II, Blackman sought influence from Darksiders (2010), as well as other video games such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009) and Heavy Rain (2010). In the wake the early stages of conceiving The Force Unleashed II, the main protagonist Starkiller was initially intended to be replaced with a new lead character, but such plans never materialized as LucasArts opted to develop more backstory for the character. As the character progression of Starkiller initiates, the story follows a dark nature—much like its predecessor. Blackman suggested that as opposed to his empathic tendencies in The Force Unleashed, Starkiller becomes conflicted with his loss of an identity, ultimately culminating into what he called a "much more personal story"; "He's dealing with a sense of identity and not knowing whether he's going insane or not," he added, "and the possible collapse of the Rebel Alliance, and his being torn between what he wants and what Kota wants." Blackman's main objective was to have the storyline be attractive to a broad audience; while he asserted that fans with a general understanding of the Star Wars franchise would be more enthralled with the storyline, Blackman emphasized the need to appeal to a more mainstream demographic. "With The Force Unleashed II again we're trying to create a story that if you’ve played The Force Unleashed," explained the comic book writer, "you're going to know a bit more going into it, but hopefully the story still stands on its own and you can enjoy it even if you haven't played [the first game], whether or not you're familiar with all the continuity."
To avoid any perceived continuity constraints, they would travel to the headquarters of Lucasfilm in San Francisco, California to give an overview of their plans. "With The Force Unleashed II, remarked Blackman, "because we’d already established this notion of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, really it was just sitting down with licensing and saying ‘this is what we want to do’ and getting a few pieces of feedback from them."
### Cast
The primary cast from the previous game returns to voice their characters again in The Force Unleashed II. Sam Witwer returns to provide both the likeness and voice of Starkiller, the game's protagonist. He also voices Emperor Palpatine having earned the part during a read-through of the script during development. Witwer petitioned David Collins, voice of PR0XY and audio lead for the game. He told Collins that "if [he was not] going to get Ian McDiarmid to do this [...] I'll do it." Actress and model Nathalie Cox reprises her role as Juno Eclipse, as does Cully Fredrickson as General Rahm Kota. Matt Sloan, who portrays Darth Vader in the webseries Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager and voices Vader in the original The Force Unleashed returns to the role in The Force Unleashed II. Veteran Star Wars: The Clone Wars voice actors Tom Kane and Dee Bradley Baker are also included amongst the cast. Kane voices Jedi Master Yoda, a role he has provided several times within the Star Wars franchise. Baker voices bounty hunter Boba Fett, a clone and adopted son of Jango Fett. Baker provides the voice of all of the clone troopers in the Clone Wars series, of which Boba is one.
### Technology
The Force Unleashed II derives from LucasArts' Ronin 2.0 game engine, an update to a similarly named proprietary game engine used by its predecessor. Like The Force Unleashed, the game integrates three third-party technologies: Havok for varying types of body physics such as ragdoll animation, NaturalMotion's Euphoria for realistic non-player character artificial intelligence, and Digital Molecular Matter for dynamic destructible objects. Blackman felt the second game takes better advantage of the powerful engine than does the first game. LucasArts acknowledged players' frustration with the first game's targeting system, and worked to revise it in the sequel; Blackman said fixing the Force grip feature was the developers' top priority. The game also includes fewer enemy types, instead focusing on making enemies more "'special and unique'"; the game was also designed to offer "epic" boss battles. Other adjustments include allowing players to dismember enemy characters and improving menu speeds.
The game is AMD Eyefinity validated.
#### Sound effects
The audio engine received a massive overhaul to upgrade the quality of sound effects. Brian Tibbetts was declared the lead sound designer of the sound effects team, resuming his endeavors from The Force Unleashed. David Collins, who formerly served as the lead sound designer, sustained a supervisory position. The sound effects team was divided to address specific details; Tom Bible was in charge of creating sound for weapons and force powers, while Aaron Brown specialized in the spaceships. Although some effects were borrowed from The Force Unleashed, the vast majority of sounds were completely new. Tibbetts thought that collaborating with his peers to be one of the most complex and challenging parts of his job. "I chose to have my office in the main area of game development and always had an open door policy regarding communication with other disciplines. There were many meetings regarding asset changes and in general communication at Lucasarts is good between disciplines. I’ve always stressed that we should work together as much as possible and there were many moments of myself and sound designers working directly with designers, artists, and producers at their desks or ours."
The nine-month schedule of The Force Unleashed II caused difficulties with Tibbetts, who found it frustrating to keep up with the frenetic schedule. "There are many different ways to integrate our audio assets including scripting or placing sound emitters directly inside environment art and our work was unfortunately blown out many times," he stated. As production neared its conclusion, Tibbets created an emailing system with a group of engineers that would notify them after audio reference was edited. According to Tibbetts, "This helped a lot especially as the responsible parties didn’t realize or intend to blow us out and were more than happy to help resolve the situation. By the time this tool was built though, we had already had to re-author/integrate excessively though which is always frustrating."
#### Special effects
Dmitry Andreev devised a framing system that gave the illusion of operating at 60 frames per second (FPS), despite running at 30FPS. To familiarize himself with the process, Andreev observed various 120 Hz television sets that incorporated two frames in producing an intermediate image, resulting in a smoother and clearer picture. The design team utilized a variety of interpolation techniques on multiple parts of an image, such as transparency and reflection. Andreev stated that "as soon as I got back home, I started to play with it and soon after that realised that there are a lot of issues. Mostly the artifacts of a different kind, that appear in more or less complex scenes, as well as performance issues [...]." In response to the difficulties, he constructed a prototype that performed several enhancement techniques which examined images for vectors that demonstrated how "elements of the image would move from one frame to the next". The LucasArts coder realized that such processes could be repackaged for a different use. "We already know how things are moving as we have full control over them. This way we don't need to do any kind of estimation," he professed.
Interpolating the graphics in 30FPS was opted due to the large variety of rendering technologies that were practical to developers, as well as a less stringent time schedule. Although Andreev felt that it was not impossible to produce a video game in 60FPS graphics, he felt that it would require much more rigorous efforts on art, engineering, and design. "It is fair to say that in a lot of cases," he explained, "during pre-production, studios try to see what it would take to make a 60FPS game. Then, they get something that doesn't look very pretty when running at 60, realising that all the art has to be produced very carefully as well as level and game design."
## Cast
- Sam Witwer: Starkiller / Aberrant Clones / Emperor Palpatine
- Cully Fredricksen: General Rahm Kota
- Matt Sloan: Darth Vader
- Nathalie Cox: Juno Eclipse
- David W. Collins: PROXY
- Dee Bradley Baker: Merillion Tarko / Boba Fett
- Tom Kane: Yoda
- Catherine Taber: Princess Leia Organa
## Reception
### Commercial performance
The Force Unleashed II performed under expectations. In the United States, it sold 500,000 copies within its first two weeks, thereby becoming the fifth best-selling video game of October 2010. The Force Unleashed II was the fifth-highest selling game of the week in the United Kingdom, denoting sales of 56,064 copies. In Sweden, The Force Unleashed II was the third best-selling overall game of the week; the PlayStation 3 version of the game topped its respective chart, while the Xbox 360 version trailed behind Fable 3 as the second-best selling Xbox 360 game of the week.
### Critical response
Commentators were divided on The Force Unleashed II. The Observer columnist Toby Moses avouched that the game failed to live up to the expectations established by its predecessor. Alexander Sliwinski of Joystiq derided it as a "desperate cash grab", which had no intentions of aspiring to be a "major part of lore or to be nearly as epic" as The Force Unleashed. "It simply cobbles together glorified fan fiction for what amounts to an unexceptional subplot as it abruptly ends in the second act screaming, 'SEQUEL GOES HERE'," remarked Sliwinski. Despite proclaiming that The Force Unleashed II had "dazzling" gameplay, The Washington Times' journalist Joseph Szadkowski concluded that it was "one of the most underachieving games of the year". In his 6.5 out of 10 rating review, Anthony Gallegos of IGN stated that The Force Unleashed II immediately captivates the audience with its visuals, albeit being plagued with repetitious gameplay, a "shoe-horned in story", and a nonexistent depth "in the experience". "Scenery is, of course, massive and massively impressive, and the possible repetitive nature has been broken up with some freefalling levels and the odd exploratory moment," commented Neil Davey of The Guardian, who issued the game a four out of five stars.
Game Informer' Andrew Reiner said the game's mechanics are more fluid than the first game's, and praised the textures and animations as "among this generation's best". GamePro's Mitch Dyer and Matthew Keast of GamesRadar highlighted the game's variety of lightsaber crystals and their ability to boost Starkiller's powers. Keast observed that LucasArts seemed to take player feedback from the first game seriously, and made numerous subtle improvements for the sequel. He also praised "substantial" improvements to the Force grip power, although Alexander Sliwinski of Eurogamer did not detect any improvements. The Writers Guild of America nominated the game for its Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing recognition.
John Teti of Eurogamer said the game overall "feels like it was created out of obligation rather than inspiration", and points toward Blackman's departure from LucasArts before the game's release as a potential sign of trouble. IGN's Anthony Gallegos criticized the game's repetitive level design and underdeveloped story. He also felt that because Starkiller begins the game as a powerful character, leveling up does not feel as satisfying as in the first game; while the game does offer increased variety in enemy types that "occasionally present a challenge", defeating them eventually becomes formulaic. Andrew Reiner of Game Informer criticized the story and the dissatisfying appearances by Boba Fett and Yoda. GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd called the final battle repetitive, and that the game's end sequence erases the story's dramatic tension. The Force Unleashed II was later one of GameSpot's nominees for "Least Improved Sequel of 2010". GamePro' Mitch Dyer faulted several performance issues and the game's brief, unfocused story. The downloadable content was poorly received by Luke Plunkett of Kotaku, who criticized the murder of Han Solo and Chewbacca depicted in the expansion.
Nintendo Power praised the Wii version's multiplayer mode, as did Lucas M. Thomas of IGN. GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd was more critical of the multiplayer, calling it "unspectacular". VanOrd did go on to praise the game's art, combat, and control scheme.
## Cancelled sequel
Sam Witwer and Haden Blackman stated during an interview in February 2013 that Lucasfilm was considering the development of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed III for the next generation video game consoles PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Wii U. However, after LucasArts was closed by The Walt Disney Company due to the purchase of Lucasfilm, The Force Unleashed III was cancelled among other planned Star Wars video games, like Star Wars 1313. In November 2015, one month before the release of Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, Blackman revealed that The Force Unleashed III would have been more open-world and seen Starkiller and Darth Vader team-up to fight a new threat from Emperor Palpatine.
|
3,941,121 |
Thiomersal and vaccines
| 1,172,197,049 |
Vaccine controversy
|
[
"Mercury (element)",
"Thiomersal and vaccines"
] |
Thiomersal (or thimerosal) is a mercury compound which is used as a preservative in some vaccines. Anti-vaccination activists promoting the incorrect claim that vaccination causes autism have asserted that the mercury in thiomersal is the cause. There is no scientific evidence to support this claim. The idea that thiomersal in vaccines might have detrimental effects originated with anti-vaccination activists and was sustained by them and especially through the action of plaintiffs' lawyers.
The potential impact of thiomersal on autism has been investigated extensively. Multiple lines of scientific evidence have shown that thiomersal does not cause autism. For example, the clinical symptoms of mercury poisoning differ significantly from those of autism. In addition, multiple population studies have found no association between thiomersal and autism, and rates of autism have continued to increase despite removal of thiomersal from vaccines. Thus, major scientific and medical bodies such as the Institute of Medicine and World Health Organization (WHO) as well as governmental agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reject any role for thiomersal in autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders. In spite of the consensus of the scientific community, some parents and advocacy groups continue to contend that thiomersal is linked to autism and the claim is still stated as if it were fact in anti-vaccination propaganda, notably that of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., through his group Children's Health Defense. Thiomersal is no longer used in most children's vaccines in the United States, with the exception of some types of flu shots. While exposure to mercury may result in damage to brain, kidneys, and developing fetus, the scientific consensus is that thiomersal has no such effects.
This controversy has caused harm due to parents attempting to treat their autistic children with unproven and possibly dangerous treatments, discouraging parents from vaccinating their children due to fears about thiomersal toxicity and diverting resources away from research into more promising areas for the cause of autism. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. to seek damages from alleged toxicity from vaccines, including those purportedly caused by thiomersal. US courts have ruled against multiple representative test cases involving thiomersal. A 2011 journal article described the vaccine-autism connection as "perhaps, the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years".
## History
Thiomersal (also spelled thimerosal, especially in the United States) is an organomercury compound used as a preservative in vaccines to prevent bacterial and fungal contamination. Following a mandated review of mercury-containing food and drugs in 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) determined that under the existing vaccination schedule "some children could be exposed to a cumulative level of mercury over the first 6 months of life that exceeds one of the federal guidelines on methyl mercury." They asked vaccine makers to remove thiomersal from vaccines as quickly as possible as a precautionary measure, and it was rapidly phased out of most US and EU vaccines, but is still used in multi-dose vials of flu vaccines in the U.S. No vaccines in the European Union currently contain thiomersal as a preservative. In the context of perceived increased autism rates and increased number of vaccines in the childhood vaccination schedule, some parents believed the action to remove thiomersal was an indication that the preservative caused autism.
It was introduced as a preservative in the 1930s to prevent the growth of infectious organisms such as bacteria and fungi, and has been in use in vaccines and other products such as immunoglobulin preparations and ophthalmic and nasal solutions. Vaccine manufacturers have used preservatives to prevent microbial growth during the manufacturing process or when packaged as "multi-dose" products to allow for multiple punctures of the same vial to dispense multiple vaccinations with less fear of contamination. After the FDA Modernization Act of 1997 mandated a review and risk assessment of all mercury-containing food and drugs, vaccine manufacturers responded to FDA requests made in December 1998 and April 1999 to provide detailed information about the thiomersal content of their preparations.
A review of the data showed that while the vaccine schedule for infants did not exceed FDA, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), or WHO guidelines on mercury exposure, it could have exceeded Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards for the first six months of life, depending on the vaccine formulation and the weight of the infant. The review also highlighted difficulty interpreting toxicity of the ethylmercury in thiomersal because guidelines for mercury toxicity were based primarily on studies of methylmercury, a different mercury compound with different toxicologic properties. Multiple meetings were scheduled among various government officials and scientists from multiple agencies to discuss the appropriate response to this evidence. There was a wide range of opinions on the urgency and significance of the safety of thiomersal, with some toxicologists suggesting there was no clear evidence that thiomersal was harmful and other participants like Neal Halsey, director of the Institute of Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, strongly advocating removal of thiomersal from vaccines due to possible safety risks. In the process of forming the response to this information, the participants attempted to strike a balance between acknowledging possible harm from thiomersal and the risks involved if childhood vaccinations were delayed or stopped.
Upon conclusion of their review, the FDA, in conjunction with the other members of the US Public Health Service (USPHS), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), CDC and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), in a joint statement with the AAP in July 1999 concluded that there was "no evidence of harm caused by doses of thimerosal found in vaccines, except for local hypersensitivity reactions."
Despite the lack of convincing evidence of toxicity of thiomersal when used as a vaccine preservative, the USPHS and AAP determined that thiomersal should be removed from vaccines as a purely precautionary measure. This action was based on the precautionary principle, which assumes that there is no harm in exercising caution even if it later turns out to be unnecessary. The CDC and AAP reasoned that despite the lack of evidence of significant harm in the use of thiomersal in vaccines, the removal of this preservative would increase the public confidence in the safety of vaccines. Although thiomersal was largely removed from routine infant vaccines by summer 2001 in the U.S., some vaccines continue to contain non-trace amounts of thiomersal, mainly in multi-dose vaccines targeted against influenza, meningococcal disease and tetanus.
In 2004 Quackwatch posted an article saying that chelation therapy has been falsely promoted as effective against autism, and that practitioners falsified diagnoses of metal poisoning to "trick" parents into having their children undergo the process. , between 2–8% of children with autism had undergone the therapy.
### Rationale for concern
`Although intended to increase public confidence in vaccinations, the decision to remove thiomersal instead led to some parents suspecting thiomersal as a cause of autism. This concern over a vaccine-autism link grew from a confluence of several underlying factors. First, methylmercury had for decades been the subject of widespread environmental and media concern after two highly publicized episodes of poisonings in the 1950s and 1960s in Minamata Bay, Japan from industrial waste and in the 1970s in Iraq from fungicide contamination of wheat. These incidents led to new research on methylmercury safety and culminated in the publication of an array of confusing recommendations by public health agencies in the 1990s warning against methylmercury exposure in adults and pregnant women, which ensured a continued high public awareness of mercury toxicity. Second, the vaccine schedule for infants expanded in the 1990s to include more vaccines, some of which, including the Hib vaccine, DTaP vaccine and hepatitis B vaccine, could have contained thiomersal. Third, the number of diagnoses of autism grew in the 1990s, leading parents of these children to search for an explanation for the apparent rise in diagnoses, including considering possible environmental factors. The dramatic increase in reported cases of autism during the 1990s and early 2000s is largely attributable to changes in diagnostic practices, referral patterns, availability of services, age at diagnosis, and public awareness, and it is unknown whether autism's true prevalence increased during the period. Nevertheless, some parents believed that there was a growing "autism epidemic" and connected these three factors to conclude that the increase in number of vaccines, and specifically the mercury in thiomersal in those vaccines, was causing a dramatic increase in the incidence of autism.`
Advocates of a thiomersal-autism link also relied on indirect evidence from the scientific literature, including analogy with neurotoxic effects of other mercury compounds, the reported epidemiologic association between autism and vaccine use, and extrapolation from in vitro experiments and animal studies. Studies conducted by Mark Geier and his son David Geier have been the most frequently cited research by parents advocating a link between thiomersal and autism. This research by Geier has received considerable criticism for methodological problems in his research, including not presenting methods and statistical analyses to others for verification, improperly analyzing data taken from Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, as well as either mislabelling or confusing fundamental statistical terms in his papers, leading to results that were "uninterpretable".
### Publicity of concern
Several months after the recommendation to have thiomersal removed from vaccines was published, a speculative article was published in Medical Hypotheses, a non-peer-reviewed journal, by parents who launched the parental advocacy group SafeMinds to promote the theory that thiomersal caused autism. The controversy began to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the public and gained widening support within certain elements in the autism advocacy community as well as in the political arena, with U.S. Representative Dan Burton openly supporting this movement and holding a number of Congressional hearings on the subject.
Further support for the association between autism and thiomersal appeared in an article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the magazines Rolling Stone and Salon.com alleging a government conspiracy at a CDC meeting to conceal the dangers of thiomersal to protect the pharmaceutical industry, and a book written by David Kirby, Evidence of Harm, dramatizing the lives of parents of autistic children, with both authors participating in media interviews to promote their work and the controversy. Although the allegations by Kennedy were denied and a US Senate committee investigation later found no evidence to substantiate the most serious allegations, the story had already been well publicized by leveraging Kennedy's celebrity. Salon magazine subsequently amended Kennedy's article five times due to factual errors and later retracted it completely on 16 January 2011, stating that the works of critics of the article and evidence of the flaws in the science connecting autism and vaccines undermined the value of the article to the editors.
Meanwhile, during this time of increased media publicity of the controversy, public health officials and institutions did little to rebut the concerns and speculative theories being offered. Media attention and polarization of the debate has also been fueled by personal injury lawyers who took out full-page ads in prominent newspapers and offered financial support for expert witnesses who dissented from the scientific consensus that there is no convincing evidence for a link between thiomersal and autism. Paul Offit, a leading vaccine researcher and advocate, has said that the media has a tendency to provide false balance by perpetually presenting both sides of an issue even when only one side is supported by the evidence and thereby giving a platform for the spread of misinformation.
Despite the consensus from experts that there is no link between thiomersal and autism, many parents continue to believe that such a link exists. These parents share the viewpoint that autism is not just treatable, but curable through "biomedical" interventions and have been frustrated by the lack of progress from more "mainline" scientists in finding this cure. Instead, they have supported an alternative community of like-minded parents, physicians and scientists who promote this belief. This mindset has taught these parents to challenge the expertise from the mainstream scientific community. Parents have also been influenced by an extensive network of anti-vaccination organizations such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Children's Health Defense and a large number of online anti-vaccination websites that present themselves as an alternative source for evidence using pseudoscientific claims. These websites use emotional appeals to gather support and frame the controversy as an adversarial dispute between parents and a conspiracy of doctors and scientists. Advocates for a thiomersal-autism link have also relied on celebrities like model Jenny McCarthy and information presented on Don Imus' Imus in the Morning radio show to persuade the public to their cause, instead of relying only on "dry" scientific papers and scientists. McCarthy has published a book describing her personal experience with her autistic son and appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to promote the hypothesis of vaccines causing autism. Bitterness over this issue has led to numerous threats made against the CDC as well as researchers like Offit, with increased security placed by the CDC in response to these threats.
## Scientific evaluation
### Rationale for doubting link
Various lines of evidence undermine a proposed link between thiomersal and autism. For example, although advocates of a thiomersal-autism link consider autism a form of "mercury poisoning," the typical symptoms of mercury toxicity are significantly different from symptoms seen in autism. Likewise, the neuroanatomic and histopathologic features of the brains of patients who have mercury poisoning, both with methylmercury as well as ethylmercury, have significant differences from the brains of people with autism. Previous episodes of widespread mercury toxicity in a population such as in Minamata Bay, Japan would also be expected to lead to documentation of a significant rise in autism or autism-like behavior in children should autism be caused by mercury poisoning. However, research on several episodes of acute and chronic mercury poisoning have not documented any such rise in autism-like behavior. Although some parents cite an association between the timing of onset of autistic symptoms with the timing of vaccinations as evidence of an environmental cause such as thiomersal, this line of reasoning can be misleading. Associations such as these do not establish causation as the two occurring together may be only coincidental in nature. Also, genetic disorders that have no environmental triggers such as Rett syndrome and Huntington's disease nevertheless have specific ages when they begin to show symptoms, suggesting specific ages of onset of symptoms does not necessarily require an environmental cause.
Although the concern for a thiomersal-autism link was originally derived from indirect evidence based on the known potent neurotoxic effects of methylmercury, recent studies show these feared effects were likely overestimated. Ethylmercury, such as in thiomersal, clears much faster from the body after administration than methylmercury, suggesting total mercury exposure over time is much less with ethylmercury. Currently used methods of estimating brain deposition of mercury likely overestimates the amounts deposited due to ethylmercury, and ethylmercury also decomposes quicker in the brain than methylmercury, suggesting a lower risk of brain damage. These findings show that the assumptions that originally led to concern about the toxicity of ethylmercury, which were based on direct comparison to methylmercury, were flawed.
### Population studies
Multiple studies have been performed on data from large populations of children to study the relationship between the use of vaccines containing thiomersal, and autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Almost all of these studies have found no association between thiomersal-containing vaccines (TCVs) and autism, and studies done after the removal of thiomersal from vaccines have nevertheless shown autism rates continuing to increase. The only epidemiologic research that has found a purported link between TCVs and autism has been conducted by Mark Geier, whose flawed research has not been given any weight by independent reviews.
In Europe, a cohort study of 467,450 Danish children found no association between TCVs and autism or autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), nor any dose-response relationship between thiomersal and ASDs that would be suggestive of toxic exposure. An ecological analysis that studied 956 Danish children diagnosed with autism likewise did not show an association between autism and thiomersal. A retrospective cohort study on 109,863 children in the United Kingdom found no association between TCVs and autism, but a possible increased risk for tics. Analysis in this study also showed a possible protective effect with respect to general developmental disorders, attention-deficit disorder, and otherwise unspecified developmental delay. Another UK study based on a prospective cohort of 13,617 children likewise found more associated benefits than risks from thiomersal exposure with respect to developmental disorders. Because the Danish and UK studies involved only diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) or diphtheria-tetanus (DT) vaccines, they are less relevant for the higher thiomersal exposure levels that occurred in the U.S.
In North America, a Canadian study of 27,749 children in Quebec showed that thiomersal was unrelated to the increasing trend in pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs). In fact, the study noted that rates of PDDs were higher in the birth cohorts with no thiomersal when compared to those with medium or high levels of exposure. A study performed in the US which analyzed data from 78,829 children enrolled in HMOs taken from the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) did not show any consistent association between TCVs and neurodevelopmental outcomes, noting different results from data in different HMOs. A study performed in California found that removal of thiomersal from vaccines did not decrease the rates of autism, suggesting that thiomersal could not be the primary cause of autism. A study on children from Denmark, Sweden and California likewise argued against TCVs being causally associated with autism.
### Scientific consensus
In 2001 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health asked the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' (NAS) Institute of Medicine to establish an independent expert committee to review hypotheses about existing and emerging immunization safety concerns. This initial report found that based on indirect and incomplete evidence available at the time, there was inadequate evidence to accept or reject a thiomersal-autism link, though it was biologically plausible.
Since this report was released, several independent reviews have examined the body of published research for a possible thiomersal-autism link by examining the theoretical mechanisms of thiomersal causing harm and by reviewing the in vitro, animal, and population studies that have been published. These reviews determined that no evidence exists to establish thiomersal as the cause of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.
The scientific consensus on the subject is reflected in a follow-up report that was subsequently published in 2004 by the Institute of Medicine, which took into account new data that had been published since the 2001 report. The committee noted, in response to those who cite in vitro or animal models as evidence for the link between autism and thiomersal:
> However, the experiments showing effects of thimerosal on biochemical pathways in cell culture systems and showing abnormalities in the immune system or metal metabolism in people with autism are provocative; the autism research community should consider the appropriate composition of the autism research portfolio with some of these new findings in mind. However, these experiments do not provide evidence of a relationship between vaccines or thimerosal and autism.
>
> In the absence of experimental or human evidence that vaccination (either the MMR vaccine or the preservative thimerosal) affects metabolic, developmental, immune, or other physiological or molecular mechanisms that are causally related to the development of autism, the committee concludes that the hypotheses generated to date are theoretical only.
The committee concludes:
> Thus, based on this body of evidence, the committee concludes that the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. [bold in original]
Further evidence of the scientific consensus includes the rejection of a causal link between thiomersal and autism by multiple national and international scientific and medical bodies including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Medical Toxicology, the Canadian Paediatric Society, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the European Medicines Agency.
A 2011 journal article reflects this point of view and described the vaccine-autism connection as "the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years".
## Consequences
The suggestion that thiomersal has contributed to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders has had a number of effects. Public health officials believe fear driven by advocates of a thiomersal-autism link has caused parents to avoid vaccination or adopt "made up" vaccination schedules that expose their children to increased risk from preventable diseases such as measles and pertussis. Advocates of a thiomersal-autism link have also helped enact laws in six states (California, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New York and Washington) between 2004 and 2006 to limit the use of thiomersal given to pregnant women and children, although later attempts in 2009 in twelve other states failed to pass. These laws can be temporarily suspended, but vaccine advocates doubt their utility given the lack of evidence for danger with thiomersal in vaccines. Vaccine advocates are also concerned that passage of such laws help fuel a backlash against vaccination and contribute to doubts about the safety of vaccines that are unwarranted.
During the period of time of removal of thiomersal, the CDC and AAP asked doctors to delay the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine in children not at risk for hepatitis. This decision, though following the precautionary principle, nevertheless sparked confusion, controversy and some harm. Approximately 10% of hospitals suspended the use of hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns, and one child born to a Michigan mother infected with hepatitis B virus died of it. Similarly, a study found that the number of hospitals who failed to properly vaccinate infants of hepatitis B seropositive mothers rose by over 6 times. This is a potential negative outcome given the high probability that infants who acquire hepatitis B infection at birth will develop the infection in a chronic form and possibly liver cancer.
The notion that thiomersal causes autism has led some parents to have their children treated with costly and potentially dangerous therapies such as chelation therapy, which is typically used to treat heavy metal poisoning, due to parental fears that autism is a form of "mercury poisoning". As many as 2 to 8% of autistic children in the U.S., numbering as many as several thousand children per year, receive mercury-chelating agents. Although critics of using chelation therapy as an autism treatment point to a lack of any evidence to support its use, hundreds of doctors prescribe these medications despite possible side effects including nutritional deficiencies as well as damage to the liver and kidney. The popularity of this therapy caused a "public health imperative" that led the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to commission a study about chelation in autism by studying DMSA, a chelating agent used for lead poisoning, despite worries from critics that there would be no chance it would show positive results and it would be unlikely to convince parents to not use the therapy. Ultimately, the study was halted due to ethical concerns that there would be too much risk to children with autism who did not have toxic levels of mercury or lead due to a new animal study showing possible cognitive and emotional problems associated with DMSA. A 5-year-old autistic boy died from cardiac arrest immediately after receiving chelation therapy treatment using EDTA in 2005.
The notion has also diverted attention and resources away from efforts to determine the causes of autism. The 2004 Institute of Medicine report committee recommended that while it supported "targeted research that focuses on better understanding the disease of autism, from a public health perspective the committee does not consider a significant investment in studies of the theoretical vaccine-autism connection to be useful at this time." Alison Singer, a senior executive of Autism Speaks, resigned from the group in 2009 in a dispute over whether to fund more research on links between vaccination and autism, saying, "There isn't an unlimited pot of money, and every dollar spent looking where we know the answer isn't is one less dollar we have to spend where we might find new answers."
## Court cases
From 1988 until August 2010, 5,632 claims relating to autism were made to Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (commonly known as the "Vaccine Court") which oversees vaccine injury claims, of which one case has received compensation, 738 cases have been dismissed with no compensations made, and with the remaining cases pending. In the one case which received compensation, the U.S. government agreed to pay for injury to a child that had a pre-existing mitochondrial disorder who developed autism-like symptoms after multiple vaccinations, some of which included thiomersal. Citing the inability to rule out a role of these vaccinations in exacerbating her underlying mitochondrial disorder as the rationale for payment, CDC officials cautioned against generalizing this one case to all autism-related vaccine cases as most patients with autism do not have a mitochondrial disorder. In February 2009, this court also ruled on three autism-related cases, each exploring different mechanisms that plaintiffs proposed linked thiomersal-containing vaccines with autism. Three judges independently found no evidence that vaccines caused autism and denied the plaintiffs compensation. Since these same mechanisms formed the basis for the vast majority of remaining autism-related vaccine injury cases, the chance for compensation in any of these cases has significantly decreased. In March 2010, the court ruled in three other test cases that thiomersal-containing vaccines do not cause autism.
## See also
- Vaccine shedding
- Vaccine hesitancy
- Folk epidemiology of autism
- Lancet MMR autism fraud
|
230,910 |
Natacha Rambova
| 1,165,761,574 |
20th-century American film personality and fashion designer
|
[
"1897 births",
"1966 deaths",
"20th-century American actresses",
"20th-century American memoirists",
"20th-century American screenwriters",
"20th-century American women writers",
"20th-century astrologers",
"Actresses from Salt Lake City",
"American Egyptologists",
"American Latter Day Saints",
"American art directors",
"American astrologers",
"American costume designers",
"American fashion designers",
"American film producers",
"American people of Irish descent",
"American scenic designers",
"American silent film actresses",
"American spiritualists",
"American stage actresses",
"American women archaeologists",
"American women fashion designers",
"American women film producers",
"American women memoirists",
"American women screenwriters",
"Artists from Salt Lake City",
"Artists from San Francisco",
"Dancers from California",
"Dancers from Utah",
"Rudolph Valentino",
"Screenwriters from California",
"Screenwriters from Utah",
"Women film pioneers",
"Women graphic designers",
"Women scenic designers",
"Writers from Salt Lake City",
"Writers from San Francisco"
] |
Natacha Rambova (born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy; January 19, 1897 – June 5, 1966) was an American film costume designer, set designer, and occasional actress who was active in Hollywood in the 1920s. In her later life, she abandoned design to pursue other interests, specifically Egyptology, a subject on which she became a published scholar in the 1950s.
Rambova was born into a prominent family in Salt Lake City who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was raised in San Francisco and educated in England before beginning her career as a dancer, performing under Russian ballet choreographer Theodore Kosloff in New York City. She relocated to Los Angeles at age 19, where she became an established costume designer for Hollywood film productions. It was there she became acquainted with actor Rudolph Valentino, with whom she had a two-year marriage from 1923 to 1925. Rambova's association with Valentino afforded her a widespread celebrity typically afforded to actors. Although they shared many interests such as art, poetry and spiritualism, his colleagues felt that she exercised too much control over his work and blamed her for several expensive career flops.
After divorcing Valentino in 1925, Rambova operated her own clothing store in Manhattan before moving to Europe and marrying the aristocrat Álvaro de Urzáiz in 1932. It was during this time that she visited Egypt and developed a fascination with the country that remained for the rest of her life. Rambova spent her later years studying Egyptology and earned two Mellon Grants to travel there and study Egyptian symbols and belief systems. She served as the editor of the first three volumes of Egyptian Religious Texts and Representations (1954–7) by Alexandre Piankoff, also contributing a chapter on symbology in the third volume. She died in 1966 in California of a heart attack while working on a manuscript examining patterns within the texts in the Pyramid of Unas.
Rambova has been noted by fashion and art historians for her unique costume designs that drew on and synthesized a variety of influences, as well as her dedication to historical accuracy in crafting them. Academics have also cited her interpretive contributions to the field of Egyptology as significant. In popular culture, Rambova has been depicted in several films and television series, figuring significantly in the Valentino biopics The Legend of Valentino (1975), in which she was portrayed by Yvette Mimieux, and Ken Russell's Valentino (1977) by Michelle Phillips. She was also featured in a fictionalized narrative in the network series American Horror Story: Hotel (2015), portrayed by Alexandra Daddario.
## Early life
Rambova was born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy on January 19, 1897, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her father, Michael Shaughnessy, was an Irish Catholic from New York City who fought for the Union during the American Civil War and then worked in the mining industry. Her mother, Winifred Shaughnessy (née Kimball), was the granddaughter of Heber C. Kimball, a member of the first presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was raised in a prominent Salt Lake City family. At her father's wishes, Rambova was baptized a Catholic at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City in June 1897, though she later was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the urging of her mother at age eight.
Rambova's parents had a tumultuous relationship: Her father was an alcoholic, and often sold her mother's possessions to pay off gambling debts. This led Winifred (senior) to divorce Shaughnessy in 1900 and relocate with Rambova to San Francisco. There, she remarried to Edgar de Wolfe in 1907. During her childhood, Rambova spent summer vacations at the Villa Trianon in Le Chesnay, France with Edgar's sister, the French designer Elsie de Wolfe. The marriage between Winifred (senior) and Edgar de Wolfe was short-lived, and she again remarried, this time to millionaire perfume mogul Richard Hudnut. Rambova was adopted by her new stepfather, making her legal name Winifred Hudnut. Rambova was given the nickname "Wink" by her aunt Teresa to distinguish her from her mother because of their shared name. She also sometimes went by Winifred de Wolfe, after her former step-aunt Elsie, with whom she maintained a relationship after her mother's divorce from Edgar.
A rebellious teenager, Rambova was sent by her mother to Leatherhead Court, a boarding school in Surrey, England. In her schooling, she became fascinated by Greek mythology, and also proved especially gifted at ballet. After seeing Anna Pavlova in a production of Swan Lake in Paris with her former step-aunt Elsie, Rambova decided she wanted to pursue a career as a ballerina. Her family had encouraged her to study ballet purely as a social grace, and were appalled when she chose it as her career. Her aunt Teresa, however, was supportive, and took Rambova to New York City, where she studied under the Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Theodore Kosloff in his Imperial Russian Ballet Company. While dancing under Kosloff, she adopted the Russian-inspired stage name Natacha Rambova. Standing at 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m), Rambova was too tall to be a classical ballerina, but was given leading parts by the then-32-year-old Kosloff, who soon became her lover. Rambova's mother was outraged upon discovering the affair as Rambova was 17 years old at the time, and she tried to have Kosloff deported on statutory rape charges. Rambova retaliated against her mother by fleeing abroad, and her mother ultimately agreed to her continuing to perform with the company.
## Career
### Design in film
Around 1917, Kosloff was hired by Cecil B. DeMille as a performer and costume designer for DeMille's Hollywood films, after which he and Rambova relocated from New York to Los Angeles. Rambova carried out much of the creative work as well as the historical research for Kosloff, and he then stole her sketches and claimed credit for these as his own. When Kosloff started work for fellow-Russian film producer Alla Nazimova at Metro Pictures Corporation (later MGM) in 1919, he sent Rambova to present some designs. Nazimova requested some alterations, and was impressed when Rambova was able to make these changes immediately in her own hand. Nazimova offered Rambova a position on her production staff as an art director and costume designer, proposing a wage of up to USD\$5,000 per picture (). Rambova immediately began working for Nazimova on the comedy film Billions (1920), for which she supplied the costumes and served as art director. She also designed the costumes for two Cecil DeMille films in 1920: Why Change Your Wife? and Something to Think About. The following year, she served as the art director on the DeMille production Forbidden Fruit (1921), in which she designed (with Mitchell Leisen) an elaborate costume for a Cinderella-inspired fantasy sequence.
While working on her second project for Nazimova—Aphrodite, which never was filmed—Rambova revealed to Kosloff that she planned on leaving him. During the ensuing argument, he attempted to kill her, shooting at her with a shotgun. The gun fired into Rambova's leg, and the bullet lodged above her knee. Rambova fled the Hollywood apartment she shared with Kosloff to the set of Aphrodite, where a cameraman helped her remove the birdshot from her leg. Despite the nature of the incident, she continued to live with Kosloff for some time.
Stylistically, Rambova favored designers such as Paul Poiret, Léon Bakst, and Aubrey Beardsley. She specialized in "exotic" and "foreign" effects in both costume and stage design. For costumes she favored bright colors, baubles, bangles, shimmering draped fabrics, sparkles, and feathers. She also strived for historical accuracy in her costume and set designs. As noted in The Moving Picture World's review of 1917's The Woman God Forgot (Rambova's first film project): "To the student of history the accuracy of the exteriors, interiors, costumes, and accessories ... [the film] will make strong appeal."
### Relationship with Rudolph Valentino
In 1921, Rambova was introduced to actor Rudolph Valentino on the set of Nazimova's Uncharted Seas (1921). She and Valentino subsequently worked together on Camille (1921), a film which was a financial failure and resulted in Metro Pictures terminating their contract with Nazimova. While making the film, however, Rambova and Valentino became romantically involved. Although Valentino was still married to American film actress Jean Acker, he and Rambova moved in together within a year, having formed a relationship based more on friendship and shared interests than on emotional or professional rapport. They then had to pretend to separate until Valentino's divorce was finalized, and married on May 13, 1922, in Mexicali, Mexico, an event described by Rambova as "wonderful ... even though it did cause many worries and heartaches later." However, the law required a year to pass before remarriage, and Valentino was jailed for bigamy, having to be bailed out by friends. They legally remarried on March 14, 1923, in Crown Point, Indiana.
Both Rambova and Valentino were spiritualists, and they frequently visited psychics and took part in séances and automatic writing. Valentino wrote a book of poetry, entitled Daydreams, with many poems about Rambova. When it came to domestic life, Valentino and Rambova turned out to hold very different views. Valentino cherished Old World ideals of a woman being a housewife and mother, while Rambova was intent on maintaining a career and had no intention of being a housewife. Valentino was known as an excellent cook, while actress Patsy Ruth Miller suspected Rambova didn't know "how to make burnt fudge," although the truth was she did occasionally bake and was an excellent seamstress. Valentino wanted children, but Rambova did not.
While her association with Valentino lent Rambova a celebrity typically afforded to actors, their professional collaborations showed-up their differences more than their similarities, and she did not contribute to any of his successful films in spite of serving as his manager. In The Young Rajah (1922) she designed authentic Indian costumes that tended to compromise his Latin lover image, and the film was a major flop. She also supported his one-man strike against Famous Players–Lasky, which left him temporarily banned from movie work. In the interval, they performed a promotional dance-tour for Mineralava Beauty Products, to keep his name in the spotlight, though when they reached her hometown of Salt Lake City, and she was billed as "The Little Pigtailed Shaughnessy Girl", Rambova was deeply insulted. In 1923, Rambova helped design the costumes for friend Alla Nazimova in Salomé, inspired by the work of Aubrey Beardsley. Beginning in February 1924, she accompanied Valentino on a trip abroad that was profiled in twenty-six installments published in Movie Weekly over the course of six months.
Rambova's later work with Valentino was characterised by elaborate and costly preparations for films that either flopped or never manifested. These included Monsieur Beaucaire, The Sainted Devil, and The Hooded Falcon (a film that Rambova co-wrote, but was never realized). By this time, critics and the press were beginning to blame Rambova's excessive control for these failures. United Artists went so far as to offer Valentino an exclusive contract with the stipulation that Rambova had no negotiating power, and was disallowed from even visiting the sets of his films. After this, Rambova was offered \$30,000 to create a film of her choosing, which resulted in the production of What Price Beauty?, a drama which she co-produced and co-wrote. In 1925, Rambova and Valentino separated, and an acrimonious divorce ensued.
After the divorce proceedings began, Rambova moved on to other ventures: On March 2, 1926, she patented a doll she had designed with a "combined coverlet", and also produced and starred in her own picture, Do Clothes Make the Woman? with Clive Brook (now lost). However, the distributor took the opportunity to bill her as 'Mrs. Valentino' and changed the title to When Love Grows Cold; Rambova was horrified by the title change. The film did garner press due to it being Rambova's first screen credit, however. An Oregon newspaper teased before a screening: "Natacha Rambova (Mrs. Rudolph Valentino) ... So much has been written of this remarkable lady who won and lost the heart of the great Valentino that everyone wants to see her. Tonight is your opportunity to do so." The film, however, was not well received by critics; a review in Picture Play deemed the film "the poorest picture of the month, or of almost any month, for that matter," adding: "The interiors are bad, the costumes atrocious. Miss Rambova is not well dressed, nor does she film well, in the slightest degree." After its release, Rambova never worked in film, on or offscreen, again. Three months later, Valentino died unexpectedly of peritonitis, leaving Rambova inconsolable, and she purportedly locked herself in her bedroom for three days. Though she did not attend his funeral, she sent a telegram to Valentino's business manager George Ullman, requesting he be buried in her family crypt at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx (a request Ullman denied).
### Writing and fashion design
After Valentino's death, Rambova relocated to New York City. There, she immersed herself in several endeavors, appearing in vaudeville at the Palace Theatre and writing a semi-fictional play entitled All that Glitters, which detailed her relationship with Valentino, and concluded in a fictionalized happy reconciliation. She also published the 1926 memoir, Rudy: An Intimate Portrait by His Wife Natacha Rambova, which contains memories of her life with him. The following year, a second memoir was published entitled Rudolph Valentino Recollections (a variation of Rudy: An Intimate Portrait), in which she prefaces an addended final chapter by asking that only those "ready to accept the truth" read on; what follows is a detailed letter supposedly communicated by Valentino's spirit from an astral plane, which Rambova claimed to have received during an automatic writing session. While residing in New York, she frequently arranged séances with medium George Wehner, and claimed to have made contact with Valentino's spirit on several occasions. Rambova also appeared in supporting parts in two original 1927 Broadway productions: Set a Thief, a drama written by Edward E. Paramore, Jr., and Creoles, a comedy written by Kenneth Perkins and Samuel Shipman.
In June 1928, she opened an elite couture shop on Fifth Avenue and West 55th street in Manhattan, which sold Russian-inspired clothing that Rambova herself designed. Her clientele included Broadway and Hollywood actresses such as Beulah Bondi and Mae Murray. On opening the shop, she commented: "I'm in business, not exactly because I need the money, but because it enables me to give vent to an artistic urge." In addition to clothing, the shop also carried jewelry, although it is unknown if it was designed by Rambova or imported. By late 1931, Rambova had grown uneasy about the economic situation of the United States during the Great Depression, and feared the country would experience a drastic revolution. This led her to close her shop and formally retire from commercial fashion design, leaving the United States to live in Juan-les-Pins, France in 1932. On a yacht cruise to the Balearic Islands, she met her second husband Álvaro de Urzáiz, a British-educated Spanish aristocrat, whom she married in 1932. They lived together on the island of Mallorca and restored abandoned Spanish villas for tourists, a venture financed by Rambova's inheritance from her stepfather.
It was during her marriage to Urzáiz that Rambova first toured Egypt in January 1936, visiting the ancient monuments in Memphis, Luxor, and Thebes. While there, she met archeologist Howard Carter, and became fascinated by the country and its history, which had a profound effect on her. "I felt as if I had at last returned home," she said. "The first few days I was there I couldn't stop the tears streaming from my eyes. It was not sadness, but some emotional impact from the past – a returning to a place once loved after too long a time." Upon returning to Spain, Urzáiz became a naval commander for the pro-fascist nationalist side during the Spanish Civil War. Rambova fled the country to a familial château in Nice, where she suffered a heart attack at age forty. Soon after, she and Urzáiz separated. Rambova remained in France until the Nazi invasion in June 1940, upon which she returned to New York.
### Egyptology and scholarly work
Rambova's interest in the metaphysical evolved significantly during the 1940s, and she became an avid supporter of the Bollingen Foundation, through which she believed she could see a past life in Egypt. Rambova was also follower of Helena Blavatsky and George Gurdjieff, and conducted classes in her Manhattan apartment about myths, symbolism and comparative religion. She also began publishing articles on healing, astrology, yoga, post-war rehabilitation, and numerous other topics, some of which appeared in American Astrology and Harper's Bazaar. In 1945, the Old Dominion (a predecessor to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) awarded Rambova a grant-in-aid of USD\$500 for "making a collection of essential cosmological symbols for a proposed archive of comparative universal symbolism." Rambova intended to use her research to generate a book, which she wanted Ananda Coomaraswamy to write, with the principal themes derived from astrology, theosophy, and Atlantis. In an undated letter to Mary Mellon, she wrote:
> It is so necessary that gradually people be given the realization of a universal pattern of purpose and human growth, which the knowledge of the mysteries of initiation of the Atlantean past, as the source of our symbols of the Unconscious, gives ... Just as you said, knowledge of the meaning of the destruction of Atlantis and the present cycle of recurrence would give people an understanding of the present situation.
Rambova's intellectual investment in Egypt also led her to undertake work deciphering ancient scarabs and tomb inscriptions, which she began researching in 1946. Initially, she believed she would find evidence of a connection between ancient Egyptian belief systems and those of ancient American cultures. While researching at the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo, she met the institute's director, Alexandre Piankoff, with whom she established a rapport based on their shared interest in Egyptology. Piankoff introduced her to his French translation of the Book of Caverns, a royal funerary text, which he was working on at the time. "To my amazement, I found that it contains all the most important esoteric material," Rambova wrote. "I can only compare it to the Coptic Pistis Sophia, the Tibetan Voice of the Silence, and the Hindu Sutras of Patanjali. It is what I have been looking for for years."
Her interest in the Book of Caverns led her to abandon her studies of scarabs, and she began translating Piankoff's French translation into English, an endeavor she felt "was the main purpose and point" of her studies in Egypt. She secured a second two-year grant of US\$50,000 through the Mellon and Bollingen Foundations (a considerably large grant for the time) to help Piankoff photograph and publish his work on the Book of Caverns. In the winter of 1949–50, she joined Piankoff and Elizabeth Thomas in Luxor to undertake further studies. In the spring of 1950, the group was given permission to photograph and study inscriptions on golden shrines that had once enclosed the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun, after which they toured the Pyramid of Unas at Saqqara.
After completing the expedition in Egypt, Rambova returned to the United States, where, in 1954, she donated her extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts (accumulated over years of research) to the University of Utah's Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA). She settled in New Milford, Connecticut, where she spent the following several years working as an editor on the first three volumes of Piankoff's series Egyptian Texts and Religious Representations, which was based on the research he had done with Rambova and Thomas. The first volume was The Tomb of Ramesses VI published in 1954, followed by The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon in 1955. During this time, she kept regular correspondence with fellow Egyptologists William C. Hayes and Richard Parker.
For the third volume of Piankoff's series, Mythological Papyri (published in 1957), Rambova contributed her own chapter in which she discussed semiotics in Egyptian papyri. Rambova continued to write and research intensely into her sixties, often working twelve hours per day. In the years prior to her death, she was working on a manuscript examining texts from the Pyramid of Unas for a translation by Piankoff. This manuscript, which exceeds a thousand pages, was donated to the Brooklyn Museum after her death. Two additional manuscripts were also left behind, which are part of Yale University's Yale in Egypt collection: The Cosmic Circuit: Religious Origins of the Zodiac and The Mystery Pattern in Ancient Symbolism: A Philosophic Interpretation.
## Later life and death
In the early 1950s Rambova developed scleroderma, which significantly affected her throat, impeding her ability to swallow and speak.
In 1957, Rambova moved to New Milford, Connecticut, and devoted her time to researching a comparative study of ancient religious symbolism, which she continued virtually unabated until her death.
She grew delusional, believing that she was being poisoned, and quit eating, resulting in malnourishment. On September 29, 1965, she was discovered going "berserk" in a hotel elevator in Manhattan. Rambova was admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital, where she was diagnosed with paranoid psychosis brought on by malnutrition.
With her health in rapid decline, Rambova's cousin, Ann Wollen, relocated her from her home in Connecticut to California, in order to help take care of her. There, Rambova was admitted to Methodist Hospital in Arcadia. On January 19, 1966 (her 69th birthday), she was relocated to a nursing home at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena. She died there six months later of a heart attack on June 5, 1966, at the age of 69. At her wishes, Rambova was cremated, and her ashes were scattered in a forest in northern Arizona.
## Claims regarding personal life
Claims that Rambova was bisexual or homosexual date back to at least 1975 when they appeared in Kenneth Anger's notoriously libelous Hollywood Babylon, in which it is written that Rambova claimed to have never consummated her marriage with Rudolph Valentino. This has led some historians to refer to the couple's union as a "lavender marriage." The claim, however, is at odds with the grounds of Valentino's 1922 arrest after the couple's wedding: he was arrested and jailed for consummating the marriage in Palm Springs, California despite still being legally married to Jean Acker. Discussion of Rambova's sexuality continued to appear in academic and biographical texts throughout the 1980s and beyond.
The basis of the claim is an alleged relationship Rambova had with Alla Nazimova, her friend and peer while Rambova was beginning her career in film design. Similar inferences have been made about others in Nazimova's social circle, including Marlene Dietrich, Eva Le Gallienne, and Greta Garbo.
Whether Rambova was bisexual or homosexual is unclear; some have disputed such claims, including journalist David Wallace, who dismisses it as rumor in his 2002 book Lost Hollywood. Biographer Morris also disputes the claim, writing in his epilogue of Madam Valentino that "the convenient ... allegation that Rambova was a lesbian collapses when one scrutinizes the facts." Additionally, a close friend of writer Mercedes de Acosta (also an alleged lover of Nazimova) told Morris that she believed Rambova and Nazimova's relationship was nothing other than platonic. Rambova's friend Dorothy Norman also stated that Rambova had been "displeased" by De Acosta's controversial 1960 autobiography, which implied she was bisexual or homosexual, as it had "cast her in an improper light." In his 1996 book The Silent Feminists, Anthony Slide stated that "all who [knew] Rambova deny that she was a gay woman."
## Cultural significance
### Design and fashion
Rambova was one of the few women in Hollywood during the 1920s to serve as a head art designer in film productions. At the time, her costume and set designs were considered "highly stylized," and divided opinion among critics. A 1925 Picture Play magazine profile on What Price Beauty? noted the "bizarre" effects present, adding: "Miss Rambova insists the picture will be popular in its appeal, and not, as one might think, "arty."" Rambova's sets incorporated shimmering shades of silver and white against sharp "moderne" lines, and blended elements of Bauhaus and Asian-inspired geometries.
Commenting on her career in film, design historian Robert La Vine proclaimed Rambova one of the "most inventive designers ... ever," also noting her as one of few who crafted both sets and costumes. Film historian Robert Klepper wrote of her designs in Camille (1921): "In evaluating the film today, one has to give art director Natacha Rambova her due credit for her vision as an artist. The deco sets are beautiful, and the ultra modern design was far ahead of its time. Although Rambova may have influenced her future husband Valentino to make some bad business decisions, her talent as an artist cannot be denied." Historian Pat Kirkham also praised her contributions to film, writing that she created "some of the most visually unified films in Hollywood history." Costume historian Deborah Landis named Rambova's white rubberized tunic (worn by Alla Nazimova) and the Art Deco-inspired imagery of Salome (1922) among the "most memorable in motion picture history."
Though her work in both set and costume design has been deemed influential by film and fashion historians alike, Rambova herself claimed to "loathe fashion," adding:
> I want to dress in a way that is becoming to me, whether it is the style of the hour or not. So it should be with all women, in my opinion. All women should not wear knee-length skirts, even if that is the prevailing fashion; clothes that are becoming to the tall, languid type, would not do at all for a short girl of the staccato type, who has to have sharp clothes to express her personality.
Thus, Rambova's approach to fashion design in her post-film career was conscious of the individual, a practice which fashion historian Heather Vaughan suggests was carried over from her past designing movie costumes for "individual character types." Vaughan adds: "While not necessarily an innovator of fashion, her Hollywood cachet and ability to synthesize fashion and traditional cultures allowed her to create designs and a personal style that continues to fascinate."
Rambova's clothing designs drew on various influences, described by fashion critics as blending and re-working elements of Renaissance, 18th-century, Oriental, Grecian, Russian, and Victorian fashion. Common preferences in her work included the dolman sleeve, long skirts with high waists, premium velvets, and intricate embroidery, as well as incorporation of geometric shapes and use of "vivid colors ... that are violent and definite. Scarlets, vermilions, strong blues, [and] blazoning purples." She was cited as influential by several designers with whom she worked, including Norman Norell, Adrian, and Irene Sharaff. Rambova typically dressed in the style of her designs, and thus her personal style was also influential: She often wore her hair in coiled "ballerina style" braids, sometimes covered in a headscarf or turban, with dangling earrings and calf-length velvet or brocade skirts. Actress Myrna Loy once proclaimed Rambova the "most beautiful woman she'd ever seen." In 2003, Rambova was posthumously inducted into the Costume Designers' Guild Hall of Fame.
### Scholarly influence
Rambova's scholarly work has been regarded as significant by contemporary academics in the fields of Egyptology and history: archaeologist Barbara Lesko notes that her contribution to Piankoff's Mythological Papyri "demonstrates her organizational skills and her commitment to searching out truths and does not reek of unfounded theories or other eccentricity." Rambova's research, specifically her metaphysical interpretations of texts, has been deemed useful by Egyptologists Rudolph Anthes, Edward Wente, and Erik Hornung. In the 1950s, Rambova donated her extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts to the University of Utah, displayed in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts's Natacha Rambova Collection of Egyptian Antiquities. Both Rambova and her mother were credited as "vital" to the establishment of the museum through their donations of paintings, furniture, and artifacts.
## Depictions in art and film
Rambova has been depicted across several mediums, including visual art, film, and television: She was the subject of a 1925 painting by Serbian artist Paja Jovanović (donated by her mother to the UMFA in 1949). In 1975, she was portrayed by Yvette Mimieux in Melville Shavelson's television film The Legend of Valentino (1975), and again by Michelle Phillips in Ken Russell's feature film Valentino (1977). Ksenia Jarova later portrayed her in the American silent film Silent Life (2016), and she also figured in a fictionalized narrative in the network series American Horror Story: Hotel (2015), played by Alexandra Daddario.
## Filmography
§ Indicates surviving films
## Stage credits
|
6,737,753 |
Edward N. Hall
| 1,159,287,252 |
American engineer (1914–2006)
|
[
"1914 births",
"2006 deaths",
"20th-century American engineers",
"American aerospace engineers",
"California Institute of Technology alumni",
"City College of New York alumni",
"Military personnel from New York City",
"People from Forest Hills, Queens",
"Recipients of the Legion of Merit",
"United States Air Force officers",
"United States Army Air Forces officers"
] |
Edward Nathaniel Hall (4 August 1914 – 15 January 2006) was a leading missile development engineer working for the United States and its allies in World War II and the late 20th century. He is known as the father of the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile.
A graduate of the College of the City of New York, Hall enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in September 1939. During World War II he served in Britain where he was awarded the Legion of Merit for the repair of battle-damaged Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers. After the war ended he was assigned to the Wright Air Development Center (WADC), a top secret research lab where he collated reports on the German V-2 rocket and participated in the development of solid and liquid rocket power plants, working with Rocketdyne to develop more powerful rocket engines.
In August 1954 Hall joined the Western Development Division as the chief of Propulsion Development, and directed the development of engines for the Atlas, Titan and Thor missiles. In 1957 he was the director of the Thor development program and supervised the installation of Thor missiles in the UK. He also headed the Minuteman project, and then went to Europe, where, at the urging of the Pentagon, he started the French Diamant missile project, a nuclear warhead-carrying IRBM which was central to President De Gaulle's desire for France to have an independent nuclear force separate from the US and NATO.
## Early life
Edward Nathaniel Holtzberg was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, the son of Rose Moskowitz and Barnett Holtzberg, a furrier. His family was Jewish. He had a younger brother, Theodore (Ted), who became an accomplished physicist. Ted worked for the Manhattan Project and became an atomic spy, passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. The family company his father worked for, J. Holtzberg and Sons, went broke during the Great Depression and the banks foreclosed, but Edward gained admission to Townsend Harris Hall Prep School by passing a competitive examination. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the College of the City of New York, where education was free, in 1935 and a professional degree in chemical engineering the following year.
Jobs for chemical engineers were hard to find during the Great Depression years, and despite having two degrees, he was unable to find work. He suspected that this was due to the prevalent antisemitism in the United States, and in 1936 he and his brother Ted, then 11, legally changed their surname to "Hall". He still had trouble finding work as a chemical engineer, and for a time worked as an auto mechanic, a steamfitter, a plumber, an electrician and a radio repairman.
## World War II
Hall enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps on 26 September 1939; the Air Corps was not yet commissioning engineers as officers. He attended the school for airplane mechanics at Chanute Field near Chicago. After graduating, he was posted to March Field in California, and then to Elmendorf Field in Alaska, where his skill at repairing aircraft and fixing the mistakes of others earned him a promotion to sergeant. In 1941, the Air Corps put out a call for enlisted men with appropriate qualifications to apply for commissions. Hall immediately did so, and he was commissioned as a second lieutenant soon after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II.
In late 1942, Hall was sent to Britain. Soon after he arrived, he met Edith Shawcross, a niece of the English barrister and politician Hartley Shawcross and a graduate of St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she earned an honors degree in botany. They were married in June 1943, and had two sons, David and Jonathan, and a daughter, Sheila.
Hall became the officer in charge of the repair of battle-damaged Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers aircraft at Base Air Depot 2 at Warton Aerodrome. He received the Legion of Merit for devising a new method of airplane spar repair that saved several days by eliminating the stripping of the skin from the wings to replace the spar. Plates that spanned the fractured spar were connected with oversized pins, forced through holes drilled through the plate/spar overlap using extreme hydraulic pressure. The award of the Legion of Merit was very unusual for a first lieutenant. He was promoted to captain in October 1943 and major on 1 June 1945.
Hall's introduction to missiles came near the war's end when he was assigned to acquire intelligence on Germany's wartime propulsion work. He was awarded the Bronze Star for this work, which began in conquered territory within Germany before the war had ended, and ended with his joining a special forces Army team at Peenemunde and Nordhausen in the eastern zone of Germany officially occupied by the Soviet Red Army.
## Missile development work
Hall returned to the United States with his family in 1946, and was assigned to the Wright Air Development Center (WADC) at Wright Field in Ohio. He hoped that his assignment would be to work on the development of rocket engines, but instead he became the chief propulsion officer in the Technical Intelligence Department, collating reports on the German V-2 rocket. He joined the United States Air Force (USAF) on its formation in September 1947, and soon after he moved to Pasadena, California, where he earned a Master of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1948. The Technical Intelligence Department then sent him back to Britain to evaluate the capabilities of the Rolls-Royce Nene jet engines that the United Kingdom had sold the Soviet Union for its MiG-15 fighters.
On 22 May 1950, Hall returned to the WADC as the assistant chief of the Non-Rotating Engine Branch of the Power Plant Laboratory, which was responsible for rockets and ramjets. He participated in the development of solid and liquid rocket power plants. He worked with Rocketdyne to develop a more powerful engine than the one used in the V-2, providing USAF funding for the project. The resulting engine had 75,000 pounds-force (330,000 N) of thrust, but was neither as powerful nor as reliable as Hall wanted. Nonetheless, it saw service in the Army's Redstone missile, which had its first launch in 1953. He pursued the development of a larger rocket engine, diverting funds intended for the development of the Navaho cruise missile, which Hall regarded as impractical owing to the limitations of the inertial navigation systems of the day.
Hall discovered that among the projects that Major Sidney Greene, the chief of the New Developments Office, was responsible for was Project MX-1593, the Atlas missile program. At this point only paper studies had been done. Hall suggested that the project be transferred to him, and \$2 million (equivalent to \$ million in ) earmarked for studies by Convair be transferred to him and used to pay Rocketdyne for the development of a prototype rocket engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) based on the Navaho engine. Greene agreed to do this. This was legal, but should have been cleared with the WADC commander, Major General Albert Boyd. When Convair found out about this, a complaint was lodged with the Secretary of the Air Force, Harold E. Talbott, who asked Boyd for an explanation. After hearing what Greene had to say, Boyd endorsed his decision. The result of the efforts of Hall and Rocketdyne's engineers was a prototype engine that generated 120,000 pounds-force (530,000 N) of thrust. Like most liquid fuel engines, it burned liquid oxygen and alcohol fuel. Hall realised that highly-refined kerosene would make a better rocket fuel, and he gave it the military designation RP-1. Modifying the engine to burn RP-1 lifted its thrust to 135,000 pounds-force (600,000 N).
In May 1954, on the recommendation of the "Teapot" Committee chaired by John von Neumann, the USAF accorded top priority to Project Atlas, and Colonel Bernard A. Schriever was appointed to command the Western Development Division (WDD) in Inglewood, California, which oversaw its development. Hall, now a lieutenant colonel, joined the WDD in August 1954 as the chief of Propulsion Development. As such, he directed the development of engines for the Atlas and Titan ICBMs, and the Thor intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM). He was promoted to colonel in February 1957. That year, Hall became director of the Weapon System 315A (Thor) development program. Hall differed with Schriever over the role of Ramo-Wooldridge, which Schriever had contracted to oversee the integration of the project; Hall felt that USAF had sufficient technical expertise to manage the project itself. Schriever sent Hall to England to supervise the installation of Thor missiles there.
After Schriever relieved him as the director of the Thor project in 1957, Hall requested a transfer out of the WDD, but Schriever declined his request and gave Hall the job of overseeing development of Weapon System 133A, the Minuteman missile. This would be the first ICBM to use solid fuel, and as such was a major challenge, and one that Hall had long sought. A solid-fuel ICBM potentially had many advantages over a liquid-fuel one, first and foremost that it could be stored in readiness for long periods of time, and then launched in "under a minute". There were many technical obstacles that had to be overcome. The problem of getting the fuel to burn evenly was solved by Hall's idea of casting the fuel with a star-shaped cut down the middle. A more difficult problem that Hall solved was that of shutting down the rocket in flight, which he achieved by opening ports to reduce the pressure and snuff out the propellant. Steering was achieved with swiveling engine nozzles.
The resulting three-stage rocket weighed only 65,000 pounds (29,000 kg) at lift-off compared to 243,000 pounds (110,000 kg) for Atlas. To do this, he compelled the nuclear weapon designers to get the weight of a 1-megatonne-of-TNT (4.2 PJ) hydrogen bomb down to under 500 pounds (230 kg). Hall remained in charge of Minuteman until August 1958, when Schriever relieved him. As the design problems were largely solved and the project moved into a new phase of testing and production, Schriever felt that the project required someone with greater administrative skills who could work more harmoniously with all the stakeholders involved. Hall was awarded an oak leaf cluster to his Legion of Merit in 1960 for his contribution to the development of solid-fuel rockets. He would be remembered as the "father of the Minuteman ICBM".
Hall was sent to Paris to take the lead in designing, developing, producing, and deploying a solid-fueled IRBM for NATO. Coordinating engineers from France, Germany, Italy and the UK was no easy task, but he managed to get the project under way. The result of this effort was the only European IRBM: the French Diamant.
## Later life
On 27 October 1959, Hall retired from the Air Force with the rank of colonel and then joined United Aircraft Corporation as an engineer. He spent fourteen years there before retiring. In retirement, he continued to perform consulting work for aerospace companies. In 1999, he received the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Award and was elected a member of the Hall of Fame at the US Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
A broken hip in 2005 and other medical problems left him bedridden at his home in Rolling Hills Estates for a year and a half. He died at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in Torrance, California, on 15 January 2006.
|
24,814,721 |
Sister City (Parks and Recreation)
| 1,170,965,847 | null |
[
"2009 American television episodes",
"Parks and Recreation (season 2) episodes",
"Venezuela in fiction"
] |
"Sister City" is the fifth episode of the second season of Parks and Recreation, and the eleventh overall episode of the series. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on October 15, 2009. In the episode, Leslie welcomes a delegation from Venezuela, who act disrespectfully toward Pawnee and the United States.
The episode was written by Alan Yang and directed by series co-creator Michael Schur. It featured Saturday Night Live performer Fred Armisen in a guest appearance as Raul, the head of the Venezuelan delegation. According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was seen by 4.69 million household viewers, a drop from the previous week. The episode received generally positive reviews.
## Plot
Leslie (Amy Poehler) and the Pawnee parks department prepare for a visit by park department officials from Boraqua, Pawnee's Sister City in Venezuela. Leslie warns her co-workers the Venezuelan government officials will likely be poor, simple people. Later, the Venezuelan delegation arrives, headed by their parks department vice director Raul Alejandro Bastilla Pedro de Veloso de Morana, the Vice-director Ejecutivo del Diputado del Departamento de Parques, L.G.V. (Fred Armisen), Antonio, Jhonny and Elvis. There are cultural clashes right away, like when they mistake Tom (Aziz Ansari) for a servant and order him to get their bags. They also mistakenly believe they can choose any woman to have sex with; they all favor Donna (Retta). Raul and Leslie exchange gifts during a meet-and-greet party, where Raul and the Venezuelans act condescendingly toward the Pawnee residents, making offensive remarks about the town and mocking the gifts Leslie gives them. They continue to give orders to Tom, who follows along because they give him large cash tips.
The Venezuelan intern Jhonny (JC Gonzalez) falls in love with April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza), who convinces him she is feared and very powerful. Jhonny falls in love with April and sends her his car to pick her up, but she uses it to go to a movie with her friends. Meanwhile, Leslie tells the Venezuelans that she is seeking to raise \$35,000 to fill in a pit to make a park. Raul and his colleagues start to laugh, telling her they have so much money from oil, they can build whatever they want. Leslie, who is growing increasingly annoyed with the Venezuelans, decides to take them to Pawnee's nicest park with hopes of impressing them. Instead, they are disgusted, and Raul mistakes the park for the aforementioned pit. Leslie later takes them to a public meeting to show them democracy in action, but all of the citizens shout angry and annoyed questions at Leslie. An unimpressed Raul wonders where the armed guards are to take the protesters to jail. When Raul tells Leslie they live like kings in Venezuela and answer to nobody, she explodes in anger, insulting their uniforms and Hugo Chavez. The Venezuelans storm out.
Leslie calls a meeting and apologizes to Raul, who in turn apologizes as well and offers Leslie a check for \$35,000 to fill in the pit. Leslie fears it may be "dirty money", but accepts. During a photo opportunity later, Raul sets up a video camera and asks Leslie to say "Viva Venezuela" and "Viva Chavez" to it. Against her wishes, Leslie reluctantly does so. When Raul starts speaking Spanish to the camera, Leslie asks April to translate, and learns Raul is discussing his "Committee to Humiliate and Shame America". A furious Leslie tears up the \$35,000 check and shouts "Viva America", prompting Raul to declare Pawnee is no longer their sister city and storm out. Leslie insists she will raise the money to build the park without them and Tom, inspired by her example, secretly puts all the tip money he made from the Venezuelans into the park donation jar. The episode ends with Leslie and Tom later receiving an online video from April, who tells them she and Donna are vacationing with Jhonny at his Venezuelan palace, which is watched over by armed guards.
## Cast
- Fred Armisen as Raul
- Carlos Carrasco as Antonio
- Federico Dordei as Elvis
- JC Gonzalez as Jhonny
- Eric Edelstein as Lawrence
- Jim O'Heir as Jerry Gergich
- Retta as Donna Meagle
- Loudon Wainwright III as Barry
## Production
"Sister City" was written by Alan Yang and directed by series co-creator Michael Schur. The episode featured comedian Fred Armisen in a guest appearance as Raul, the vice director of a Venezuelan parks department. Armisen was a cast member of NBC's sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, where he previously worked with performer Poehler and writer Schur. Armisen has played Venezuelan characters before, and previously imitated President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez on Saturday Night Live. Armisen said he got into character by thinking about his uncle, who is from Venezuela. But he said it was not a difficult performance because "most of the joke is the uniform", which included a tan military-style jacket with medals, a red beret and a sash with the colors of the Venezuela flag. The uniform also included a fictional seal designed by Schur, which included an image of Chavez, machine guns, an oil tower, a lion and a parrot.
Schur said of the episode's plot, "They're very confused because in Venezuela the government is so powerful; their parks department travels with military escorts and motorcades and stuff. They have all the money in the world because of their oil and they (don't understand) why Pawnee's parks department is so rinky-dink." A fan of Parks and Recreation since its inception, Armisen said he laughed as soon as he read the script, and found it even funnier during the table read with the cast. After working with Armisen, Rashida Jones described him as "one of the funniest people on the planet".
Within a week of the episode's original broadcast, three deleted scenes from "Sister City" were made available on the official Parks and Recreation website. In the first 100-second clip, Ron talks about his hatred for socialism, and Raul says he fears Ron because of his mustache, which he said makes him "cower in fear" (repeatedly saying the word 'mustache'). In the second minute-long clip, Raul discusses the medals he received for his parks-related accomplishments, including "doing away with people making speeches in the parks", "organizing the garbage so it's not all over the place" and "looking at the leaves". In the third 100-second clip, Raul and the Venezuelans question why Leslie does not have a giant oil painting of herself in her office. After his final argument with Leslie, Tom refuses to follow Raul's orders to open the door for him, and Raul has trouble opening it because "it's been a while since I've done this".
## Cultural references
"Sister City" largely portrayed Chavez and his socialist ideology in a negative light. The script portrays the Venezuelans as belittling and contemptuous toward Americans. They repeatedly claim Pawnee and the United States are inferior compared to the power and splendor they are accustomed to in Venezuela. Their negative attitude toward Americans is particularly demonstrated by the name of their delegation, the Committee to Humiliate and Shame America, as well as the line from one of the delegates, "This is not personal. We just think you are weak and your city is disgusting."
While discussing how many television channels he gets in Venezuela, Raul said he already knows who wins Project Runway, a fashion design reality television show on the Bravo network. In trying to maintain composure in the face of insults from the Venezuelans, Leslie said she was following the example of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of whom she said, "Nobody takes a punch like her. She's the strongest, smartest punching bag in the world." Raul says his city is also a sister city to Kaesong, North Korea, which he said is "far nicer" than Pawnee.
## Reception
In its original American broadcast on October 15, 2009, "Sister City" was seen by 4.69 million household viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. It was a drop from the previous week's episode, "Practice Date". "Sister City" received a 2.0 rating/6 share among viewers aged between 18 and 49. The episode received generally positive reviews. Entertainment Weekly writer Henning Fog said "Sister City" continued a trend of excellence in the second season that has established Parks and Recreation as NBC's best comedy. Fog said the episode also further expanded its characters, by showing Leslie is not a complete pushover and Tom is a kind person.
Salon.com writer Heather Havrilesky called the episode an "instant classic", and particularly praised the guest performance of Fred Armisen. She said the episode "benefits from the show's writers' increasing habit of giving everything from political scandals to lame local events the Onion treatment". Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger said it was "another strong one", and said the Leslie character is growing less clueless and more three-dimensional. Robert Philpot of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram said he believed the show still too closely resembled The Office, but that "Sister City" "showed that Parks and Recreation can equal The Office for comic discomfort". Fowler of IGN said the anti-American sentiment demonstrated by the Venezuelan delegation "was a funny twist that didn't completely wear itself out, although it came close". Fowler particularly praised Armisen, who he said risked overshadowing the regular cast, and the sardonic comedy of Plaza. Not all reviews were positive. The A.V. Club writer Leonard Pierce, who said he felt the second season had been excellent so far, described "Sister City" as "easily the weakest episode of the season, maybe the series". Pierce called the political overtones "ham-handed", the humor was too over-the-top, and the episode suffered from the absence of most of the supporting cast.
## DVD release
"Sister City", along with the other 23 second season episodes of Parks and Recreation, was released on a four-disc DVD set in the United States on November 30, 2010. The DVD included deleted scenes for each episode. It also included a commentary track for "Sister City" featuring Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Alan Yang and Michael Schur.
|
1,341,129 |
A Night in Sickbay
| 1,167,412,014 | null |
[
"2002 American television episodes",
"Star Trek: Enterprise (season 2) episodes",
"Television episodes directed by David Straiton",
"Television episodes written by Brannon Braga",
"Television episodes written by Rick Berman"
] |
"A Night In Sickbay" is the thirty-first episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Enterprise, the fifth episode of season two. It first aired on October 16, 2002 on the UPN within the United States. The episode was written by executive producers Brannon Braga and Rick Berman, and directed by David Straiton.
Set in the 22nd century, the series follows the adventures of the first Starfleet starship Enterprise, registration NX-01. In this episode, after visiting the planet Kreetassa, Captain Archer's (Scott Bakula) dog Porthos falls ill with an unknown pathogen. Archer stays overnight in sickbay to look after his dog with Doctor Phlox (John Billingsley) knowing that afterwards he must take part in an elaborate apology display to the Kreetassans.
The episode featured Vaughn Armstrong, who reprised his role of the Kreetassan Captain from the episode "Vox Sola". Several scenes also proved challenging for the main dog actor who portrayed Porthos, who was named Breezy. She was required to lie still for long periods, jump into Bakula's arms on command and also act on her own while her trainer was not on set. Berman compared the relationship between Archer and Phlox to The Odd Couple, saying that the episode was "a lot of fun". The episode was nominated for the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (short form) and received the highest Nielsen ratings for any episode of Enterprise during season two at that point. Critical reception at the time was mixed, and in retrospect reviews were more negative.
## Plot
After a five-day away mission spent apologising on the planet Kreetassa, the away team consisting of Captain Archer, Sub-Commander T'Pol, Ensign Sato, and Archer's dog, Porthos, return to the ship to decontaminate. Porthos has acquired a pathogen on the planet surface and must be quarantined. Archer learns from Commander Tucker of the ship's need for an extra plasma injector from the Kreetassans, but negotiations break down after it is discovered that Porthos had urinated on a sacred tree, insulting the Kreetassans. Archer reacts poorly to the news and is given a list of requirements he must meet in order to apologise.
He and Doctor Phlox then tend to Porthos, and Archer spends the night in Sickbay to be with his pet. Throughout the night, as Porthos' immune system weakens, Archer experiences Phlox's side of life in Sickbay. During the night, as he dreams of Porthos' funeral, Archer also deals with unresolved and suppressed sexual tension with T'Pol. He also relates to Phlox how he met Porthos, and how he was the last in a litter of four male puppies, the 'Four Musketeers'. Through it all, Archer struggles to reach an emotional understanding with Phlox and T'Pol, as the two alien senior-crew members have little grasp of the human-pet relationship, and Phlox keeps offering Archer unsolicited advice about dealing with his apparent feelings for T'Pol.
T'Pol, working out in the gym, also keeps urging Archer to apologize to the Kreetassans for Porthos' behavior, but Archer resists because he blames them for Porthos' illness. In the end, Porthos recovers following a pituitary transplant from an alien chameleon. Finally swallowing his pride, Archer then goes down to the Kreetassan capital and delivers an intricate ritual apology which involves slicing a tree trunk with a chainsaw, arranging the pieces of wood in a complex pattern on the ground, and chanting phrases in the Kreetassan language. Having successfully apologised to the Kreetassans, the crew finally manage to procure three plasma injectors prior to their departure.
## Production
Executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga had worked together to write a series of episodes for Star Trek: Enterprise, with "A Night in Sickbay" amongst them. Berman originally described the episode at a press junket when talking about season two at an event held by UPN for the Television Critics Association. He said it was a "very humorous episode that has our good captain going and spending some time in sickbay, because his dog gets sick. He moves into sickbay the same way a mother will move into the hospital when her child gets sick, and it ends up being an 'Odd Couple' kind of an episode between the captain and Dr. Phlox. It's a lot of fun." Bakula also explained in an interview with the website TrekWeb that the episode featured Archer's dog Porthos as a background character and that it was also about Archer spending a night in sickbay with Phlox. He said that this meant that the viewer will "find out a lot of stuff about [Phlox] that we may not have wanted to know; like what he does when he's in his off hours... he has things to cut and trim!" Billingsley said later that he enjoyed working with Bakula on this episode and called "A Night in Sickbay" one of his favourites.
The episode was directed by David Straiton, who had previously directed "Desert Crossing". The shoot took six and a half days, which concluded on August 8, 2002. "A Night in Sickbay" was intended to be a low-cost episode as the majority of scenes required only the use of the standing sets for the series. The only credited guest star in "A Night in Sickbay" was Vaughn Armstrong, who played the Kreetassan captain once again. Armstrong is better known for his recurring role in Enterprise as Admiral Maxwell Forrest, but had previously played the Kreetassan captain in the first season episode "Vox Sola". In order to appear as the captain, some three and a half hours of make-up time was required, with the actor needed to arrive to have his make-up applied at 5:30am for his one day of shooting. Armstrong appeared in a variety of different roles in several different Star Trek programs, dating back to the Star Trek: The Next Generation season one episode "Heart of Glory". Other make-up effects during this instalment of Enterprise included a pair of prosthetic feet for Dr. Phlox, although other effects for the character were added in post-production.
### Porthos
There were two Beagles portraying Porthos, who were supplied by Performing Animal Troupe, an animal supply company for film and television. These dogs included a female Beagle called Breezy, who was the main dog actor who played Porthos during season two. A second dog called Windy provided backup to Breezy. Breezy was the original double for male dog actor Prada who appeared in the first-season episodes of Enterprise up until "Two Days and Two Nights", when Breezy became the main dog. She had also previously appeared as Lou in the 2001 film Cats & Dogs.
More than one scene proved problematic for Breezy during the filming of the episode, as the decontamination room set was an enclosed four wall set, meaning that in the scene where Archer rubs down Porthos with decontamination gel, Breezy's trainer Scott Rowe couldn't be on the set with her. Normally he would have been behind the camera assisting the director by ensuring the dog is looking wherever the scene required. He hoped that with him off the set, that Breezy would look where required and not directly at the camera. In order to prepare for the scene where Porthos leaps out of an immersion tank and into Archer's arms, Rowe had a mock-up created so he could practice it with Breezy. He said that "By the time we went into it on that one day to prep on set with Scott, she was jumping out of it into my arms, but I had to make sure that she's going to jump out and do it into Scott's arms." In the final scene, not only did Breezy leap into Bakula's arms, but she also licked him repeatedly on the face. This wasn't due to training, but because they wiped food on Bakula's face.
A further challenge for the dog actor was to lie still in an isolation tank and not move even when petted by Bakula or Billingsley during some long scenes whilst on screen. At times a stunt dog was used, but Breezy was required for any close-ups. A Beagle prop was also created for the scenes in the isolation tank and to be submersed in a super-hydration tank. The prop was created by Joel Harlow, who had also created make-up designs for the television series Carnivàle and the film The Chronicles of Riddick.
## Reception
"A Night in Sickbay" was first aired in the United States on the UPN on October 16, 2002. It received Nielsen ratings of a 3.9/6 percentage share among all adults, including 6 percent of all adults watching television at the time of the broadcast. Although overnight figures had shown a slight decrease from the previous episode, the final numbers showed that the ratings were the highest seen so far during season two and the third week of increased ratings for Enterprise in succession. This meant that 6.26 million viewers watched the episode, an increase of 860,000 viewers from the previous week's episode, making it the highest viewed episode since season one's "Sleeping Dogs". Alexander Chase at USA Today said the numbers "confirm a ratings turnaround for the newest Trek series". The episode placed Enterprise fourth in a list of the most highly rated science fiction or fantasy genre shows on television for that week, behind Alias, Smallville, and John Doe.
Herc of Ain't It Cool News rated the episode 3 out of 5, praised the story about how Porthos was named and the elements of sexual tension between Archer and T'Pol. He thought the Odd Couple type relationship between Archer and Phlox did not work all the time, that there were too many misfires in the comedic elements, and the episode was repeating things that had already "Been seen done." Michelle Erica Green of TrekNation, said she enjoyed the episode on the whole and enjoyed the characterisation. She criticised the non-moving Beagle prop as it made her son think the dog was dead, which was then followed by "what looks like a drowned dog in formaldehyde". Jamahl Epsicokhan of "Jammer's Reviews" called it "easily the dumbest concept for an episode of Star Trek since Voyager's holodeck was hijacked by the residents of Fair Haven", and gave it a score of 1 out of 4. He felt that the episode made a mockery out of the characters and that some of the situations they were placed in were just ridiculous. In his 2022 rewatch Keith DeCandido of Tor.com gave it 0 out of 10.
IGN called it "The hands-down worst show of the season". TechRepublic included the episode on its list of the 5 worst episodes of Enterprise. "Star Trek The Complete Manual" published by SciFiNow magazine listed it as the third worst episode of the series. ScreenRant ranked "A Night in Sickbay" the 14th worst Star Trek episode highlighting what they felt were poor character development choices and a weak plot that revolved around a sick dog (Porthos) that peed on a tree. WhatCulture ranked this episode the 17th worst episode of Star Trek. The Digital Fix felt this was a "bad episode" but noted it for experimenting with format. Den of Geek defended the episode, saying it was flawed but nowhere near as bad as "Spock's Brain" or "Threshold". In 2016, SyFy included this episode in a group of Star Trek franchise episodes they felt were commonly disliked but "deserved a second chance".
## Awards
The episode was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (short form) at the 2003 awards alongside "Carbon Creek" and episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. The award went to the Buffy episode "Conversations with Dead People".
## Home media
The first home media release of "A Night in Sickbay" was part of the season two DVD box set, released in the United States on August 7, 2005. The release featured deleted scenes from the episode as well as a special feature on the episode entitled "Inside A Night in Sickbay". A release on Blu-ray Disc for season two occurred on August 20, 2013.
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